High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
- This article refers to the Military HMMWV, not the civilian Hummer sold by General Motors
armored armament carrier, European color scheme]]
Military vehicle
In the 1970s, the United States Army concluded that the militarized civilian trucks in use no longer satisfied their requirements. In 1979, the Army drafted specifications for a High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, or HMMWV. In July of that year, AM General began preliminary design work, and less than a year later, the first prototype, the M998, was in testing.In June 1981, the Army awarded AM General a contract for development of several more prototype vehicles to be delivered to the U.S. government for another series of tests, and the company was later awarded the initial production contract for 55,000 HMMWVs to be delivered in 1985.
They have become the backbone of U.S. forces around the world. In the 2003 invasion of Iraq over 10,000 were used.
