Hello Bruce! You know, I wouldn’t have been surprised to receive replies from Humvee owners; “My Humvee can leap tall buildings in a single bound”, that kind of thing. I was surprised to get a reply from one of the world’s very few HEMTT owners.
Anyhoo, here’s a rather long and boring explanation of the comment “where Humvee’s and HEMTT’s fear to tread”.
Let me tell you about a couple of my personal experiences. To begin, I want to say that I drove vehicles in the military with reckless abandon. Almost. If you were convicted (actually court-martialed) for willful destruction of government property, the maximum fine was one month’s base pay. Back then, a $1200 fine would have really hurt, but it wasn’t that much of a deterrent. Today, being the owner of several private military vehicles, I tread a bit more softly. Any damage whatsoever and I am 100% liable and must do the repair work myself to boot.
Back to my personal experience. I have stuck too many Humvee’s to count. They are fantastic off-road vehicles, but more than 18 inches of mud and you are not going anywhere. Ours were equipped with good winches and amazing foldable land anchors. I forget the correct name for the anchors, but they were worth their weight in gold. Please don’t take that literally. Luckily, Humvees are fairly flat bottomed, so you can drag them across deep mud without them sticking any worse.
I have also stuck a MAN and a HEMMT (and deuces and 5-tons and pretty much everything else) I was stationed in Germany for much of my career. It rains about 300 days a year so maneuver areas were always swampy. When I stuck the MAN it took me a very long time of back and forth until it finally got up enough speed to jump out of the ruts. The HEMMT was a different story. Yes, all the axles locked, but that just got me in deeper. I know that when you are in a hole, stop digging, however the mud was past the pumpkins and my boots were shiny. Luckily it was a HEMMT wrecker (perhaps the weight is why I got stuck) so it had a ginormous winch on it. Germany is a very heavily forested country. Tip # 1, do not attach your winch cable to a pine tree, the roots are not deep enough. The pine tree will hit you and the Germans will hate you. Apparently, the Germans own the trees even on American maneuver areas. Look for a deciduous tree, an oak is a safe bet. Tip # 2, after pulling said HEMTT out of the mud, do not take any more ‘shortcuts’ and get it stuck a second time. What a moron!
My punishment fit the crime. The Colonel told me to report Saturday morning to clean the HEMTT. Washing a stuck Humvee was simple, pick it up with the 22K forklift above your head and pressure wash the heck out of it. We had nothing that could pick up a HEMTT, so I spent two days underneath it. It was below freezing that weekend and the mud had solidified to almost rock. I was soaked and freezing for two days. To add insult to injury, the Polizei attached to the base MP’s stopped by on Sunday and gave me a ticket for pressure washing without a mud/water separator pit. WTF?
The moral of this story?
“The MAN will go places that Humvee’s and ME driving HEMTT’s fear to tread”
My personal experience was so nasty that it put me off driving HEMTT’s in the mud.
As you can see, most of the story just shows what an idiot I happen to be, not that HEMTT’s are not capable.
As far as your comments go, yeah, a HEMMT transmission is a whole lot easier to operate. Quite a few of our troops did not qualify to drive the MAN, simply because they did not ‘get the hang’ of the transmission.
Bet you don’t know too many people who’ve stuck a MAN and a HEMTT?
Now it’s time for me to get personal about your HEMTT. I have seen photo’s of it and I lust after it. My plan is to win the lottery and come to visit you. I will leave with your HEMTT and you will get a check far in excess of what you paid plus the work you put into it. Ahhh…. One can still dream…..
And so the bottom line is……
I want your HEMTT!!!!
(Does that sound like someone who doesn’t like HEMTT’s?)
