Armored Cars

I remember...

I was in units that had Truck, Utility 1/4-Ton, 4x4 M151's (a lineal descendant to the original Willy's Overland Jeep).

I was in units that had Commercial Utility Cargo Vehicles (The Chevy version that was retconned into being the Light Service Support Vehicle).

I was in units that had High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles.

What do they all have in common?

They're trucks.  Light trucks.  The CUCV is literally a commercial pick-up.

Army units need such vehicles to do all manner of jobs that aren't appropriate for other, heavier, vehicles.  Including other trucks.

My line unit was a tank unit.  We had plenty of armor on hand...  We didn't need armored cars, we needed trucks.

Problem is, when we went to the Warren Tarra we discovered we'd been a little too generous with the second M in HMMWV.

Trucks don't make good front-line combat vehicles.  It should have been obvious, because they never have.

We tried to uparmor them, but that made them overloaded trucks with some armor.  At least in Vietnam we started with a deuce and a half...

What we were wanting was an armored car for these roles.

Apparently, we're going to be obtaining armored cars to replace HMMWV's.

Which is great for jobs that need an armored car (and we do have lots of them), but too fucking spendy for jobs that just need a darn truck!

Unfortunately, none of the auto makers makes a truck that's as simple and rugged as the old Dodge D150 or Chevy C/K anymore, so there's no handy COTS solution to the light truck problem.

Not that any procurement is simple anymore... Sigh.