To Ricky Well, Ricky, can any Jeep carry the Avenger AA missile systems that the Humvee carries? And can they carry the variety of other stuff the Humvee carries?
and, more importantly, will they survive long enough to get the chance to use them?? I dont see the point of putting high-powered weaponry on a thin-skinned Humvee... Ideally it should never get into a situation where it has to use such weapons, its an infantry transport vehicle with low support capabilities, not an anti-tak or AA vehicle; giving it expensive weapons won't change anythin but the cost. And just because the Humvee has a TOW fitted to it, that wont mean it can even begin to contend with the lowliest of tanks... Unlike an APC with some ATGM's, a few rounds from an AK will still be enough to kill the operator/driver of the Humvee... you might as well waste time fixing Avenger missiles to shopping trolley's... Then again, in the impossibly RARE even that an undetected T-72 comes rolling round the corner... along with the magical gun-jamming fairy, The Americans are going to be glad they blew $8000 on a Humvee mounted TOW; after all its not like they can't afford it
But then, you can up-armour your Humvee - the Israelis have. Us Brits did it with the Land Rover. It will stop anything except an RPG (and the heavier class of mg). However, one thing that us Brits discovered in Northern Ireland (and elsewhere) is that it is better for jeep/Land Rover/whatever-mounted infantry to be able to jump off asap and/or return fire than it is to have them all enclosed in a box with limited exits. Why? Because RPGs and home-made land-mines are very common now, and it is better to have at least some of your men able to return fire than all of your men trapped in a burning box. While I will grant that a Humvee with AA or AT missiles mounted on it would be a useful asset - why not have a dedicated support vehicle for those roles?
Thin-skinned Humvees? Excuse me, Smeghead, but the Jeep was no more durable! They could have been armored up, but so could the Humvees!
All transport vehicles are by nature thin-skinned... What i meant was that even though the Humvee is more heavily armored than the Jeep, No matter what you do to it, it will always be succeptible to the simplest and cheapest RPG
this might sound like blasphamy but the jeep was a terrible car ...maintenence was a nightmare,gas milage was crappy(for such a light car) and the thing killed thousands of us servicemen in rollovers..imagine 4 guys goin over with only the folding windsheild to protect their necks...my dad in the 60s submitted a paper trying to get the army to buy anything else but the jeep...jeep lovers wanted to tar and feather him..even now in the us the jeep line is one of the most worked on cars in america...cj5 ,wagoneer ,comanche ,ect...note width of hummer...almost impossible to roll it
I agree. The jeep may not have been a maintenance nightmare or a gas guzzler, but it was kinda' a rollover magnet. Maybe not to that extent, but it was narrow and suspectible to tight curves and really uneven terrain.
There was an episode of the UK TV programme Top Gear during which the presenter took a Hummer (civilian version of HMMWV) for a test drive around the British countryside and finally through a local town. He generally agreed that it was an impressive vehicle but had difficulty getting around the narrow streets of the town due to the width of the vehicle. This makes me speculate that there must be many situations in urban areas of Iraq were it is difficult to use a Hum-Vee. The British in Iraq are using smaller Land Rovers which would not struggle with narrow streets but are proving excessively vulnerable to attack. Does anyone know if the US are deploying any smaller vehicles in addition to Hum-Vees with the capability of going into places that the Hum-Vee can't go ?
Actually, I'll come clean - I have got the impression fropm certain news broadcasts in the UK that the Brit Land Rovers are vulnerable and apossibly more vulnerable than the Hum-Vees. It would be interesting to kow if there is any truth in this. MOD sources do say that the British Army are looking into alternatives with some urgency. also, I repeat my question - Are the US using anything smaller for places the Hum-Vee can't go ?