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The U.S. military's new Joint Light Tactical Vehicle suffers from reliability, safety and lethality shortcomings that need fixing before it will be suitable for battlefield use, according to a recent Defense Department test and evaluation report. Army and Marine Corps units will soon start training with the JLTV, a high-performance vehicle designed to replace many of the military's aging Humvees.

(CNN)—The Army this week selected the company to build its much-anticipated new vehicle to replace the Humvee -- a multibillion dollar contract. Oshkosh Corporation, located in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, won the $6.7 billion contract to produce the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, which will also be used by the Marine Corps. The initial order will be for 17,000 vehicles, with production set to begin next year. The Army expects to have its first JLTV unit ready to go in fiscal year 2018, according to a release from the Army. Oshkosh beat out two competitors for the final contract: defense giant Lockheed...

The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle — the HMMWV, or Humvee — is a stalwart of the battleground. If you asked someone to draw a military truck, they'd almost certainly draw this classic machine, which is almost older than a millennial (1984!) and gained such a pop culture following at one point that civilians started buying them. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in particular, is famous for his undying love of the "Hummer." But seriously, they're old. The US military has been keen on retiring Humvees for some time, and it has finally awarded the $6.7 billion contract to replace them to Wisconsin-based...

Ferguson has been ordered to surrender two Humvees acquired through a controversial Defense Department program that transfers surplus military equipment to local police agencies. It’s not yet clear if the directive from the Pentagon — which was first reported Tuesday in the Guardian — was sparked by political pressure, a record-keeping snafu, or both. Mike O’Connell, a spokesman for the Missouri Department of Public Safety, said the Pentagon approved the transfer of two Humvees to Ferguson in June 2013 and then later gave permission for two more. But in August 2014, after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, St. Louis...

In an ironic twist of fate, more than two-thirds of the Humvees that the US government supplied to Iraq to fight terrorists have ended up in the hands of Islamic State militants. And the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has not wasted any time in converting those vehicles into one of its deadliest and most nightmarish tools: suicide car bombs.

Iraqi security forces lost 2,300 Humvee armoured vehicles when the Islamic State jihadist group overran the northern city of Mosul, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Sunday. "In the collapse of Mosul, we lost a lot of weapons," Abadi said in an interview with Iraqiya state TV. "We lost 2,300 Humvees in Mosul alone." While the exact price of the vehicles varies depending on how they are armoured and equipped, it is clearly a hugely expensive loss that has boosted IS' capabilities.

Yes, this is happening. Because the US Army needs a few extra bucks. That’s why. Very soon you will be able to buy a surplus Army-issue Humvee at prices starting around $10,000. Yep, this is the real deal. According to Yahoo News and the Army Times, the US Department of Defense will auction off as many as 4,000 military-spec Humvees, instead of sending them to scrap yards. The first batch of 25 Humvees is heading to the auction block tomorrow. Obviously these retired vehicles aren’t in perfect condition, most having been built between 1987 and 1994. They have anywhere from...

If you, like this author, always dreamed of using a camo-covered, Army-issue Humvee as your personal golf cart, your dreams can finally come true — for a price. According to the Army Times, the Department of Defense will start auctioning off as many as 4,000 military-spec Humvees to the public as part of its surplus-reduction efforts. In previous years, the off-road behemoths would have been sent straight to the military scrapyard, but due to changes in policies in recent years and what the Defense Logistics Agency spokesperson Michelle McCaskill describes as “cooperation from other government offices," the used Humvees will...

The race is on for the Humvee's successor (Bye, bye Hummer) Your Mom may still love driving a Humvee to the mall, but the military has different needs for its combat operations these days. Some 20 years after the Humvee first rolled out, the military is now entering the second phase of the project to choose its successor. The Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) program will be reviewing the proposals for a new vehicle, and has a pretty specific list of what it's looking for. Manufacturers getting in the game need to submit prototype designs for a seven to 10-ton...

The high-tech researchers at the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) say they're reviewing two "feasible" designs for a flying Humvee vehicle called the "Transformer." The tank-like machine is supposed to be able to take off and land vertically. The plan is for it to be operated by a person without flight training--or by no one at all, Aviation Week reports. AAI and Lockheed Martin have each submitted potential designs, in tandem with Piasecki Aircraft. AAI's prototype would weigh 7,500 pounds and combine traditional plane wings with a helicopter rotor on top. Lockheed Martin's design, above, is 500 pounds...

