There's another advantage that the 311 has that both the HMMWV and the M1951 Jeep lack: the 311 was not in the US (or Canadian or Soviet) military inventory. Therefore, teams could tool around without looking like the Army and (perhaps more importantly) without looking like they were trying to look like the Army. In the 3-5 year planning scenario there'd almost certainly still be some active Guard units doing their thing so the Project planners would have wanted to do whatever they could to give their teams a chance to say "Hey. This is who we are and what we're trying to do." BEFORE getting shot at.
As for the usual bitching about the 311 in Damocles... Prime Base would probably not have woke the team up in the Winter anyway, so from an operational planning standpoint, nothing to see here. The way it plays out it acts as an additional clue that Something Is Wrong Here. There aren't any rules for teams getting hypothermia. Someone made that crap up. It just emphasizes that it's freaking cold and gives the team incentive to make contact with Wittsend.
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