Welcome to ArmyAdvice Sign in | Join | Help
in Search

ArmySteve

Steve Smith's Army Blog

Army Looks to Boost UpArmor Humvee Production

After Rumsfeld was asked earlier this week why soldiers going into Iraq are having to scrounge for vehicle armor, the Army is now actively looking to boost production of uparmored Humvees.  That's a good thing, to be sure, and one I doubt is any coincidence considering the media attention the issue has received this week.  However, in addition to building more up-armored humvees, there also needs to be more effort on getting the vehicles already in Iraq up-armored with kits.  In particular, the gunners on such vehicles need some kind of protection.  Ideally, a ring mount in the center of the Humvee's back seat works well, with 'chicken plates' around the gunner.  Some of the Cav vehicles I've seen, with hardshell 'hatchback' style back ends, do this and it looks like it works very well.  For most general-purpose 2- and 4-seater Humvee models, though, what's being done here now is to weld a metal box around the back cargo area of the vehicle for gunner to sit in.  This is effective, but certainly falls into the category of 'hillbilly armor' or what we tend to call 'Mad Max' style armor.  Some actual gunner protection kits for the 2- and 4- seater open back humvees would be nice to see -- I'm not sure what is being built for this space commercially.

Sponsor
Published Saturday, December 11, 2004 12:05 AM by ssmith

Comment Notification

If you would like to receive an email when updates are made to this post, please register here

Subscribe to this post's comments using RSS

Comments

No Comments

Leave a Comment

(required) 
(optional)
(required) 
Enter the code you see below

Submit

About ssmith

Enlisted in 1995. Basic at Ft Sill. AIT at Ft Jackson (75F). Served in Ohio National Guard. Went through ROTC program at Ohio State University and received 2LT commission in 1997, Engineer branch. Spent about 4 years in 16th Engineer Brigade in Ohio National Guard, then moved far from nearest unit and went into Inactive National Guard, and eventually Individual Ready Reserve. Called up from IRR in 2004 for duty in Iraq (Engineer Platoon Leader with 1st ID). Made it home in 2005. Resigned commission as a CPT in December 2005.