dave78

saw two of these 5 tons at the National Guard here in down.. made me drool and grin ear to ear at the same time was just wondering if anyone out there who serves our country has driven/worked on one of these. check em out here: http://www.army-technology.com/contr...art_stevenson/

bdewey

Yes I have. Currently A Diesel Mechanic for the military in Ft. Hood. Drive it pretty much everyday. They run a Cat 3126 and 7 speed Allison Trans. One of two of my favorite vehicles to play with. The engine sits under cab. The Cab can raise manually or with a push of a button. Been around for a couple of years now. They are phasing these in to replace the old 5 tons and 2 1/2 trucks with the Cummins. Any other questions can answer them for you.

kipper79

How about these www.forceprotection.net

StevenAg03

I am a manufacturing engineer at Armor Holdings TVS, formerly Stewart & Stevenson. We build those trucks here.

Its also ironic that we, Armor Holdings, is going to be building the Cougar for Force Protection. I, along with one other manufacturing engineer, will start building the cougars this week.

any questions i can answer?

StevenAg03

the 3126 is no longer being used in these trucks and hasnt been for some time. we are now putting the C7 in them which is just the latest update to the 3126.

ridofpwrstroke

Trucks run great, but the dump trucks cant dump a full load. They are POS's compared to the old 5 ton dumps. The old style dumps could dump full load and more. These new ones stink. Besides that, my command truck is a new lmtv over my hummer. Hummer is noisy and rides like crap. New LMTV's are quiet, powerful, and ride smoother if the tires are lower on air pressure.

StevenAg03

we have a 10ton dump to replace the 5ton that you probably are refering to. It is in testing at APG right now.

bdewey

The Cougar that Force Protection produces is an awesome vehicle. Just got back from Iraq 2 months ago and those Cougars can take a beating. Mostly right now EOD units and QRF(Quick Reaction Forces) are the main people using them right now. Inspected one that got hit with an IED.l Device was 2- 155mm mortor rounds put together. Great trucks though.

StevenAg03

you are right, they are good at what they were designed for....mine protection. as far as i know, no one has ever been killed in one of their vehicles.

the things look ten times better without the fenders, tool boxes, and other miscellaneous exterior items. we are building them because FP cannot produce more then 1-2 truck a day. we will most likely be making ~10 a day for the rest of the year.

the military will see a great rise in armored vehicles in the near future with most of them being ours and FP's trucks...

here is a picture of some trucks we built for the Navy...

bdewey

Dealt with many of those armored LMTV's and MTV over there a couple months ago. We called them the Fish Bowls. The only real problem we had with them was the Cab lift cyclinder always going out due to the weight of the armor. Slowly got them redesigned as we were leaving to handle weight. Only thing I wish is they had a little more weight in back because very front heavy.