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The US military’s Hummers have demonstrated severe payload and survivability limitations. Nevertheless, they remain a fixture in the fleet, and new orders continue. At one point, the US Marines’ objective was to restrict Hummers to use “inside the wire” of American bases in Iraq. Instead, a sharp reduction in violence within Iraq, and a lower vehicle threat level so far in Afghanistan, have given the HMMWVs a new lease on life. They are still seeing extensive use on the front lines, and the early wear created by the weight of their add-on armor has led to RESET maintenance programs for some Hummers and allied giveaways for others.
The US Army had about 19,000 HMMWV vehicles in Iraq alone in mid-2007. As Hummers wear out and are given away, or are sent to a depot, they must be replaced. Some replacement involves cycling vehicles from other units into theater, but those units must eventually have their lost vehicles replaced with Hummers or with something else, in order to maintain their own readiness rates for deployment. Hence the necessity for ongoing buys of more Hummers, in the absence of a program to provide replacements on a fleet-wide basis.
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