Marines scavenging old parts to finish their new Joint Light Tactical Vehicle
I am always shocked that this kind of thing is considered news. As one Air Force General once said, “If its not broken, stolen, or leaking hydraulic fluid Marines won’t use it”. According to Military Times:
The Marine Corps‘ long-awaited Joint Light Tactical Vehicle is expected to start hitting the fleet next year, but not all of its parts will be fresh off the assembly line.
A harvesting effort is underway to salvage Humvee parts that can be fitted onto the JLTV. The strategy has long been part of the plan as the service phases out the unpopular Humvee for the JLTV, a faster vehicle with better armor to protect Marines from roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades.
See, Marines don’t steal things from other branches of the service…they “Harvest” them.
“It’s our responsibility … to be good stewards of taxpayer money, so if we have equipment that is in good condition, we should go ahead and use it,” Kevin Marion, a logistics management specialist in Infantry Weapons, said in the release.
Logisticians and equipment specialists from Marine Corps Systems Command and Program Executive Officer Land Systems install a Marine Corps Transparent Armor Gun Shield on a Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, May 1, 2018. (U.S. Marine Corps photo/Kristen Murphy)
I wonder if SNCO’s are still teaching Lt’s the meaning of “plausible deniability” when it comes to “harvesting” equipment.
Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work"
Someone tried “harvesting” my Jetta in El Paso once, luckily I had a kill switch on it.
Where is Yef in all of this?
YEF!!! Quit hiding under your desk!
Yef’s over in the other thread looking at beach pictures.
He’s probably still looking up Hanoi Jane pictures from when she was “kinda hot” as I recall he put it. Floor wax don’t huff itself.
Personally, I see no problem with Yef degrading and defiling images of Jane Fonda, provided it’s a “hate jerk.” He can even finish appropriately by pissing on said photos once he’s done.
I agree wholeheartedly.
do they still make jane fonda urinal cakes?
Scrounging buffer parts from a donor machine
I saw this with the Air Force CV-22’s. When they got there first test birds it was like the scene of the movie “Armageddon”. They Maintenance techs were literally throwing stuff out of the ramp questioning what useful purpose could this part have, WTF is this? I can’t believe this even worked, etc..
One time they lost an access panel during a flight at kirtland and there was a 6 month wait for a new one. Eventually finding one in DRMO in Colorado that had come off a marine bird over the gun range at FT. Carson.
As a former Supply Chief, I approve this message.
In Supply, we had to S.T.E.A.L.: Strategically Take Equipment to Alternate Locations.
That’s why I was always known as the Supply THief, instead of CHief.
I thought it was called “found on installation.” I suggested doing that with a .50 cal that was just sitting there by the entry way at a brigade TOC; my sergeant was not impressed by my whimsy.
WAR STORY ALERT: When the Desert Phase of the Ranger School was located at Dugway Proving Ground, anytime I had something that needed to be disposed we would paint it yellow and leave it outside unsecured. Like magic it would usually disappear overnight.
the most active time of the year for any USMC motor pool is the CG inspection. many , many conex boxes full of parts that were bought in the last month of the last fiscal quarter would be procured and “Disappeared” in to big holes in the ground (always good to have friends in the Engineers HE moterpool!) so unit maintenance funding $$ for the next year would not be lower.
it’s where i learned what a crank shaft for a cummings diesle engine looks like
As a young Cpl, I remember “harvesting” some heavy duty alternators from a yard in Saudi Arabia during Desert Shield for our critical comm vehicles.
Ah, the good ol’ days with no name tapes…..
DRMO
Get authorized as a screener.
I was at Tucson DRMO just this morning… and I ain’t sayin’ no more.
As this is the third or fourth posting by Hardin today, I have a question: Is Jonn being held hostage or did he volunteer the keys to the kingdom?
We called it the “Army Relocation Program.” I swear we got most of our parts by raiding the motor pools of other units.
We called it “Creative Acquisition”.
We called it repair Status Quo meaning the parts status was of QUestionable Origin….
Since it’s Marines, I’m wondering if that’s an unrelated stock photo, and the reality looks more like the Road Warrior–complete with at least half of them dressed up as Lord Humungus. “Just walk away”
The Navy called it “Comshaw,” and no one knows what it really meant.
Just what it was.
Meanwhile, the E-4 mafia in Supply is sitting back and pretending that they saw nothing.
Hey, we were hard at work filling out DA-2464As and DD-138s; heads down and eyes on our own work.
First off: “unpopular Humvee”
Who said that? It doesn’t stand up to road side bombs? Well yes, you are right about that. It wasn’t designed for that in the first place. Buy let’s not retrofit ourselves in heavier and larger vehicles (this matters when packing a ship) simply because we needed them in the last war.
Second, this makes a lot of sense to me. There were a lot of HMMWVs that we received in the 2010+/- timeframe that were made to fill orders placed during the heavy fighting days of OIF. At that time I was in Albany, GA and saw them coming in in ridiculous quantities. Hopefully a lot of those replaced vehicles from the fleet that made a one way trip to Iraq, but I’m pretty sure there were some surplus. If we can use bits and pieces in a new vehicle, so much the better. We’re the poor service, remember. This is the kind of story that should make taxpayers stand up and say, “God bless those guys!”
If we had the budget increase of the cost of one F-35 I bet we could make a whole lot of JLTVs. [Probably not as many as I would like, but still several.]
Lastly – As a Marine that went to Ft. Bragg twice a year (with 10th Marines – Rolling Thunder, Hoo-rah!) I can tell you that Army DRMO was a wonderland of discarded Army stuff we loved to grab up! Thanks guys!
And kudos for the Road Warrior/Mad Max II reference.
“What a puny plan!”
Just for interest’s sake, here are pictures of HMMWV mods I saw at Al Taqqadam.
A lot of them are Marines (Blue Diamond=1st Marine Division) but the Thunderbird vehicles are from the 120th Engineers (https://history.army.mil/html/forcestruc/lineages/branches/eng/0120enbn.htm). They are descendants of the 45th Infantry Division (My Maternal Grandfather’s unit in WWII).
https://get.google.com/albumarchive/104745627018165888181/album/AF1QipNigXiOmUG53TgxDzh7zNbsrUOuLYhnAdHyDNiz
FuzeVT,
That one uparmored HMMWV looks like a truck had sex with an old german army halftrack!
I like the MG and TOW combo!
When I was with 2/163 ACR in Montana one of the Scout Sgts had been with a transportation unit in Viet Nam. He mentioned that they had several 5-tons with the body of a M113 plopped in the bed to create one helluva guntruck.
Personally, Ive always wanted to put the turret from an M60A3 on the body of an M88.
Long ago my squadron was deployed on the USS Eisenhower when she was making her first deployments. I was told that the telephone system was re-cycled from the USS Roosevelt (CV-42).
While in the CG we would get parts for some of our gear from Museum ships in the area.