Quote:
Originally Posted by swaghauler
The Army went all Automatic in 1983. They finally got it done in the early 90's. The M939, M931 tractor, HEMMETT, and Hummer were all automatic with Central Tire Inflation System and Self Leveling Suspension for the big trucks. The Hummer graduated from the naturally aspirated 6.3L Diesel found in Chevy pickups to the larger 6.5L Diesel to the "High Output" Turbo Diesel (pre- Duramax) that was chipped. These "High Outputs" would NOT have survived the Exchange (EMP). The newer "eco-friendly" 5-Tons and 10-Tons bought after the First Gulf War were "chipped" too. I'm guessing the US would have lost half its logistics support in the Exchange. They would have had a lot of "parts trucks" to cannibalize from though....
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That may have been the official stance, but it is not true. I joined in 1993 right out of OSUT I got sent to HHC for a tank battalion, all of our 2 1/2 tons, and 5 tons were manual, we still had some jeeps (again manual), I forgot about the HEMMETT but yes they were also automatic. The hummers we had did not have the tire inflation system, I do not know about eh HEMMETT's as did not ever use them. Heck when I deployed in 2003 all of our 5 tons were still manual. The first time I was in a unit with out a manual transmission was when I reclassed to EOD in 2005.