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Incidentally, the home site for Armor Holdings is http://www.armorholdings.com/home/ and if you click on their "products" link you won't even see a mention of the HmmVee.
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Posted on 12/10/2004 7:23:24 AM PST by Stingray51
EXCERPTS:
Company says vehicle orders waiting for OK
WASHINGTON -- Despite Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld's assertion that the military is outfitting Humvees with armor as quickly as possible, the company providing the vehicles said it has been waiting since September for approval from the Pentagon to increase monthly production by as many as 100 of the all-terrain vehicles, intended to protect against roadside bombs in Iraq.
Army officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged yesterday that they have not approved new purchase orders for armored trucks, despite the company's readiness to produce more. They said the Pentagon has been debating how many more armored Humvees are needed. . . . But executives at Armor Holdings in Jacksonville, Fla., as well as Army officials and members of Congress, said Rumsfeld's assertion that the protective equipment is being provided as quickly as possible is not true and added the company has been waiting for more purchase orders.
"We're prepared to build 50 to 100 vehicles more per month," Robert Mecredy, head of Armor Holdings' aerospace and defense unit, said in a statement. The company is producing about 450 armored Humvees per month, up from 50 in late 2003, when a sudden surge of attacks in Iraq exposed a lack of protective armor. . . . The company said it also told the Army it could add new production lines and turn out even more vehicles. . . . Michael Fox, a spokesman for Armor Holdings, said the company is simply waiting for the Pentagon to say how many it needs: "We have always said, 'Tell us how much you want, and we'll build them.' "
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
agreed
S,
No argument here.
It's just more evidence of the media's distaste not only for this president but for the armed forces in general.
Eventually we'll reach a point where it will be politically impossible to deploy soldiers anywhere, regardless of the threat.
I don't know, but I do know that Armor Holdings is not the only company in the situation of practically begging the Pentagon to increase production of up-armored wheeled vehicles (or armor kits for them). There's already another company in the same boat reported elsewhere.
This is all just speculation, of course.
Industry mobilizing to produce up-armored Humvees
Army News Service
Release Date: 2/18/2004
By Heike HasenauerMISHAWAKA, Ind.(Army News Service, Feb. 18, 2004) -Humvee production in February has ramped up from 25 to 30 vehicles daily at an AM General factory in order to meet the demand in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Acting Secretary of the Army Les Brownlee visited the plant Feb. 13, located about 10 miles east of South Bend, Ind. He thanked workers for their service to the nation, and reinforced their resolve to get the best Humvees to the troops as fast as possible.
Today the work ethic at the factory is much as it was at manufacturing plants across America during World War II. Then U.S. industry produced a staggering amount of materiel for the war effort, including 350,000 jeeps, Brownlee told plant officials.
About 1,200 AM General workers in northern Indiana base their livelihoods on Army contracts to build the High Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicles, better known as Humvees. The company has produced more than 170,000 Humvees since the vehicle was introduced in 1985, according to company spokesman Craig C. Mac Nab.
President George W. Bush’s proposed 2005 defense budget earmarked millions of dollars for up-armored Humvees. Hundreds of others have already been approved for production this fiscal year, so AM General president and chief executive Jim Armour has been preparing for an increased workload to ultimately speed delivery of the Humvees to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In 2000, the Army awarded a seven-year contract to AM General for the production of some 31,474 Humvees through 2007.
When the new Humvees leave the plant in Mishawaka, some of them go to O’Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt, a leading vehicle armoring firm near Cincinnati. Brownlee also visited this plant in Fairfield, Ohio, where the vehicles become up-armored Humvees, known as the M1114 version Humvee.
Roughly 3,500 up-armored Humvees have been produced to date and are being used in peacekeeping missions in Somalia, Haiti, the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq, O’Gara-Hess officials report.
The M1114 weighs about 2,000 pounds more than the standard Humvee and includes 200-pound steel-plated doors, steel plating under the cab and several layers of bonded, ballistic-resistant glass to replace zip-up plastic windows, said Jim Bussey, O’Gara-Hess project manager for engineering contracts.
The up-armored Humvees provide greater protection to Soldiers on military patrols and reconnaissance missions. The reinforced steel plating and ballistic-resistant windows provide increased protection from rocket-propelled grenades, small-arms fire, shrapnel and explosive devices and land mines, Bussey said.
While some employees at AM General and O’Gara-Hess had family members in Iraq and Afghanistan, many more said they knew someone whose son or daughter was on duty in harm’s way. And they knew all too well the importance of what they were doing to help save lives.
