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Post by volkssturm on Jun 13, 2012 11:54:34 GMT -5
Came across this aricle about a British company that's militarizing Jeep Wranglers to compete with the market now pretty much owned by Land Rover and the Mercedes Landswagen. www.dodbuzz.com/2012/06/11/brits-militarize-jeep-for-spec-ops-duty/Being a crotchety old fart, I thought the Army totally screwed up when they got rid of the Jeep ( well, actually the M151 Mutt, made by Ford). Humvees are wonderful vehicles, but there's a lot of tasks that call for a smaller, lighter vehicle. And if you have to start hanging armor on a vehicle, you really need to be in an MRAP or Stryker to begin with. I've read that SOCOM prefers to use Land Rovers or Mercedes in a lot of places, because if you drive around in a Humvee everbody says "Look! Americans!", whereas a bunch of bearded, heavily armed guys in a Land Rover could be any old bunch of thugs. Interesting how the Jeep has come full circle, even if not in the country that invented it.
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Ersatzjack
Corporal
"That silly Franz... he thinks we are winning."
Posts: 1,093
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Post by Ersatzjack on Jun 13, 2012 23:54:41 GMT -5
I'm in complete agreement with everything you say.
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Post by hairy apple on Jun 17, 2012 1:32:18 GMT -5
Hum... thing is... have you ever actually SEEN a Jeep Wrangler up close... they are plastic POSes. They don't have real high reliablity/toughness compared to other 4x4s either.
Personally.. I think the US army messed up 50 years ago when Toyota bid to replace the Jeep... Toyota put the FJ40 (land cruiser) against Jeep for US govt use. The jeep won of course but sorry... anyone who knows anything about 4x4s will take a Toyota over a heep anyday.
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Ersatzjack
Corporal
"That silly Franz... he thinks we are winning."
Posts: 1,093
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Post by Ersatzjack on Jun 17, 2012 10:15:32 GMT -5
Harry,
You're missing the point of the original post. It's not whether a Jeep is worse then a Toyota. It's whether the US military erred when going to the Humvee as a "one size fits all" tactical vehicle. The US got it right in WWII. Jeeps for zipping around in and M20's and heavier for the line of fire stuff.
Also, I'll bet the Jeeps that are being militarized in the UK address some of your concerns with their construction flaws (if flaws there be).
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Post by hairy apple on Jun 17, 2012 12:33:23 GMT -5
I know, I understand that. I just was tossing out there that I wouldn't trust my life to a modern heep and that I think almost every nation in the world gets that.
The Humvee in it's original design was a good replacement for the Jeep. It was larger yeah... BUT not an ammored down turd that they became. They just tried to make the Humvee do everything and it became a worse and worse truck for each new job they tried to force on it.
The Jeep was a great thing in WW2 and through it's whole life span. It was/is an amazing little truck. But the modern Jeep is NOTHING like the Jeeps that were used by the military. They are more suited for the mall the for a battlefield.
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Post by volkssturm on Jun 17, 2012 14:58:29 GMT -5
It all started going South (imho) when they put "Sport" in front of "Utility Vehicle" and went after the market for people who wanted the image but were virtually never going to do any serious off road travel with them.
The Humvee has some good features, but they tried to make it do stuff it was never meant to do. Frankly, I think they could do far worse than recreate the old M38A1, go back to bare bones, all metal construction, maybe use small high efficiency diesel engine.
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Post by hairy apple on Jun 17, 2012 15:23:17 GMT -5
Safety and MPG standerds ruined most cars and trucks in the US. Then the media ruined Jeeps even worse in the 70's with all the scary roll over hype. Duh it rolls over easier then a car, it's not a car. But just like everything, had to go get people all scared of Jeeps and the govt got involved and Jeep had to redeign them to be safer and less roll over prone. Thus they got pussified and added to that the general lack of quality in any and all US cars and trucks of that 80's and early 90's and they just aren't the Jeeps they need to be for military use.
The new Wranglers have come a long way and are much much better jeeps then the poor nutered ones that the Wranglers started out as, but they are still in no way a combat worthy jeep. Too complicated, too plastic and light duty. They out break everything out on the trails around here and rockcrawling while harsh to 4x4s... isn't combat. That's a million times harder. I just don't see the modern Jeeps up to the task of military use.
Now.. sometime more like the m38a1 would be totally differant. Where MPG and highway safety just don't matter, and toughness and reliablity are greatly improved. Simple and easy to repair in the field. And a diesel engine would be awesome. Computers are a huge weakness to modern engines in tough conditions. They get damaged, they get too wet, sensors get pluged up with dirt, ect. Lots of things to hurt the electronics of modern engines. A simple tough diesel would be the perfect engine. Plus, diesels and run underwater if the intake is high enough.
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Post by aquist on Jul 21, 2012 14:16:50 GMT -5
I have owned many jeeps from MB/GPW to CJs. I have a 1950 CJ3a now, plus i could easily make the CJ3a look like a ww2 jeep because I have a 9 slot grill. Unfortunately I have just my teacher's pension and its not enough to get the jeep going again and convert it , but it sure would be nice to bring to battles.
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Post by Schmozilla on Jul 22, 2012 23:06:04 GMT -5
There was one guy down my street who restored a trashed willy's jeep when I was young, he used to let me and my brother play around in it. I remember it being a huge hunk of beauty . Shame he moved a few years back when I wasn't interested in ww2.
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