Armor Holdings Inc./Via Bloomberg News -
Humvees, the wide-bodied off-road trucks, were adopted by the
Army in 1985 as a successor to the legendary jeep. The Humvee grew in
popularity after the Persian Gulf War, inspiring a consumer model, then
fell out of favor in Iraq and Afghanistan because of its vulnerability
to roadside bombs.
The U.S. military is moving forward with a program to replace the Humvee even as it braces for automatic budget cuts and seeks to shift its focus away from the ground wars of the past decade.
The wide-bodied off-road truck was adopted by the Army in 1985 as a successor to the legendary jeep. The Humvee grew in popularity after the Persian Gulf War, inspiring a consumer model, then fell out of favor in Iraq and Afghanistan because of its vulnerability to roadside bombs.
Over the past decade, the Defense Department has spent $45 billion on bigger, blast-resistant trucks. With the Afghanistan war ending, budget cuts looming and the military’s focus shifting to Asia, the program to develop a Humvee replacement may be in jeopardy, said Todd Harrison, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a public policy organization in Washington.
“If you’re not going to be doing counterinsurgencies, why do you need a vehicle that heavily armored?” Harrison said in a telephone interview.
The Defense Department by late September plans to award as many as three companies a total of $195 million to build prototypes, according to Kevin Fahey, the Army official overseeing the program.
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