The EMP-Proof Truck: AM General Doubles Down On Humvee 

By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR. on October 03, 2017 at 2:35 PM  SOUTH BEND, IND.: 

The US military replaced its Humvees in Afghanistan and Iraq, with heavier, better armored vehicles because of the threat from roadside bombs. But that approach may not work In a high-tech conflict, argues manufacturer AM General. You might want to go back to the Humvee. Why? Because it’s simpler. There are no electronic engine controls, no electronic braking, no circuitry that a sophisticated enemy could hack with malware, scramble with directed microwaves, or fry with the electromagnetic pulse from an atomic bomb or other source. 

Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. photo CEO Andrew Hove speaks to reporters at AM General’s Humvee plant in South Bend, Indiana. “It’s essentially bulletproof to EMP,” AM General’s CEO, Andrew Hove, told reporters he flew out his factory here for a pre-AUSA conference visit. “There’s nothing on the system that would lose functionality.” 

If you set off an electromagnetic pulse over South Bend, he said, the Humvees could continue to run, even as many more sophisticated vehicles glitch or go dead. ADVERTISEMENT Learn about how Raytheon's different radars work together to enable a layered missile defense Of course the sophisticated electronics the Army installs on nearly all its vehicles for communications and navigation might well be affected, so the surviving Humvees would probably be cut off without radio or GPS. But at least they’d start. (And troops once again train with acetate maps…) So, two years after losing the contract for the next-gen, high-tech Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV), AM General is doubling down on the Humvee and making a virtue of its simplicity. 

Sure, the company has upgraded the vehicle since its introduction back in 1984 with more powerful engines, tougher transmissions, and stronger frames. That increased the maximum weight of a fully-loaded Humvee from 9,000 lbs to 14,000 lbs now, dramatically increasing capacity for cargo, weapons, and armor – even as reliability has increased four-fold. “We’re not done,” Hove added proudly. 

“We can take on more weight, more capacity.” Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. photo Humvee upgraded with 30 mm autocannon But even as it modernizes the Humvee, AM General proudly points to old-fashioned virtues it’s retained. The steering column turns the wheels using hydraulics – no electronic steering here. The brakes use a direct mechanical connection, without even any hydraulics (which can leak). There’s an automatic transmission, mercifully. But to activate a special mode for crossing the worst obstacles, for example, you don’t press a switch. 

You use both feet to press the brake and the gas at the same time, locking the differential so the tires all rotate at the same speed, rather than one spinning crazily while the other’s stuck. One combat veteran doing a test-drive with me was floored by the Humvee’s performance using this brake throttle modulation (BTM) feature. No one had ever told him it existed.