ISHAWAKA, Ind. - Attacks on Humvees in Iraq are reverberating in this small Indiana town, where a production line is gearing up to sate a growing hunger for these vehicles and to save soldiers' lives. Posted on 12/25/2003 2:27:35 PM PST by Ranger
ISHAWAKA, Ind. - Attacks on Humvees in Iraq are reverberating in this small Indiana town, where a production line is gearing up to sate a growing hunger for these vehicles and to save soldiers' lives.
The military, though, does not want just any Humvees. Too many soldiers have faced machine-gun or grenade attacks in vehicles clad in fiberglass and aluminum, often with fatal consequences. So the Army, realizing that it had not ordered enough armored vehicles, sent out an urgent call for more. The AM General plant here is doing its best to comply.
One recent day, an unfinished dull green vehicle marked M1114 rolled along the production line - a model designed to carry 3,000 pounds of armor, including high-density steel. The result will be what AM General's spokesman, Craig C. Mac Nab, calls a "mobile foxhole."
Such protection has made the $150,000 M1114 - an unarmored Humvee costs less than half that - the most sought-after ride in Iraq. While the exact number of deaths from attacks on unarmored vehicles is not known, estimates range from 30 to 60 of some 200 Americans killed since President Bush declared an end of major combat operations early in May.
Such statistics, along with a barrage of criticism from parents of dead soldiers and members of Congressional delegations visiting Iraq, forced the Army in August to increase more than tenfold its orders for armored Humvees, to 2,957 from 235. It hopes to have 3,500 armored Humvees, including armored vehicles that are already in use in Iraq and Afghanistan, "just as soon as possible," an Army spokesman, Maj. Gary Tallman, said. Now, the Army says, it has 1,500 armored Humvees in Iraq, and more than 12,500 unarmored ones.
Aside from a response to combat dangers, "armored Humvees also are part of the Army's transformation into a lighter, more mobile fighting force," said Don Jarosz, a public affairs specialist with the Army's Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command in Warren, Mich., which oversees the Humvee contracts.
But no matter the short- or longer-term reasons, both AM General and O'Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt of Fairfield, Ohio, which does the armoring, are quickly shifting production and reconfiguring their factories to meet the demand.
For AM General, the sole worldwide maker of the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle - Humvee's full, official terminology - this means reordering a production line that can already turn out more than 50 versions of the Humvee, including ambulances and missile-carrying models.
The factory now produces 30 vehicles a day, including about 10 of the M1114's. Mr. Mac Nab said that by February the factory, which can turn out more than 50 Humvees a day and could go to overtime or double shifts if necessary, could be making "little else than M1114's."
Workers here said they thought the production line would be pumping out more Humvees, both armored and unarmored, by now. "When the war first started, I expected a jump in production," said Glen Nethercutt, 36, a line repairman.
Thomas Kendel, 57, an assembly line worker, said: "You read the papers and you see these guys sitting in Hummers with holes shot through them and you think, 'Why did they wait this long to order more armored ones?' "
A number of United States senators, like Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, who traveled to Iraq in July, have criticized the Army for not having enough armored vehicles. Mr. Reed's press secretary, Greg McCarthy, said: "The senator believes the administration failed to understand the mission. It didn't see the needs brought on by this hostile action."
As for O'Gara-Hess, it has taken significant steps to increase its armoring production to 220 a month from 80 by early in 2004, said John H. Mayles, vice president for military programs at the aerospace and defense group of Armor Holdings, the parent company of O'Gara-Hess.
It has moved all its commercial production, which includes armoring vehicles for movie stars and other celebrities, to a different factory. Its main 135,000-square-foot factory is now devoted to armoring the M1114's trucked in from Indiana - and installing air-conditioning to prevent the interior from turning into a furnace in hot weather.
The armoring helps protect occupants from armor-piercing bullets, mines up to 12 pounds and 155-millimeter artillery blasts overhead, Mr. Mayles said. Some photographs show M1114's with their front ends destroyed, but the cabins that carry soldiers intact.
"It's night and day from an unarmored Humvee," Mr. Mayles said, adding, "We saw that with the troops in Somalia."
Before the Somali operations in 1993, when soldiers engaged in deadly combat in the streets of Mogadishu, the Army ordered few armored Humvees. AM General does make some of its own armored models, with Kevlar-based armor in the doors. But that can stop only fragments, Mr. Mac Nab said. Even the Marines' specially designed Humvees will not stop "a bullet from full-muzzle velocity," he said.
Indeed, despite the Humvee's rugged look, it was not designed for street skirmishes like those in Somalia - or Bosnia, Afghanistan and now Iraq.
