{"id":50469,"date":"2017-11-21T01:34:22","date_gmt":"2017-11-21T01:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/uncategorized\/2017\/11\/21\/why-the-hell-are-marines-still-driving-humvees\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T20:50:04","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T20:50:04","slug":"why-the-hell-are-marines-still-driving-humvees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/news\/2017\/11\/21\/why-the-hell-are-marines-still-driving-humvees\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the hell are Marines still driving Humvees?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Humvee has never been a popular vehicle among Marines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But these days, Humvees are more vulnerable than ever. A Humvee is no match for the latest rocket-propelled grenades, anti-tank guided missiles and sophisticated improvised explosive devices that insurgent groups like the Islamic State and the Taliban are now fielding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even with additional armor, Humvees are underpowered. Wide and low to the ground, it is an easy target.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just a God-awful vehicle,\u201d said former Gunnery Sgt. Matthew Martin, a former special operator who left the Marine Corps in 2014. \u201cIt was a bad platform that had some armor slapped onto it and was asked to do too much.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But how the Corps will ultimately replace its fleet of 17,000 Humvees remains unclear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facing budget cuts, the Marine Corps in 2015 canceled its program to upgrade 6,700 of its Humvees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Corps plans to start replacing the Humvees with the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, a faster and better-armored truck with a V-shaped hull to deflect blasts from below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the first of those JLTVs won\u2019t begin to arrive until 2019. Even then, they will come slowly. The first batch will include 69 new vehicles to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Marine Corps will continue to use Humvees for \u201cmany, many years,\u201d Marine Lt. Gen. Robert Walsh told lawmakers this summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On combat missions in Iraq and \u00adAfghanistan, Marines have mostly stopped using Humvees outside the wire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in the current vehicle fleet, the options are limited. Mine-Resistant \u00adAmbush Protected vehicles \u2014 the MRAPs \u2014 and other all-terrain variants are too heavy to use in rough terrain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without a Humvee replacement, the Marine Corps would have to use \u00adwhatever vehicles it has now if another war broke out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martin, when asked what his chances of surviving would be if he had to go to war tonight in a Humvee, he said: \u201cI\u2019d want to talk my wife and Jesus \u2014 and not particularly in that order.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NOT BATTLE READY<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concerns about the Marines\u2019 tactical vehicles fleet have intensified during the past several years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anti-American militant groups have far more firepower than they did a \u00addecade ago. ISIS fighters in Iraq and Syria have deployed Russian-made Kornet anti-tank missiles, which can destroy M1 Abrams tanks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA Humvee is just not going to be able take the blast of an anti-tank guided missile,\u201d said retired Marine Lt. Col. Dakota Wood, a military expert with the Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the specter of a full-scale war is looming larger on the horizon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lt. Gen. Robert Hedelund, commanding general of North Carolina-based<\/p>\n\n\n\n

II Marine Expeditionary Force,\u00ad \u00adrecently said his force of more than 25,000 Marines should be ready to fight the Russians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe MEF command element will have to be ready to support a \u00adwarfighting effort in Europe,\u201d Hedelund told attendees at a defense industry conference in October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The threat of war with China is also taking on new urgency. In October, one senior Pentagon official told Military Times that the Chinese air force is \u201cpracticing attacks on Guam.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And tensions with North Korea this year have fueled fears that Marines in the Pacific could be summoned to fight a grueling conventional battle on the Korean Peninsula.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those conventional opponents have cannons and rocket launchers that can shower U.S. vehicles with submunitions, said John Gordon IV, a military expert with the RAND Corporation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marine Humvees would be \u201csomewhere between very vulnerable and incredibly vulnerable\u201d in a conventional fight, \u00adGordon told Marine Corps Times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A spokesman for Marine Commandant Gen. Robert Neller said the Marine Corps cannot wait until it has thousands of new JLTVs if another war breaks out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have to fight with the gear we have, not the stuff we plan to get,\u201d Neller\u2019s spokesman, Lt. Col. Eric Dent, told Marine Corps Times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur potential adversaries get a vote too. Our job is to fight and win with what we have. Yes, we would prefer to have our full complement of the more-survivable JLTVs right now, but that\u2019s not the reality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is an inherent tension in Marine Corps modernization efforts between investing in existing and future \u00adtechnologies, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat tension is not made easier with a Byzantine acquisition process while under budget controls and multiple \u00adcontinuing resolutions,\u201d Dent said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BUYING JLTVs<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fielding the JLTV has been delayed because after the Army awarded a massive contract to Oshkosh to build the vehicles, its rival Lockheed Martin protested and took the matter to federal court before ultimately dropping its lawsuit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Marine Corps eventually plans to buy about 9,000 JLTVs to replace about half of the Corps\u2019 17,000 Humvees, said Kurt Koch, combat vehicle capabilities integration officer at Combat Development & Integration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Marines will only keep the best Humvees and replace the rest with \u00adJLTVs, Koch said in a statement to \u00adMarine Corps Times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first 5,500 JLTVs will replace the \u201chighest risk portion\u201d of the Humvee fleet. The next 3,500 vehicles will go to active ground combat element units and to Marine Air-Ground Task Forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, both Humvees and JLTVs will be part of the Marine Corps\u2019 fleet of light vehicles through 2030, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the JLTV, the Marine Corps will finally have a light vehicle that provides Marines with the protection offered by an M-ATV but is light enough drive off-road and to be transported by Marine CH-53E Super Stallion and Army CH-47 Chinook helicopters. JLTVs also take up the same amount of space as Humvees on ships and landing craft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the long run, the Marine Corps will need thousands of additional vehicles. And they may end up looking beyond the JLTV for something lighter and more agile, Walsh told lawmakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCould there be some other type of lighter truck that does not have the same protection requirements that a JLTV would have because not all our vehicles may be operating in a highly contested and threat environment?