What are those cool looking military pickups?

You are correct. I read, Oshkosh lost the bid to Mishawaka and will close its facility as of early 2025, greedy ba$tards, it will lay off 3500 workers. It amazes me that the army would seek a cheaper bid, when they expect to make 49,000 of these at $400grand each, but I'm happy for the great folks of the Hoosier. I bet the town of Mishiwaka had a sudden boost in residents, and goodbye Wisconsin. Since nobody buys custom sleepers or campers anymore, I say good for them.

 

What bothers me is the reliability of them when in combat, there is too much that can go wrong, too many complicated controls for just the drive train, and there is no field repairability mentioned anywhere.

So are these throwaways?

I worked with a guy who was a Marine transportation specialist since near the end of Vietnam. He just retired after the Gulf War, there during the war. He said with the jeeps, they could be repaired easily, but the HMMVVs were a PIA and were abandoned a lot of times, later to be recovered by either a native or the army, more likely the former. He said they were more complicated to deal with than the Jeep by far. He warned me that if they get too complex, they will be used as a consumable, not as a recyclable vehicle, which means they will be just destroyed by us instead of recovered and repaired.

 

Just going out on a limb here but I wouldn’t be surprised if they are emissions compliant… like who really gives a #### about a little diesel exhaust when you’re blowing up some other country….just saying
What would be wrong with a simple mechanical engine like a 5.9 or dt466 other than they’re not really producing them anymore and old school auto transmission

 

But you can blow up the Toyota with a side arm.