The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle
What you and I know as the "Humvee:" HMMWV, or in its consumer form, the
"Hummer". There are an infinite number of web pages about the Hummer and the
production military HMMWV, but little information about the HMMWV project and
its history. Here I'll provide what information I can about the prototype
HMMWV's from various manufacturers, as well as a few oddball HMMWV variants
that aren't so often publicized, or aren't immediately recognized as offshoots
of the AM General offering.
These pix are ones I've collected from various sources on the Internet and
two good books on the subject: the Motorbooks title by Michael Green (now out
of print), and the
Crestline
"Modern Military Vehicles" by Fred Crismon.
Prototypes
HMMWV Prototypes from Popular Science June 1982
Cab-over HMMWV prototype and production
Left five are the six-wheel prototype; right two are the four-wheel production
unit.
American La France / FWD HMMWV Prototypes
General Dynamics HMMWV Prototypes
The last two frames are from one that sold on Ebay; some have survived and
are in the hands of collectors.
Teledyne Continental HMMWV Prototypes
The middle frame shows the ambulance model, the body of which *remarkably*
resembles the production AM General M997.
FMC HMMWV "XR311" Prototype
Left, the usual oneoff photo, and right, another unit going to the hands of a
lucky collector.
AM General Prototypes
Left to right: An undated prototype; one from 1981; one from 1983; the early
unit designated XM-966; and a production-style unit done up as a wrecker
(but never saw production.)
Variants
NTC BDRM-2 Emulators
At the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, CA, HMMWV's are dressed up to
look (vaguely) like Soviet BDRM-2 personnel carriers. Here are two shots of
the mockups, and the real thing on the right.
Otokar Cobra
A Turkish company uses the HMMWV chassis from AM General and puts its own
armoured car body on them:
MOWAG Eagle
And a Swiss company does something similar, basing their Eagle armoured car
on the AM General chassis. Primary customers are the Swiss and Danish armies.
Left, an Eagle 1; middle, Eagle 2; and right, an Eagle 1 on exercises with
the Danish army.
Desert Mobility Vehicular System
A US military variant of the HMMWV, the DMVS is called the "Dumvee."
From
Armies Of The Gulf War
(Gordon Rottman.)
Alvis Shadow
Based on the heavy HMMWV (M1113 ECV), Alvis offers a special ops and
reconnaisance vehicle called the Shadow.
From
Concord Publications
title "HMMWV: Workhorse of the US Army" (Carl Schulze).