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Science & Technology
75 years after it was first deployed, will US Army bring back the 'jeep'?
2016-07-23
[FOX] Were it not for efforts by the U.S. military to develop a lightweight, unarmored, all-terrain vehicle for the battlefield there might not be a market for SUVs today. It all began 75 years ago last December when the United States military adopted the 'jeep', and while the iconic military vehicle was phased out and replaced by the Humvee ‐ the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV) in the early 1980s ‐ the Army could go full circle and bring back the jeep.

Last year the Army began gearing up its Ground Mobility Vehicle Program for fiscal 2017. It was part of the Army's Combat Vehicle Modernization Strategy that sought to procure lightweight combat vehicles for infantry brigade combat teams. The vehicles considered sound very much like what first entered service back in 1940.

The Origins of the Jeep

The U.S. Army saw the need for such a go-anywhere four-wheel vehicle when it went "Over There" to France during the First World War. The Four Wheel Drive Auto (FWD) and Thomas B. Jeffery Company supplied the military with the first four-wheel drive trucks, but with another war looming military planners saw a need for a new light, cross-country reconnaissance vehicle. In July 1940 the Army formalized its requirements, which were submitted to 135 U.S. automobile manufacturers.
Posted by:Besoeker

#6  Isn't Jeep owned by Mercedes or something?
Posted by: rjschwarz   2016-07-23 23:43  

#5  Think of it as a dingy for you MRAP.
Posted by: KBK   2016-07-23 16:25  

#4  The 1/4 with trailer was an awesome tool, and at 1/5 the cost of the Hummer. I do recall riding with my 1SG and both of us in our sleeping bags and feeling the snow on my uncovered face and hating no heater when it was single digit weather.
Great logistic vehicle at the company level.
Posted by: NoMoreBS   2016-07-23 15:21  

#3  Well, as a Battalion Motor Officer at Baumholder. Germany in 1982, I always knew these beasts as M151A2 vehicles, with primary pedigree to Willys Overland something or other.

Thanks to Jimmy Carter FORMERLY the worst POTUS, my crew spent countless hours welding angle iron onto Jeep frames, to keep them from disintegrating - and we also had a makeshift battery rebuild program going, to replenish vehicle batteries that were effectively non-existent, coming out of "the Carter years".

The one criticism I had of the M151A2 design was that it was designed so that if it was about to tip over - because it was on a sideways slope that was too severe to transit - it was designed so that the wheels on the low-end side would simply "fold" - and cause the Jeep to do a sideways 360 degree roll. This "saved" the frame and wheelbase - at the expense of killing or maiming everyone who was a passenger in the vehicle.
Posted by: Lone Ranger   2016-07-23 13:14  

#2  I hope so - we need a fleet of M-ATVs and jeeps. The Chevy Blazer was a poor substitute except in the winter (had a decent heater), the HMMWV was terrible in the woods, cramped for its size, loud, thirsty, terrible to back up, underpowered, okay on the desert until IEDs appeared. The MRAP ATV has a lot of power for its size, decent protection and a is a fair battle taxi in an IED environ. The jeep was great in the woods, unstable on the highway, but did I mention great in the woods.
Posted by: Tennessee   2016-07-23 12:49  

#1  In situations without IEDs risk it makes sense.
Posted by: Tarzan Slailet2796   2016-07-23 11:30  

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