FIXING THE HMMWV AND FMTV TRUCKS

WHAT WE NEED TO DO TO FIX THE HUMMER 4x4 and FMTV 6x6 Trucks

Somalia.

HMMWVs burning. 5-ton trucks torched by RPGs. Men dead. Men trapped miles away that cannot be reached. When are we going to take war seriously?

War is an extreme activity and things we get away with in peacetime that are foolish will get our men killed in shooting wars. Other Armies know this, we do not. If we are going to use soft-skin vehicles as troop transports, DON'T. Get 11 ton M113A3s that weigh the exactly the same as 22,000 pound trucks and use them: that's right they CAN BE AIRDROPPED, "There isn't enough airlift" and other lies will not stand. The M113 was DESIGNED to be an air-droppable AFV. The combat-proven, tracked, M113 will not go up in flames from a single burst of enemy small arms fire. "Light-itis" kills, for it preaches that we can walk wherever you go when the truth is that the men are going to get trucked at some point, where they could get &**%d by enemy fire. Just like the Paratroopers here at NTC.

If at some point, we are going to ride in trucks, the time has come to face the realities of combat and get them ready to survive some enemy fire and fight back. What is most disturbing is I know a young LT who wrote an article warning about this in the November 1989 edition of U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings that was ignored and now 17 men are dead and the U.S. has suffered a major foreign policy set back.

That was me.

1. Arm EVERY Soft-skin vehicle, NOW!

"Within this evolutionary climate, fiscal realities and the aging of existing systems have resulted in a significant gap in our forced/early entry capabilities. The deactivation of the 3d Battalion, 73d Armor, coupled with the termination of the Armored Gun System (AGS), has created a critical need for enhanced direct fire assault support and anti-armor capabilities for forced/early entry forces".

Official U.S. Army ACTD web site statement

In WWII, we armed almost every one of our vehicles--like the British SAS and LRDG gun jeeps because we knew in war, vehicles get shot at. Most of our HMMWVs are bare of any armament at all. The new M197 low-cost mount depicted above bolts a pedestal to the rear area of the soft-top HMMWV to fit either a M60/M240B MMG or a M249 LMG organic to just about every unit in the U.S. Army.

The M197 mount and M6 Pedestal are available from:

Ramo Manufacturing Inc.
412 Space Park S
Nashville, TN 37211-8104
(615) 832-6700

Weapons do you no good sitting in the armory or across your lap in the seat of the vehicle you are riding, they must be immediately ready to return fire via a vehicle mount.

Weapons mounts for the FMTV: no excuse not to have them

As you can see above, the FMTV has a MG mount kit for its cab that can be on ALL VARIANTS! Get these for your trucks! Some of these trucks need MK-19 40mm belt-fed autogrenade launchers on them not just 7.62mm MMGs and .50 cal HMGs.

When you get your MGs mounted, you will see that the metal ammo can sits on a tray to feed the gun. Try Ranger Rick Tscherne's suggestion on pg.25 of his Ranger Digest III, and weld two ammo cans together to double your 7.62 ammo supply to 400 ready rounds instead of the one box of 200, since in a firefight you do not have time to duck down and reload. This technique may even work for .50 caliber ammo cans.

Ranger Rick Tscherne's Books Inc.
11 Poppy Lane
West Grove, PA 19390

2. Add Belly Wheels

Note belly wheels

Image courtesy of CG² Inc. http://www.cg2.com..Thanks Tricia Garcia!

The HMMWV is notorious for getting stuck in soft mud since its belly can bottom out on the ground if its wheels sink. What we need is a set of belly wheels/rollers that are there to prevent the belly from sticking, like the Russian BRDM Scout cars have. An "ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure".

3. Centerline seats kits

Notice these Republic of China Paratroops are in a SOFT top HMMWV yet are FULLY armed---a .50 cal HMG in right front seat, a rearward facing Medium Machine Gun----why can't we be similarly well armed and ready?

Canadian peacekeepers ready to repel vehicular ambush, are we?

Notice these Canadian Army Soldiers are ready to return fire and are sandbagged to protect against mines/small arms fire. One sand bag stops a small arms round. We have the techniques to do this for our trucks outlined in FM 90-5 Jungle Operations, we just have to do it. Every Light unit that goes to NTC should have to sandbag at least one truck before convoying anywhere as a METL task to insure they know how to do it, and understand the importance.

The FMTV and HMMWV should have centerline troop seat kits so the troops face outboards for better vigilance and instant return fire capability. The atrocious truck tailgate on the 5-ton that has to be unscrewed needs to be replaced with a quick release so troops can "de-bus" instantly. Again, another example of not thinking about and for war.

Up-armored HMMWVs proof against 7.62mm small arms fire

4. Body armor

All Soldiers riding in ANY vehicle should be wearing head and body armor. Their BDUs should be the aircrew type made of nomex for fire protection.

5. Practice sand bagging and add underbody amor

3 layers of sandbags stop a RPG, one layer stops all small arms fire. This has to be a CTT Skill level 1 task. Every Soldier must participate in sand bagging a FMTV or HMMWV as part of the CTT training cycle, or else the value and skills will not be institutionally perpetuated. Men should wear kevlar helmet and body armor when riding in motor vehicles as well as nomex, fire-resistant BDUs. The Canadian peacekeepers are wrong in the photo above on this point.

