M1151/M1152 Humvees

Army, Jul 2005 by Gourley, Scott R

As these pages go to press, the U.S. Army should be starting initial production on two new models of the Humvee. Designated M1151 and M1152, the new two-seat and four-seat variants incorporate the latest combat lessons learned while paving the way for future enhancements across the entire wheeled vehicle fleet.

"From the outside, you probably couldn't tell much of a difference between a current Humvee and these MIlSIs and M1152s," observed Brig. Gen. Patrick J. O'Reilly, Program Executive Officer, Combat Support/ Combat Service Support. "Basically, they have a very similar chassis to an M1114 up-armored Humvee (UAH), but the big difference is that the M1151/M1152 design has armor that can quickly be installed and uninstalled from the vehicle by the crew members themselves.

"The intent is that the crew will do it without lift," he added. "That's the design goal of this. That's the reason we went after it."

Another design objective was to require as few tools as possible to install the M1151/M1152 armor packages.

"If we could do it with no tools, we would. But the goal is that you will need only one or two tools to install this armor. And they will be tools that you already carry on the vehicle," O'Reilly said.

Noting that current M1114 UAH designs feature permanent armor packages that add stress and decrease payload capacity over the life of the platform, he added, "The new vehicles would only carry the weight when you have a mission like we currently have in Southwest Asia. It will also give tremendous flexibility to the commanders because a vehicle can be up-armored for a period of time and then quickly unarmored-for example, our pre-positioned vehicles that are on ships at sea.

"If you had this capability, you could actually convert the vehicles onboard the ship from an unarmored to armored or an armored to unarmored configuration. If you're going to arrive and perform humanitarian relief, you wouldn't want armor but would want to maximize payload. If you're going into a theater-opening operation where you need the armor, you could convert your vehicles as the ship was steaming towards its destination."

The M1151/M1152 production process will feature a combination of some armoring, together with a significant amount of installation attachments. The production armoring, also known as the "?-kit," will add approximately 700 pounds to the vehicle weight. This armoring will be applied to areas operators would find difficult to access, including floorboard areas and behind the firewall.

The incorporation of additional attachment points will allow operators to complete the armoring process, installing the additional "B-kit" armor as needed.

According to O'Reilly, the M1151/ M1152 program emerged in February 2004, based on direction from the Army Chief of Staff that all vehicles should be capable of handling armor.

The new Humvee designs are currently completing automotive and ballistic testing at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md. The M1152 started production in June, with approximately 50 vehicles produced in the first month. Production of the M1151 is slated to begin in July, with approximately 29 vehicles to be manufactured the first month.

"The initial production estimates right now are that more than 1,000 MIlSIs will be built between now and the end of the calendar year," O'Reilly said. "And we will also build more than 1,500 M1152s in that same time period, for a total of more than 2,500 of these vehicles."

Together with the manufacture of these armor-ready M1151 and M1152 vehicles, the Army will also be developing and testing the add-on armor kits. "That is also going to occur between June and October, so that we will have full materiel release ready to go to the field with the Army by the end of November," O'Reilly said.

"It's a pretty simple approach," he summarized. "And it came about as a way of being able to release the payload and help the reliability and life of the vehicle while still protecting the crew-because you do not have to carry around the weight of all the armor all the time, but you can quickly go to an armor configuration when you need to."

In addition to emphasizing its tactical flexibility, O'Reilly noted that the M1151/M1152 concept also offers significant life-cycle savings advantages. "We have spent well over $400 million just installing armor in the theater over the last 18 months," he said. "And with this vehicle we would not have had to spend that $400 million. We have also had more than 1,000 contractors who have been in the theater installing armor, and that introduced problems with things like contractors on the battlefield. We could have avoided that if we had had this."

Although the Army is preparing to move into initial production on the M1151/M1152 systems, O'Reilly acknowledged that planners are already looking beyond the initial designs. "We're looking at another design iteration of the armor kit so that it can be even lighter and easier to install than the version that will be coming out in a couple of months," he said. "We're already working on trying to improve another iteration."