U.S. needs replacement for current Humvee

United Press International ^ | May 06, 2005 | Pamela Hess

[kingattax]

Washington, DC, May. 5 (UPI) -- The U.S. military needs a new class of tactical vehicles specifically designed to withstand large roadside and car bombs, military officials told Congress Thursday.

As the insurgency has matured in Iraq, so has its ability to piece together extremely powerful bombs that no amount of additional armor plating can stop without overtaxing the standard chassis, officials told the House Armed Services Committee. Humvees have been loaded with as much armor as they can carry.

"We are at the 98-percent point. We can't put any more armor on these things," said Marine Brig. Gen. William Catto, director of Marine Corps Systems Command, in testimony to the House Armed Services Committee. "My opinion is we are going to have to design a new class of vehicle from the wheels up."

About 70 percent of the injuries and deaths to U.S. military personnel in Iraq are the result of improvised explosive devices, according to Lt. Gen. James Conway, the director of operations.

But just adding armor to vehicles and troops can actually hinder them on their mission.

"Eventually you get to the point where the lack of observation (from too much armor) has the opposite effect," said Lt. Gen. James Mattis, commander of Marine Corps Combat Development Command. Troops on the road find more than half of IEDs before they explode, primarily though keeping sharp watch and using high-powered sniper scopes to check suspicious bundles.

The Army has begun building a new Humvee -- the 1151 model -- to find the balance between added armor and performance. That tactical vehicle will build armor into the chassis and base plate, leaving off the armored doors and some steel plating. The doors can be applied when the vehicle moves into a dangerous deployment, like Baghdad.

[Spktyr]

Not without a LOT more armor.

[konaice]

"Strykers are OK, but they are large which will spoil the vehicle when only few attendants are operating the vehicle."

There is no point in integrating two similar vehicles into an army, the cost of duplicate supply, maintenance, parts, training outweigh the costs.

Strykers can be driven by a single person, and only require one other person to man the weapons. It can be operated in combat by only two people even if it can carry 6 to 10.

The hummer can carry 4, and still requires two to operate, one to drive and one weapon operator.

We need stryker and we have stryker, and I can't see any point in buying into yet another vehicle especially one of with little war zone trials.