An up-armored Humvee on the factory floor at O’Gara- Hess -- the engine compartment a tangled maze of melted metal -- attests to the fact that steel reinforcement saves lives. Five Soldiers were riding in that Humvee in Afghanistan when it ran over a land mine, Bussey said. The Soldiers sustained only minor cuts and bruises because the up-armored cab remained totally intact.
If that wasn’t reason enough to validate what employees at the two plants are doing, Brownlee shared a personal Soldier story that underscored the importance of what America’s assembly plant workers are doing.
During one of his many visits to wounded Soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., Brownlee met with the sole survivor of a grenade attack on four U.S. Soldiers in Baghdad.
The Soldier had lost a leg and eye in the attack, Brownlee said. He “flatlined” twice during his evacuation. And because his heart had stopped twice and he was generally unresponsive, his doctors feared he had suffered brain damage.
Brownlee spoke to him nonetheless, he said, and held his hand. “His face was covered with bandages,” Brownlee said. Just his right eye was exposed.
“There aren’t a lot of things you can say to Soldiers like that,” Brownlee said. But Brownlee thanked the man for his sacrifice and told him he’d check up on him in a few weeks. As he walked away, he turned to wave goodbye to the young man.
What the Soldier did next shocked Brownlee and a nurse who witnessed what happened: The Soldier sat up and gave Brownlee a perfect salute, he said.
“He lost an eye and a leg, but not his courage,” Brownlee said. “That’s the kind of Soldier you’re supporting today with the up-armored Humvees you’re building.”
And when someone asked him if he thinks we should be in Iraq, he says emphatically, “All you have to do is look into a Soldier’s eyes over there to know what we’re doing is right. They know why we’re there. And all of you can be proud of what you’re doing to help keep them safe.”
If you read this carefully, he is talking about building new armored Humvees, not retrofitting ones that are already deployed in Iraq.
I was under the impression that we were slapping the armor on the Humvees seeing action as quick as we could, so whether or not we've ordered more fresh new ones with armor isn't exactly the issue.
Please correct me if I'm wrong here. But it seems a bit like a word game to make it seem worse than it may be.
"If you read this carefully, he is talking about building new armored Humvees, not retrofitting ones that are already deployed in Iraq."
We need to be willing to bear any burden or pay any price on this issue. If we can't retrofit the old Humvees quickly enough, we should buy new Humvees.
Armor Holdings does NOT produce the HmmVee so I'm not sure what the heck this article means to begin with. AM General has had the contract for the HmmVee since the early 80's.
Right, well I think they are armoring them, not building them in the first place.
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Incidentally, the home site for Armor Holdings is http://www.armorholdings.com/home/ and if you click on their "products" link you won't even see a mention of the HmmVee.
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You may be right on that one, they may be retrofitting them.
The HMMWV is a good utility vehicle. It is not and never will be a good armored vehicle.
The real answer is that we need to design a armored peacekeeping/patrol vehicle. The army knows it, but military procurement process...largely because of congressional rules and politics...is ridiculously slow. The politicos want the time to make sure that they 'take care of their constituents' and it gets made in all the right congressional districts. And the executive branch isn't about to give the MSM more ammo for another 'halliburton unbid contract' story to get it done now.
The public pressure and the press pushing to fix it NOW, but making the right fix NOW impossible, is creating a boondoggle. And a whole bunch of people know it. Even the soldiers in the field are glad to get them...even though the armored HMMWVs are poor vehicles...some bad armor now is welcome, and they don't know the alternatives.
Using commercial off the shelf components we could very quickly crank out thousands of armored peacekeeping vehicles. For comparison, the Finish SISU is cheaper than our unarmored HMMWV and half the price of the armored ones. And 30 times cheaper than the Stryker. The big difference is that instead of custom everything designed to excessive milspecs, it is common commercial truck engine, transmission and suspension and the parts like the drivetrain that had to modified were minimally modified.
Pic of SISU 
You're right. The is a kit being manufactured to up-armor HUMVEEs. There are 6 Army Depots producing the kits now. 78% of all HUMVEES in Iraq have armor (according to FNC). Each kit weighs about 1000 lbs and probably takes a while to install. This article is another hit piece and concentrates on the wrong cure for the problem.
What if any retrofit happens to the frame, engine, transmission, brakes, and axles to support 2000
extra pounds?
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