6. Put 106mm RRs on selected HMMWVs

Drawing by Jody Harmon, U.S. Army Armor magazine re: November-December 1995 pg.39 "Improving Light Force Firepower with HMMWV mounted Recoilless Rifles" by Mike Sparks

We must realize machine guns are at best suppressive weapons, they do not kill an enemy that needs to be blasted. The world is urbanizing. AM General has a $6900 dollar drop in kit to mount the M40A2 106mm RR to the HMMWV, now used by Angola, Taiwan, Morocco and Honduras for light forces shock action.

The forces of UNITA used HUMMWV-mounted 106mm Recoilless rifles to decisive effect in the 1990 battle of Mavinga. U.S. Army 5th Special Forces Group "Green Berets" used 106mm RR mounted HMMWVs to storm back into Kuwait with Arab coalition forces they were advising. The 106mm RR is a battle winner from the jungles of Vietnam to the deserts of Israel, the airfield at Entebbe...Both the Israeli Defense Force and Taiwan make their own 106mm RRs and ammo. Swedish Bofors 3A-HEAT-AT rounds are effective beyond 1600 meters and defeat the latest tank armor. The Canadians and Americans make laser sighting systems that can give moving target-first shot, kill accuracy for the 106mm RR. We have hundreds of 106mm RRs in storage. Let's Obtain/Buy some and supply them to U.S. Army Light/Airborne Divisions before it is too late.

7. Develope amphibious HMMWV like DUKWV

Notice the DUKW is armed with ring mount

8. Develope indestructible solid foam tires not run flats and pneumatics

We used solid foam inserts in our A/ETB tires for the Operation Dark Claw parachute assault. Why not a soft foam insert or solid tire requiring no air to keep its shape? This would make tires imperious to broken glass, debris, shrapnel, bullets etc. A vehicle that is stuck is a dead vehicle with dead men inside it.

No-More Flats
Cyclo-Manufacturing
1438 S. Cherokee St.
Denver, CO 80223
(303) 744-8043

This is why tracks are better than wheels in general and why your light/Airborne unit needs to get M113A3s if enemy contact is expected.

9. Stealth IR signature, sounds

The latest BAT submitions fired from Multiple Rocket Launchers (MRLs) look for engine noise. Its not long before the enemy MRLs will have this capability--silencing the vehicles you are in by sandbagging and special factory coatings need to be determined. This means we need to get hybrid electric-drive HHMWVs perfected and in service: their use would be very close to the way diesel-electric submarines operate; use motor engines for covering large distances, turn on the electric for stealth in combat. Its vital for HMMWVs in a direct-fire anti-armor role like those with TOW-FOTT and LOSAT to mask their infared signatures using cold/hot firing positions and using FLIR camouflage covers.

New MP vehicles MIGHT have these gunshields

10. Gunshield for gunner operating weapon mount on top

M113A3 type gunshield could be retrofitted to HMMWVs

We have known since the 1963 battle of Ap Bac that gunners exposed torso out firing weapons from vehicles are prime enemy targets; if they can be stopped they can win. We put shields around the M551 Sheridan light tank to form a "crows nest" why not for the HMMWV and FMTV? The new MP up-armored HMMWV web page shows a gun shield fitted but doesn't mention it in the text. ????? Or is this yet another example of peacetime non-chalance? The O'Gara and Hess web page shows the U.S. Army M1114 Up-Armored HMMWV with only the rear hatch armored to protect the gunner's back. The U.S. Air Force's M1116 Up-Armored HMMWV has a completely armored gun position depicted below:

Ok, why is the USAF better equipped than us?

Notice it even has overhead cover to deter roof snipers

Its too late to be "chalant" and design, build and field equipment when the shooting starts. That means actually installing the gun shields, too!

A participant in Operation Just Cause writes in to a www.newsgroup:

"I was at Quarry Heights. Snipers killed a TC who was part of the security team on the first night, and I was awakened by the sounds of a firefight one morning that seemed like it was only 500 meters away. Made my .45 with one magazine and 20 rounds seem just a little inadequate."

11. Send A/ETB mobile scouts ahead to secure the routes from ambush: the British "mole" tactic

The British Army doesn't try to clear convoy routes as they go along with the supplies/troops trying o get through. They first send a completely armed-to-kill armored force through the route to clear a safe path for the convoy to follow. One then the other, not a little of both at the same time.

We can improve on this by sending security scouts on A/ETBs to silently move ahead and secure roads from ambushes/mines before the soft-skin convoys leave.

Soft-skin vehicles can be air-delivered to our Paratroopers. Keeping them intact will not be easy on the sensor and fire swept, non-linear battlefield. They are not APCs. Get M113A3s for these missions. Prepare for the worsed-case scenario, harden and arm your soft-skins.

FEEDBACK!

E-mail 1st TSG (A)

From Stewart and Stevenson, maker of the FMTV:

"RE: In response to your questions from May 18th. We do not have Anti-mine kits yet. The Army is talking about such kits, but development has not yet begun. Same for the center line troop seats and a quick latch tailgate. S&S could do such a set-up, but no one has asked for it yet."

Dave Christensen

Want Pvt Murphy in your pocket?

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