Military airplane truck drop.

The Humvee, which replaced the Jeep, will no longer be bought by the Army. While Arnold Schwarzengger certainly helped boost the Hunvee’s public profile, it has never achieved the legendary status of the Jeep and its vulnerability to land mines (aka IEDs) made it something of a anachronism until much heavier armored versions were deployed. While the service won’t buy any more Humvees, the Army is not getting rid of them. “The Army is not buying more Humvees but other people buy Humvees so the line is not terminated. We envision the Humvee to be an enduring part of the...

Watch as this bad boy—the Humvee-mounted Laser Avenger that destroyed a drone in January 2009—obliterates bomb after bomb during a test at the Army's Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. It just takes a few seconds, and boom. Not exactly Star Wars material, but this will save a lot of lives in the future—and destroy others too, I'm sure. Click here to watch video.

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, June 3, 2009) -- The military's High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, also known as a "HMMWV" or a "Humvee," will continue to be made in the United States, by an American-owned company. The recent announcement that Detroit-based General Motors will sell their Hummer brand of vehicles to Chinese-based Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company, has no bearing on the U.S. military's Humvee. "The Army's Humvee and the civilian Hummer look similar and share a common appearance," said spokesman Lt. Col. Martin Downie. "But the rights to produce those two different vehicles are no longer owned by...

TAJI, Iraq, March 11, 2009 – The first M1114 Humvee to be completely rebuilt at the Taji National Maintenance Depot here rolled out of the Main Wheel Assembly and Disassembly facility last week, marking a significant milestone for the facility dubbed the “Wheel Depot.” The vehicle, nicknamed “Project One,” was rebuilt by Iraqi army mechanics in their third month of a six-month, supervised, on-the-job-training program at the maintenance depot, said Air Force Lt. Col. William Donovan, Multinational Security Transition Command Iraq's depot program manager. “Today, the Wheel Depot displayed its capability to rebuild, to depot-level standards, an M1114 Humvee that...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., Jan. 26, 2009 -- The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] has successfully demonstrated that a laser system mounted on an Avenger combat vehicle can shoot down a small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) like those that increasingly threaten U.S. troops deployed in war zones. During tests last month at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., Laser Avenger achieved its principal test objectives by using its advanced targeting system to acquire and track three small UAVs flying against a complex background of mountains and desert. The laser system also shot down one of the UAVs from an operationally relevant range. These tests...

BEIJING, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) -- The "Mengshi (Warriors)" off-road military vehicle produced by Chinese automaker Dongfeng Motor surpasses U.S. Humvee in 12 out of 15 major battlefield performance indices, chief designer Huang Song has said. Use by the Chinese military force has proven that "Mengshi" overtakes Humvee in 12 indices, including the loading capacity andoil consumption, and are well-matched with Humvee in three other indices, Huang was quoted as saying by Monday's Economic Information Daily, a Xinhua publication. It took Dongfeng six years to develop the vehicle, which had undergone more than 200,000 hours of factory tests and more than...

Excerpt - POTI, Georgia -- Russian troops briefly seized control of the economically vital Georgian port of Poti Tuesday morning, a day after Moscow said it had begun pulling its forces out of Georgia. ~ snip ~ The Russians also confiscated five jeeps and an armored Humvee belonging to the U.S. armed forces, according to Alan Middleton, CEO of Poti Sea Port Corp. He said the equipment was used for joint U.S.-Georgian military exercises and was sitting in the Poti container terminal ready to be shipped back to a U.S. base in Europe. "I suppose the U.S. won't be impressed...

<p>June 17, 2008 (Computerworld) An aerospace company has built a prototype of a driverless aircraft designed to shuttle hundreds of pounds of supplies to soldiers in war zones.</p> <p>Dubbed a flying Humvee by Ryan Wood, CEO of Broomfield Colo.-based Frontline Aerospace, Inc., the robotic vehicle can fly 600 to 1,000 miles carrying a full cargo of 400 pounds. Code named V-STAR, the autonomous aircraft, which can execute vertical take-offs and landings, is about the size of a large SUV, weighing in at 2,400 pounds and measuring 21 feet long and up to 26 feet wide.</p>