Humvee

A Humvee and its crew.

The humvee is probably one of the most successful wheeled vehicles that ever came into military service. Not only does it have a mean looking exterior with a crude design tell tailing of its raw power but has appeared in combat zones all over the world. The humvee has also stared in many Hollywood movies and has in later years become something of an American symbol of patriotism, something that lead to the creation of the H1 hummer, a humvee created for the civilian market.

Humvee – Creation

The story of the humvee begins in the early 70s when the US military demanded a new vehicle that could replace the aging jeeps and light trucks that had been around since the Second World War. The result of that demand was the HMMWV, the High-Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicle, which combined speed and agility with power and flexibility. It was a huge success and the general infantry that most commonly came in contact with the vehicle named it humvee.

Humvee – Roles

The greatest success of the humvee was that it with little adjustment could be transformed to fit any role it was to act in. Generally being a transport vehicle for troops and goods it could also act as an ambulance, a command vehicle or as a fast scout vehicle. The humvee was also perfect when it came to moving support weapon platforms such as light artillery and surface-to-air missiles. Later the humvee really blew the lid off when it performed fairly well as a carrier of a wide variety of support weapons ranging from antitank missiles to heavy machine guns. It proved that a military vehicle can be flexible enough to take on most roles on the battlefield with only a few modifications.

Humvee – Misusage

Trouble is that in later years the humvee has been misused as a long distance patrol vehicle and in places even a combat vehicle, a role that it was not designed for and never intended to take on. Because it was created to act as a fast support truck the humvee was constructed with basically no armor at all for better speed, power and agility, thus allowing light infantry fire and bomb shrapnel to pass straight through the vehicle as if made out of paper. Even today in the Iraq War the humvee is misused as a patrol and combat vehicle costing a lot of lives. The humvee is great a fantastic truck and an obvious key part of the US army, but it is not a combat vehicle.

Humvee – Modernization

In a desperate effort to make the humvee more flexible both rebuilt humvees and add-on armor has been created but has proven to be generally a bad idea. The armored humvees looses their speed, power and agility as the weight builds up making it less suitable for any other roles than just combat. There have also been cases when the humvee has flipped over due to the fact that the centre of gravity is heightened severely with the add-on armor. Instead the US army has now requested for a new type of vehicle that can meet future demands but as with many other things it will take time, and the wars continue.