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PENTAGON LOOKING AT REPLACING HUMVEES
The Pentagon is accelerating its search for a replacement for the Humvee after two years of roadside bombs and suicide attacks in Iraq that have killed hundreds of soldiers in a vehicle that wasn't designed for front-line urban combat.
Ref. https://deseretnews.com/dn/view/1%2C1249%2C...58175%2C00.html
The humvee has always been a transport vehicle and never intended to be a fighting vehicle. The humvees are not even bullet proof yet they continue to use them on the front lines and in urban warfare situations like iraq. I think the biggest problem is finding a vehicle that is both damage resistant, light, and large enough to carry half a dozen to a dozen soldiers. If you bulk it up to protect it, its no longer light enough or fast enough to get in and out of a situation. But in current condition, it cannot sustain enemy fire undamaged or destroyed.
Maybe this is farfetched, but why haven't hovercrafts been used more? Is it that they cost too much? Considering that they can move over water and land and be made to hold a lot I am sure they can be modified to be bomb / missile resistant too?
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As I understand it, hovercrafts are very fragile, and a landmine or simple RPG can easily ground them. They also take huge amounts of fuel. Tanks are still the best "bang for the buck."
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Are tanks good transport vehicles though, that is the issue at hand? I am not saying that a hover craft (civilian style) would be good, but maybe a modified version. Suppose they reached the quality of almost being anti-gravity then they would not have any contact with the ground at all.
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The 'Safer' Humvee Is Here!
Replacing the Humvee, the military's main troop-transport vehicle, will be the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle, known as an MRAP. Military officials say the new vehicles provide twice as much protection against improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which cause 70% of all U.S. casualties in Iraq.
Ref. https://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/20...ates-mrap_N.htm
Sometimes I wonder if these things are done in this way so that the government can spend more money. Why wouldn't it be taken into consideration that the insurgents, once recognizing that the US has armored vehicles, not try to use bigger / better bombs? How much armor can you put on a vehicle anyway?
QUOTE |
MRAPs can't stop newest weapon WASHINGTON - New military vehicles that are supposed to better protect troops from roadside explosions in Iraq aren't strong enough to withstand the latest type of bombs used by insurgents, according to Pentagon documents and military officials. As a result, the vehicles need more armor added to them, according to a January Marine Corps document provided to USA TODAY. The Pentagon faced the same problem with its Humvees at the beginning of the war. Ref. https://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/20...nsurgents_N.htm |
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Firstly, the hovercraft is far too costly to be practical as a humvee replacement. If I'm not mistaken, I think the U.S Army also has only a few hundred of them. The only practical option is to make the humvee (or for that matter, any vehicle) more safe for the soldiers.
Secondly, when you are in a war such as the one in Iraq, there should be no price put on something which could be instrumental in saving a soldier's life.