IndyStar.com April 15, 2005
Bayh presses Humvee funding
Mishawaka factory runs short of capacity
By Ted Evanoff
The U.S. Army is short of armored Humvees in Iraq and Afghanistan in part because almost one of every five of the Indiana-made work trucks has been damaged in combat or worn out in harsh terrain.
A supplemental appropriation measure proposed Thursday by Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., would include cash for replacing 1,500 armored Humvees destroyed in those two countries.
Shedding light on the number of damaged armored Humvees could further the controversy over U.S. war planning.
Even as insurgents in Iraq focused attacks on the hundreds of conventional Humvees built of thin sheet metal, Pentagon planners ordered fewer of the reinforced steel- and Kevlar-plated models than the factories could produce.
U.S. troops now operate about 7,100 of the protective trucks in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Army now says it wants 9,900 on duty in both countries, up from the goal of 8,100 set several months ago, Bayh said.
The attrition figure appears to be one of the first public estimates of armored Humvee losses since nearly 150,000 U.S. troops entered Iraq in March 2003.
Bayh, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the attrition figure was supplied by officials at the Pentagon.
Bayh's proposal overall would commit $742 million for 3,300 additional Humvees fully equipped with armor, communications gear and weaponry.
A recent Government Accountability Office study singled out the U.S. Department of Defense for pacing armored Humvee production at a level below the factory's maximum capacity.
Defense strategists have been assailed by congressional members -- including Bayh -- for repeatedly failing to place orders for as many armored models as can be produced.
"They never inquired into the production capacity," Bayh said. The Pentagon nine times has raised its goal for armored Humvees in Iraq.
John Pike, head of Global Security.org, a think tank in Washington, said he has not seen a figure on damaged Humvees.
But losing 1,500 armored Humvees appears to be a credible figure, he said. Added to the 7,100 protective models now in use, it works out to a vehicle casualty rate of about 17 percent.
''I would believe that," Pike said, noting it could be a larger proportion. "They've been driving them pretty good in a pretty stressful situation."
An estimated 400 U.S. troops have died in attacks on armored and unarmored Humvees.
All Humvees are assembled in Mishawaka by 1,000 employees of AM General Corp. Those slated for protective coating are armored at Cincinnati by the O'Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt unit of Armored Holdings Corp.
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