The armourplates that surrounds the gunner in a Humvee, how are they attatched? Are they welded or bolted? If you have some pictures to share that would be very much appreciated. I´m going to add some extra armour on a Tamiya humvee.

Thanks in advance.

// Torbjörn

I think you could safely go with eiter botls or welds. A lot of the stuff being added is as battlefield mods, and they basically use whatever they can find. They also attach the stuff in any way they can.

DUCT TAPE!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok, maybe not.... :-)

From what Ive seen they are botled to some support struts that I guess are welded to the gunner wring. You definatley need those support struts though.

It's called 100mph tape

Everything is bolted on as far as the actual kits (green gun sheilds)

The "hillbilly" stuff is probably also bolted on to ease replacement of damaged parts.

Thanks.

It seems like there is a lots of space for improvisation. By the way, is it only the up-armored M1114 that has the shields around the gunner or does the ordinary M1045 also have them.

The M1045 woudn't have the shields because of the TOW system.

I think he means the M1025, the basic Armament Carrier. And no I don't think it would be standard. M1025s are mostly being sent back to the factory for upgrading to M1114 up-armored status or were given the ASK armor improvement. But since 2004, nothing can be considered "standard" on a humvee anymore.

Also, and not to hijack, if anyone has any kind of deminsions for the factory-kit/factory-installed all around armor for the M1114 (the kind that sort of looks like a tiny M10 turret), that would be great.

Jeff

:-) we use 550 cord now

Jeff, you´re right. I meant the M1025. The ASK armor improvement, what is that?

Basically an interim factory kit designed as a stop-gap measure to armor softskin humvees as well as to uparmor armored humvees until uparmored humvees could come on line. The kit provides armored door doors, side armor panels and I think some armor for the floor.

- Jeff

From International Defense Online Magazine:

The development of the Armor Survivability Kit for the Humvee began in October 2003 following the reports on the growing damages caused by ambushes and IEDs. The kit includes replacement of the doors with armored doors fitted with small ballistic-resistant windows. Further protection is provided by armored seatbacks, reinforced floor and windshield made of bullet proof glass.

The kit weighs half of that designed for the up-armored Humvee [that is the M1114] (ths ASK adds about 1,000 pounds to a standard non-armored vehicle). The kit provides some RPG and IED protection, as commonly encountered in Iraq. There are two ASK versions, one supporting a two-door Humvee and the other, a four-door Humvee. The resulting armoring package provides an effective protection against typical attack (small arms fire, IED), but at the cost of considerable damage to the vehicle. Most frequently, an IED explosion will cripple the vehicle, and when abandoned in hostile area, leaving it preys for the rioting mob. This is one reason that caused motivated the use of heavier, more survivable vehicles for such tasks.

The ASK-update seems to be exactly like Blast Models kit, armoured doors for OIF humvee. I´m waiting for it to arrive in the mail.

Thank you for you help.

// Torbjörn

Actually the doors from Blast Models are not ASK doors. You can tell because the windows are much bigger than those in the ASK variations. No, these doors look only to be the supplemental doors found on Armament Carriers such as M998A1 and A2 (though there is a specific designation. Eduard has a good representation of ASK doors. However the side panels do look like they are part of the ASK upgrade.

I'll try to find some more specific information in a little bit.

Jeff

Yes, you can say that the BLAST kit isn't really ASK because at the time the BLAST kit was released, references on ASK were kind of scant.

My understanding is that ASK doesn't provide any floorboard protection, only perimeter protection because in ways this was before IEDs became the staple weapon of the insurgents. Back in those days, it was still convoy and logistic runs, not daily patrols, and the AK and RPG were the main threats.

The BLAST kit doesn't come with the armored side windows, one has to make that on their own. But more importantly, it doesn't come with the additional second armored frontal windshield, meaning the BLAST kit only provides side protection. Now one can't blame BLAST because the Army couldn't get a contractor for the front windows in time to release the side armor and there weren't many photos of the armored windows and windshield online.

The reason for the ASK design was for the possibility that if the HMMWV ever came back to the States, the unit can take the armor off, hence the bolting. But of course now most armored vehicles will stay in Iraq (don't want to decon them) and probably better to build new than ship back old and worn anyway.

According to Motorbooks, there's also the Marine Armor Kit (MAK), which has an armored roof as well. Both the Army and Marines go to different armor vendors. No one makes 1/35 MAK.

There´s a lot of variants. I found the eduard set with the ASK-doors. It says that they are for the M1026. What is the difference between the M1025 and the M1026?

M1026 is the Armament Carrier with the front winch. M1025 has no winch. The doors shouldn't be any different between the two though.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong above.

Peter you are pretty spot on.

New factory or scratchbuilt armored doors kits aside, there are/were two standard doors delivered on armored humvees. The first was the X pattern seen so much on early humvees (called M1025 and M1026 - the difference as mentioned was solely that the M1026 had a winch.). These provided little more than shrapnel protection. So what was called supplemental armor was added to the doors. These were factory kit doors and the X pattern can still be seen on the inside (these doors are provided in the great Tamiya TOW Humvee kit). These were designated M1043/M1044 (again the only difference between the two was the M1044 had a winch)

The X pattern doors are provided in the basic Tamiya M1025 kit, the supplemental armor doors in the M1046 TOW kit.





A good explaination of the various humvees can be found in the link below and in a few books.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/hmmwv.htm

Squadron's Humvees in Action (this shows early humvees through Desert Storm and a little after)

Concord's Humvees: Workhorse of the Army (this overlaps the book above and goes through 2003ish but doesn't include Iraq and later)

Concord's Humvees in Iraq (this is an updated version of the above and focuses solely on Humvees in Iraq, with a large focus on armored humvees, hillbilly, ASK, and uparmored M1114s)

Jeff

All USMC Humvees have the extra door armor, meaning "no X stamp." The Marine Humvees also have a bit thicker roof (armor) than Army Humvees.

As Jeff said, the extra door armor is basically sheet metal and won't stop a bullet per se, but it does go to show the different requirements between USMC and US Army.

While were talkin about Hmmwvs I have to ask a question. Does any one have some good pics of the hillbilly armored hmmwvs. I have some but they're from far away. I have several DML 1/72 Hmmwv kits and I am looking for a way to make the standard M1025 look cool. sorry for hijackin.

Peter, I didn't know that.

Mike, PM sent.

Jeff