\u201d Walsh said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For now, some of Humvees still \u00adundergo depots-level maintenance, said Emanuel Pacheco, spokesman for PEO Land Systems Marine Corps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pacheco noted that the Humvees were designed and built in the 1980s, before improvised explosive devices fundamentally changed the requirements for ground vehicles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKeep in mind that the HMMWVs have served both the Marine Corps and the Army well for several decades, and when they were first introduced into service we were not dealing with the IED threat,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s also important to note that the Marine Corps and the Army are in the process of fielding the JLTV in order to fill that survivability gap that was created by the threat of the IEDs. Finally, the JLTV is a purpose-built vehicle (meaning you can\u2019t call up GM or Ford and ask them for 50K) it takes a few years to go through the acquisition process.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet many Humvees continue to deteriorate. Staff Sgt. Matthew Caruso, a motor transportation chief at Camp Pendleton, California, said years of use have taken their toll on Humvees, which are \u201cslowly getting worse and worse.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Caruso deployed to Iraq in 2007, he constantly worried that his unit\u2019s Humvees would roll over a powerful pressure-plate roadside bomb that would \u201copen up a Humvee like a tuna can,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time Caruso deployed to \u00adAfghanistan in 2010, Humvees were not allowed to be driven outside the wire, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a necessary piece of equipment for use in garrison,\u201d Caruso said, \u201cbut in combat operations, I think it\u2019s time for the Humvee to go away.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Marines fire a Mark 19 automatic grenade launcher from the turret of a Humvee during training at Camp Schwab, Okinawa, Japan, June 1. Eventually, the Corps will replace thousands of Humvees with the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, but the JLTVs won\u2019t begin arriving until at least 2019. (Lance Cpl. Stormy Mendez\/Marine Corps)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

STILL HAVE A ROLE TO PLAY<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The future of the Corps\u2019 vehicle fleet hinges a lot on Congress and the money it provides to the Marine Corps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., is calling for the Marine Corps and Congress to \u00adaccelerate the purchase of \u00adJLTVs. \u00adWicker is the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Seapower \u00adSubcommittee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor too long, many Marine Corps modernization programs have been hampered by drawn-out development timelines, complicating efforts to replace aging and inadequate systems,\u201d Wicker said in a statement to Marine Corps Times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur Marines need the increased \u00adprotection and mobility offered by the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle. The Marine Corps needs to develop these vehicles and get them to the field as quickly as possible,\u201d Wicker said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCongress and the Corps should \u00adcontinue to work together to ensure that our brave young men and women have the very best equipment available to them. We owe them that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JLTVs ARE NOT PERFECT<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The JLTVs may have the same issues as Humvees against conventional opponents because both vehicles do not have the armor to protect against weapons used by conventional militaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou should not put JLTVs and Humvees in areas where they are going to be frequently exposed to enemy direct fire,\u201d Gordon said. \u201cThat\u2019s the business of armored vehicles. Just like the Army, the best protective vehicle the Marine Corps has is the Abrams tank, so you\u2019re going to have to employ those in these high-threat areas \u2014 particularly if you are going against an opponent with APCs [armored personnel carriers] with auto-cannon and main battle tanks with guns of 100 mm or larger.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Humvees and other light \u00advehicles still have a role to play, even if it is not going toe-to-toe against a \u00adnear-peer adversary, Wood said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re not going to take a Humvee or a JLTV and drive straight into an enemy position,\u201d said Wood, who served on President Trump\u2019s transition team. \u201cYou get close; you maneuver around the battlefield, dismount your infantry when you need to, use close air support to engage the enemy to reduce his ability to bring fires on you and then you close with the enemy and try to destroy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wood also pointed out that all \u00advehicles are vulnerable to some degree. The Russian-made Kornet anti-tank missile, often used in Yemen and Syria, has proven it can destroy M1 Abrams tanks, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given these threats, the U.S. military has decided it needs vehicles that \u00adprovide more protection than \u00adHumvees but weigh less than MRAPs, Wood said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The JLTV is meant to be that solution, but it is not likely that the Marine Corps will replace all of its Humvees with \u00adJLTVS, which are more expensive and twice as large as Humvees, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senior Marine Corps officials warned lawmakers earlier this year that if budget cuts and temporary funding measures force the Marines to buy fewer vehicles, Marines in the field will be at greater risk, Wood said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the Marine Corps has more heavily armored vehicles, it cannot rely solely on MRAPs and M-ATVs, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou need mobility on the battlefield,\u201d Wood said. \u201cIf you fully equip the Marine Corps with MRAPs, then you have a deployment problem. The vehicles are so big and heavy and ponderous that you can\u2019t embark them aboard amphibs; you can\u2019t easily get them into theater via cargo aircraft like the C-130.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another drawback for MRAPs is that bridges need to be strong enough to support them or troops need to find places where rivers are shallow enough for them to cross, he said. Vehicles must be light enough so they can be used on the battlefield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the same issue when deciding how much body armor that infantry Marines should wear, he said. If Marines wear too much gear, they are so weighed down that they cannot move fast enough to get out of the kill zone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo you actually sometimes increase survivability by lowering the encumbrances of heavy armor, so that you\u2019re more nimble and agile on the \u00adbattlefield,\u201d Wood said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These days Humvees are more vulnerable than ever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":57297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":15,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1240],"class_list":["post-50469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"724UUPG675HZFEXXWBCYC6UMYM","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/your-marine-corps\/2017\/11\/21\/why-the-hell-are-marines-still-driving-humvees\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\nWhy the hell 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