MORE EQUIPMENT WOES

War takes big toll on Humvees
Vehicles piling up, scavenged for parts at Army repair depots
By James JanegaTribune staff reporter
Published October 9, 2006
(Excerpts)

TEXARKANA, Texas -- The Army Humvees wait forlornly, lost in acres of damaged war machines with blown engines, missing hoods and scavenged parts.

A backlog of hundreds of vehicles awaits repairs in one lot alone, a testament to extraordinary wear and tear on U.S. military equipment.

The five depots in the Army Materiel Command face a backlog of 24,000 pieces of gear worn out in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army says.That includes radars and radios, Abrams tanks and the ubiquitous Humvee. Part of the pileup comes from 6,500 pieces of sand-pitted equipment that the Army has shipped home since January, almost twice what it sent back for overhauls the entire year before.

"Our wheeled vehicle fleet is carrying armor on it that they were not designed to," said Brig. Gen. Robert Radin, deputy chief of staff for logistics and operations at Army Materiel Command. "Many of our wheeled systems are carrying hundreds, thousands of pounds more of payload than what they were initially designed to do."