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Monday, March 07, 2005
Armored Humvees and Trucks
Recently I’ve gotten a few questions about our Humvees here and if they are armored or not. All of the ones we have are armored, but some better than others.
We have a few of the new M1114 Humvees and this vehicle is, to quote one guy here, "one tough truck." It’s completely armored and designed from the ground up to be armored so it has a beefier suspension, stronger engine, and a nice, tight armored compartment. It also has some other nice features like spring-loaded bullet-proof windows, better heating/AC, and is just a much nicer ride. There are numerous tales of these vehicles taking a direct hit from a large IED and getting the entire front of the vehicle, including the engine, nearly sheered off by the explosion, while the entire crew walks away unscathed.
The other Humvees are regular trucks with armor kits added to them. The nomenclature is specific and sometimes rather funny. For example, the difference between the M1025 and the M1026 up-armored Humvees is whether it has a winch or not. We have a couple more of these vehicles, which suffer somewhat from an overloaded suspension, not as much engine power as we’d like, some minor and breezy gaps between armor plates, not-as-nice porthole-like bullet-proof windows, etc. In short, they’re just not as nice a ride. Both the 1114’s and the 1025’s have a rotating turret in the roof with a mount for a machinegun.
We also have a couple of ‘El Camino’ Humvees, trucks configured like a pick up (or more like the old El Camino car/truck things) with a cab for two and a bed in the back. There is armor around the bed (which usually carries 4-6 dismounting troops) up to four feet high. While the armor around the cab is another kit, the armor around the bed is what we call ‘hillbilly armor,’ metal plates bolted, welded, sometimes zip-tied, or just slid on. It’s not pretty, but it’s steel plate and it does the trick.
For all the talk about a lack of armored Humvees, the Army has done a good job of getting as many of them armored as possible. If you read the excellent book Generation Kill, you will read about Recon Marines who are leading the ground war into Iraq, often into intense fighting, with no armor on their Humvee at all. At that time there were few of the vehicles available but now no patrol leaves a base without some sort of armor on their Humvees.
A bigger issue is armoring actual trucks trucks. Many more five-ton and LMTV flatbed trucks roll out the gates without any armor on them at all, yet. None of our trucks have armor on them, although we use them only occasionally to pick up supplies from the main base in our area. The Army is working to fix this problem too.
A more demoralizing and frustrating issue is the number of ‘POG’s’ (Person Other than Grunt, someone who works as a clerk or warehouse person or does some duty that never requires them to roll off of the big base) that have nice, new 1114’s over at the base, which never leave there. Our first sergeant is working hard to work with our chain of command to correct this oversight. The new, better armored vehicles clearly need to be with the combat arms guys (us) in the field, rather than carting some field-grade officer around an air force base to/from the PX.
We have a few of the new M1114 Humvees and this vehicle is, to quote one guy here, "one tough truck." It’s completely armored and designed from the ground up to be armored so it has a beefier suspension, stronger engine, and a nice, tight armored compartment. It also has some other nice features like spring-loaded bullet-proof windows, better heating/AC, and is just a much nicer ride. There are numerous tales of these vehicles taking a direct hit from a large IED and getting the entire front of the vehicle, including the engine, nearly sheered off by the explosion, while the entire crew walks away unscathed.
The other Humvees are regular trucks with armor kits added to them. The nomenclature is specific and sometimes rather funny. For example, the difference between the M1025 and the M1026 up-armored Humvees is whether it has a winch or not. We have a couple more of these vehicles, which suffer somewhat from an overloaded suspension, not as much engine power as we’d like, some minor and breezy gaps between armor plates, not-as-nice porthole-like bullet-proof windows, etc. In short, they’re just not as nice a ride. Both the 1114’s and the 1025’s have a rotating turret in the roof with a mount for a machinegun.
We also have a couple of ‘El Camino’ Humvees, trucks configured like a pick up (or more like the old El Camino car/truck things) with a cab for two and a bed in the back. There is armor around the bed (which usually carries 4-6 dismounting troops) up to four feet high. While the armor around the cab is another kit, the armor around the bed is what we call ‘hillbilly armor,’ metal plates bolted, welded, sometimes zip-tied, or just slid on. It’s not pretty, but it’s steel plate and it does the trick.
For all the talk about a lack of armored Humvees, the Army has done a good job of getting as many of them armored as possible. If you read the excellent book Generation Kill, you will read about Recon Marines who are leading the ground war into Iraq, often into intense fighting, with no armor on their Humvee at all. At that time there were few of the vehicles available but now no patrol leaves a base without some sort of armor on their Humvees.
A bigger issue is armoring actual trucks trucks. Many more five-ton and LMTV flatbed trucks roll out the gates without any armor on them at all, yet. None of our trucks have armor on them, although we use them only occasionally to pick up supplies from the main base in our area. The Army is working to fix this problem too.
A more demoralizing and frustrating issue is the number of ‘POG’s’ (Person Other than Grunt, someone who works as a clerk or warehouse person or does some duty that never requires them to roll off of the big base) that have nice, new 1114’s over at the base, which never leave there. Our first sergeant is working hard to work with our chain of command to correct this oversight. The new, better armored vehicles clearly need to be with the combat arms guys (us) in the field, rather than carting some field-grade officer around an air force base to/from the PX.
Posted by: Unknown / 10:25 PM 
