Military Humvee

Military Humvee in the field.

The military humvee is a great vehicle that has proven itself in harsh conditions again and again over several years. It can take on lots of different kinds of roles and performs perfectly every time, the design truly is a struck of genius. Here you will be able to follow the story of the military humvee from its origins until today. So do not stop here, keep on reading and learn all there is to know about the military humvee.

Military humvee – The 80s

Because of the need for the US military to find a replacement for all the aging jeeps and trucks from the Second World War a request for a new kind of vehicle was founded. The new vehicle needed to be fast, powerful, agile and extremely flexible. The military humvee proved to be just that and came into service in the middle of the 80s as the HMMWV, or High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle. As it came to be used more and more in the field the soldiers came to calling it “the humvee”. The military humvee was flexible indeed taking on all kinds of transportation such as troops, goods and even working as an ambulance, and that in all kinds of terrains and environments. It also proved to be perfect for towing support weapons such as light artillery and surface-to-air missile platforms. It seemed as if there was nothing that the military humvee couldn’t do.

Military humvee – The 90s

In the early 90s the military humvee was used by American troops all over the world and proved useful in some new roles such as command vehicles, scout vehicles and even combat support vehicles carrying antitank missiles or heavy machine guns. It wasn’t until the Gulf War that the civilian public really saw this monster in action though. Because of the immense media coverage of the war and the military humvees prominent performance in the area where news teams were allowed the vehicle ended up staring in almost every news clip from the war. The crude design of the military humvee caught the eye of the Hollywood film industry and had it appear in a whole line of movies including Kindergarten Cop staring famous movie star and politician Arnold Schwarzenegger. The military humvee had now become a symbol of American patriotism and it was not surprising that when the same Arnold Schwarzenegger asked for a civilian version of the military, he got it. The H1 hummer was basically exactly the same vehicle as the military humvee but with a more comfortable interior and a more environmentally friendly engine. The military humvee was now the most famous military vehicle on the planet.

Military humvee – Today

A new millennia meant new threats, new tactics and new wars, and the military humvee was not up for the challenge. Due to a new American anti-track sentiment the military humvee found itself acting alone as a combat vehicle on an asymmetrical battlefield, something it was not constructed for. Because the military humvee first of all is a truck for transporting was built with minimum armor, light infantry fire and shrapnel simply pass straight through it as if it was made out of paper. To meet these new roles an add-on armor was created but the sheer weight of this slowed the military humvee down and made it more likely to flip over in sharp turns, thus rendering it useless for any other roles than combat, a role that it performs poorly in even with the armor installed. One can only hope that a new vehicle soon can take the military humvees place on the front and let it do what it does best, transports and support.