HMMWV Improvements Monster Garage (Copyright) Program

The overall goal of the program was to find readily accessible ways to increase payload, performance and protection. Each of these areas had been compromised over the course of time due to unanticipated threats and increased weight on the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle HMMWV, which has led to a decrease in payload and performance. The basic request from the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army was to improve underbody protection while buying back payload and automotive performance, and so program leaders set goals to 1. Increase protection for the Soldiers currently using the M114 HMMWV. 2. Increase the vehicles performance, which had degraded over time due primarily to the added weight of armor. 3. Buy back payload to pre-frag-5 armor kit levels. The HMMWV Monster Garage program accomplished what many thought was impossible. It created a joint governmentindustry group of subject matter experts SMEs working intensely as a team to yield quickly applicable solutions. At its peak, the team consisted of approximately 100 SMEs representing more than 20 government and industry organizations. It was led through a 10-week cycle of one-week meetings at RDECOM-TARDEC followed by a week of fact-finding, modeling and simulation excursions, including expert choice analyses. This allowed the group to develop technology enhancements for the baseline vehicle systems, the M1114 up-armored HMMWV with Frag Kit 5.