Replacement for the Humvee?

Discussion in 'Warfare / Military' started by longknife, Oct 14, 2014.

  1. longknife

    longknife New Member

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  2. CircleBird

    CircleBird Banned

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    We should end the arms race.
     
  3. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    Well it looks cool. I'm not sure that just looking cool is enough to justify switching, but it looks as if the chassis would be more useful over uneven ground. I'm not sure about the under armor though. I don't think there is any. I guess we are going to forget every lesson learned in Afghanistan and Iraq and produce another IED vulnerable vehicle?
     
  4. Nightmare515

    Nightmare515 Ragin' Cajun Staff Member Past Donor

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    I thought the MATV was supposedly replacing the Humvee? Thats what I was told anyway...
     
  5. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    The plan to replace the HMMWV is both short and long term. The short term initiative is to replace them with commercial off the shelf (COTS) vehicles like the M-ATV. Long term is to actually design another from the ground up.

    On a side note I hope the new design incorporates better fuel economy / alt-fuels...the U.S. military spends billions on fuel costs, it's time to start using bio-diesel and designing with economy in mind. It's unsustainable to use all this fuel. Learn from Germany's defeat in WW2, a military runs on oil, time to think of alternatives when the oil runs out.
     
  6. Texan

    Texan Well-Known Member

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    I don't think the OP's vehicle can replace the HUMVEE. If anything, it could be used to supplement it and be used when speed is important. All of that technology will make them expensive and that will hurt their chances of mass production.
     
  7. Taxcutter

    Taxcutter New Member

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    It looks to me like a vehicle that could do quite nicely for a narrow range of specialized missions.

    Completely replace the HUMVEE? No.
     
  8. Nightmare515

    Nightmare515 Ragin' Cajun Staff Member Past Donor

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    I agree with this 100%

    The sheer amount of fuel required to run military vehicles is astounding. I know the M1 Abrams tank gets about 1/2 mile per gallon. Military helicopters take between 8-15 gallons of fuel just to turn the thing on and get the blades turning. I can't imagine the fuel burned in fighter jets going full afterburner and heavy cargo planes and bombers.

    I don't know if JP8 can be substituted for anything else but I hope they are working on alternative fuels. It's crazy how much money it costs to fly a military aircraft in fuel alone, let alone the thousands of dollars in maintenance required after each flight. Not sure how accurate it is but I heard a crew chief say that it costs roughly $8,000 per hour to operate an Apache helicopter. If thats true then I can only imagine what the operating costs of something like a C-17 or a C-5 would be.
     
  9. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    C-130s operating costs are around $9,000 per hour. The newer J models have a 3 person crew and are more efficient; the older H and E have a 5 person crew and higher operating costs.

    It's not cheap to move something from point A to point B by air; fuel is of course a large part of the cost.
     
  10. Nightmare515

    Nightmare515 Ragin' Cajun Staff Member Past Donor

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    Kinda makes me wonder why the hell we have to fly ourselves all over the country when it would cost less to just load the helos up in the back of cargo planes and fly them to our destination. Maybe it's a coordination issue with the AF or something.

    You guys can take off and land and roll the helo out the back and be done with it all on one tank of fuel. If we fly ourselves we have to stop and refuel a good 7 or 8 times and it takes forever because we can't go that fast. I guess they probably can't load more than 1 in the back of each plane which is why they just say screw it.
     
  11. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    Two Kiowas can be transported in a C-130 aircraft, and three Apaches can be transported in a C-17. The C-5 can carry six Apaches, but the C-5 is a hangar queen...

    Regarding the Kiowas, to transport them in a C-130; the vertical tail fin pivots, the main rotor blades and the horizontal stabilizer are folded, and the mast mounted sight, the IFF antenna and the lower wire cutter are removed. Also the landing gear can kneel to decrease the height.

    Your bird, the Apache, is too big for a C-130 to carry, but the C-17 manages just fine with them.
     
  12. Nightmare515

    Nightmare515 Ragin' Cajun Staff Member Past Donor

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    Hmm, I wonder why they make us fly ourselves then. Call your buddies in the C-17 and C-5 communities and tell them to come and pick us up next time. :beer: Do you know how boring it is to putt along at 120kts for hours and hours on end? At least the Blackhawks and Chinooks have autopilot we have no such luxury we have to actually fly our birds.
     
  13. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    I have done a few trans-Atlantic flights in a C-130, and I believe that takes the cake for boredom, much slower cruising speed than a commercial airliner and not nearly as comfortable as 4 turbo-prop blades create lots of vibration; however auto-pilot and having a co-pilot allowed us to get up and stretch, grab a cup of joe from the back, eat a box lunch, take a leak...etc. You're stuck manually flying for hours in between re-fuel stops. You win that battle of the bored.
     
  14. Nightmare515

    Nightmare515 Ragin' Cajun Staff Member Past Donor

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    Yeah the Chinook and Blackhawk guys get to do the same thing. They have some crazy auto pilot system that they can plug in coordinates into the flight computer and the aircraft will literally take off, fly them the entire route, shoot the final approach, and terminate at a 5 foot hover at their destination. They say the same thing about getting up and walking to the back to stretch and stuff. The Chinook guys go back there and cook food and stuff lol

    Meanwhile we are stuck in a cramped cockpit that is barely large enough to fit a small child with no room to even move and if you are any taller than I am you are screwed when it comes to trying to stretch. My short stature has helped me out in that aspect. We have a stability control system that we can activate that will keep the aircraft in a relatively straight line. Sort of..It doesn't work nearly as well as Boeing advertised...
     

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