The Humvee was created in the mid-1980's as a replacement for the Jeep to be a fast, tough transporter of people and cargo. It was made of lightweight, flexible materials like fiberglass and aluminum so it could be driven over walls and through rough terrain.
The Humvees' rugged abilities helped turn it into a pop-culture item when 20,000 of them played a big part in moving troops through the desert during the Persian Gulf war of 1991. The Humvee gained further attention when Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered one.
In 1992, AM General stepped up production of a civilian version, called the Hummer, which became so popular that in 1999 General Motors acquired the marketing rights to the name and signed a manufacturing agreement with AM General to build a smaller version, the H2. (The commercialized military version is now called the H1.) The H2, built in a separate factory next door, shares many components with Chevrolet trucks. AM General intends to build a truck version of the H2 by late spring.
"The Humvee's life has definitely been extended by Iraq and Afghanistan," said Michael E. Hoffman, who follows the publicly traded Armor Holdings for the investment firm Friedman, Billings, Ramsey.
Mr. Hoffman said he had heard that the Army might be considering even larger contracts. "If you're going to transform the way the Army says it's going to," he said, "you need to have tactical equipment that can make a significant punch and then pull out fast."
AM General may gain the most from such increased orders. The company, which can trace its beginnings to the manufacture of Willys and Jeep military vehicles, has struggled through several different owners over the last few decades, including LTV, which is now bankrupt. In 1992, it was bought by Ira L. Rennert and became part of his privately owned Renco Group.
Last year, analysts reported that Mr. Rennert was interested in selling, but Mr. Mac Nab said Mr. Rennert merely wanted to see how much AM General was worth.
With increased attention on Humvees, AM General's estimated worth of $750 million may be on the rise, especially as the company derives 80 percent of its revenue from military contracts. "The more successful we are, the more attractive we are," Mr. Mac Nab said.
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The government has ordered so many of these, you can't buy one right now.Neatest little ATV on the planet.
Swiss MOWAG Eagle II. The Swiss make armored Humvees. Maybe they would sell us some.
Turkish Cobra
'Why did they wait this long to order more armored ones?'
Infinitely Stealthy planning?
Thinking Outside Of The Box Hey readers, whisper this cool idea into your Washington based lawmaker’s ear. - Hack Subject: Armour Greetings Hack, I keep reading about these poor guys get blown to bits in unarmoured vehicles and it should not be happening. I have worked on AH-1 Cobras for ten years know and most of them are going to be scraped you are talking hundreds of them. One thing that is missing in are military from the old days is thinking outside the box, well these cobras have two very, very nice pieces of 2X2 foot ceramic/composite armour plate that bolts on to protect the combustion chamber of the engine, thousands of these are just laying around doing nothing, with the mounting holes they would be very easy to mount it would not be hard trust me and would really do something to protect are guys. Best Regards, Art
Heard anything about that captured vehicle park at Tallil? Seems like an enterprising airborne commander could find some useful machines down there.
A week or so ago there was a thread here on FR about some of our troopers modifying HUMVEES in Iraq by putting extra steel plates on the sides for added armor protection.
They were actually REPRIMANDED for doing this by the brass for not asking permission.
During WWII, Korea, and Viet Nam there was one primary survival tool the U.S. soldier had that the enemy could never match - AMERICAN INGENUITY!
We would take M35 cargo trucks, bolt steel plates (found locally many times during the campaign) onto the beds of the truck and then mount M-50 Cal machine guns on them.
These were very fast, lethal and effective fighiting machines against snipers and pockets of enemy troops bushwacking us.
Good case in point is the attempted court-martialling of Lt Col West for being too "rough" on interrogating a known enemy who was known to be aiding those with the direct mission of killing Americans.
We got some house cleaning to do at the Pentagon still.
Neat, but no armor.
Walp, that COMMUNIST SOB Dan Rather has already interviewed Saddam Hussein - so we know they're not there at least.
Who would want any? Remember that the original idea was to have the C-130-transportable Strykers available to be shuttled around in-theater as hot spots developed or were quenched, but once the weight of the add-on composite armor plates and *slat armor* anti-rpg cage was added, pushing their on-road weight up to nearly 25 tons [on axles designed for 15] the things have become roadbound pigs, armed with only a .50 machinegun, that jams because of feed problems not with the gun, but from the vehicle's mount.
The alternative is a C130 load of hopefuly armored Humvees with a working M2 .50 facing forward, and backup gunners covering the sides with 7,62mm M240 machineguns or 5.56mm M249 Squad Auto Weaponss, and an M16/M203 40mm gunner or two. Which would you want coming to back you up....
-archy-/-
One other advantage, for some reason the TC seat doesn't get as hot. On a regular humvee, after a couple hours, the front passenger seat is freakin' HOT from the batteries right under it. Never seemed to have that problem in an uparmored.
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