Dirty Jobs Hummer Recovery

Aggressive1

Aggressive1

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 19, 2005
Location
Myrtle Beach
Just saw an episode of Dirty Jobs on Discovery Channel where they recoved a Jeep (its really a Humvee, but Mike Rowe could not get it right) using heavy pulleys, ropes, and chains.

The guys set up 7 pulleys between the Humvey and the small tree used at an anchor. They anchored the pulley's with Chains and then used a synthetic cable (or military rope) through the pulleys and used 4-6 soldiers to pull the rope. It was really pretty need to watch basic mechanics apply when 6 solders easily pulled a very heavy humvee that was buried to its axles in sand. But is this really how they do it? Talk about inefficiency, the storage space lost to the pulleys and chains and the cost of the pulley, chains and rope and the amount of man power and time to set up the stuff just seems crazy when the military can probably buy hydrolic Mile Marker winches for pretty cheap and use 2 soldiers and 10 minutes to pull the same humvee out.

Man I hope they use winches. I do think it would be a good idea to train how to do it and maybe have a convoy of military rigs have a portion of the equipment needed so if 7 winches on 7 rigs in a convoy fail :shaking: they can still do it the old fashioned way.
 
You'd be glad to know that the new armored hmmwv's that our guys use in Iraq and Afghanistan Do have a good hydraulic winch. even comes with a snatch block and "tree strap" in the basic isssue equipment. However, you can count on only about 1% of soldiers knowing how to properly use it.
If it can't get unstuck with a strap and another humv or 2, then it gets a strap and a bigger truck, if all else fails, call a wrecker.

KNowing how to use a winch would seem so basic when your job is to drive a 4x4 truck in some of the worst conditions possible, but it is rarely taught right, or at all. I've seen many cable bound up, ripped from the drum from spooling too much line, or even claiming the thing is locked up, when they only need to select either hi or low, and not both.

Wish i had cable here, oh well, now i have something to look forward to watching when it is replayed this weekend.
 
Hey Dave,
We all get trained in that pulling method. I have not seen it used once. They use Mile Marker Winches. The Marines have guys that are "trained" in recovery. They are pretty good guys. I met a few from Jacksonville, NC that had a lot of cool "tools" from the military. Pullys, shackles, rope, and this cool little tool you just stick about 5 inches into sand that acts as an anchor after it gets pulled down. He used it before he used a tree. Said, "The tree would fall before I moved the entire surface of the earth."
Made Since

EDIT: I guess I should say, "they all get trained in that pulling method." Motor Transport Marines Do.
 
Cool. Well, they are now pulling a ....not sure what that is...out with a 30,000 pound winch through a snatch block. Gonna stop typing and pay attention.
 
jeepercreature said:
Hey Dave,
We all get trained in that pulling method. I have not seen it used once. They use Mile Marker Winches. The Marines have guys that are "trained" in recovery. They are pretty good guys. I met a few from Jacksonville, NC that had a lot of cool "tools" from the military. Pullys, shackles, rope, and this cool little tool you just stick about 5 inches into sand that acts as an anchor after it gets pulled down. He used it before he used a tree. Said, "The tree would fall before I moved the entire surface of the earth."
Made Since
EDIT: I guess I should say, "they all get trained in that pulling method." Motor Transport Marines Do.
Click to expand...

Pull Pal
 
Aggressive1 said:
just seems crazy when the military can probably buy hydrolic Mile Marker winches for pretty cheap .
Click to expand...

The militery does not get anything cheap. Spend a little on govliquidation.com and look at the bottom of the listings at the aquisition value. It will blow your mind what we get to pay for stuff. All those new big michilen tires you see on rigs now cost us over a grand a peice, yet you can go to a gov auction and get a set for nothing, NEW! WTF?
 
Whats up with all the math calculations. Just hook up and pull already.
 
Paying high prices is the military theme. What happens is a department/unit/division asks for a budgeted amount of money. They have to spend it or next year they wont get it. Every goverment contracted company out there knows that the person doing the buying could not care less what they are paying because it is not coming out of there pocket. It is really sad. They Naval Hospital pays about twice as much for a ream of paper than it cost at staples in New Bern. Funny Huh?

Tax dollars get flushed everyday. Even Contractors get paid twice as much as they would building the same thing out in town. It is bad...
 
oh yeah. The same thing goes for the GS employees. The military creates jobs for the retired military. pays them lots of money to do something that a military member does already....we hate these guys in the military
 
As far as military over paying for price a large portion of that is due to the insane contracts they require most companies to sign.

We signed a deal to supply 2500 *widgets* a while to support our efforts in the Middle East. Problem is they are to be delivered over a 3 year time frame (18 months left) and the total can be increased at any time without limit up to production capacity, and we have to give prices AT TIME OF SALE that we GUARANTEE to meet. Then we are legally obligated to supply at those prices. Often with "soft good" manufacturers, these same terms will be stated for 5 or even 10 years. Our prices can fluctuate as much as 15%/month. So to be sure that we dont lose money on a deal 36 months in the future, we have to put a substantial margin. All this is on 1 P.O. and has to be priced identical unit to unit. You end up charging 2x(or damn near) today's cost to ensure you dont lose in the future.

Imagine whatever business you are in and having to guarantee you can seel at [blank] price in 10 years. 4 years ago who would have predicted the copper or stell spikes of the last 24 months.

The gov't does horribly overpay for merchandise, but it is not a fact of not caring or being stupid, it is a product of how the judiciary budgets are handed down.

It is like anything else, If I have to give you a price "right now" I am damn sure gonna be high to CMA if I have a while to work up a quote I can be more accurate.
 
I did a year in Afganistan as A combat engineer, and I tell you what, The terrian that we took our uparmored hummers was insane, couldn't tell you how many times I busted up the hummer and got it stuck. being the driver is sure fun but sux when you are no where near a F.O.B. and you have to spend the time outside the wire untill the Hemmit comes to tow or fix the hummer. fun times. here are some photos
ai179.photobucket.com_albums_w287_battleward1384_P1010416.jpg

ai179.photobucket.com_albums_w287_battleward1384_P1010417.jpg

ai179.photobucket.com_albums_w287_battleward1384_558871087_l1.jpg
 
Holy old post batman! How the heck did you guys break the ball joint on that thing?
 
Easy, my brother will break anything. But truthfully those things are so heavy that the orginal design cant handle all the weight from the armor being added on. Deffintly all the abuse they put those things threw.
 
i spent almost ayear travelling across that country, repairing the dumbass mistakes of somedrivers, with enemy in the area, and in 140* or 20* F temps, and get it done fast/right and NOW. Side of a mountain, or middle of sandy desert. It sucks. I've got hundreds of pics of IED'd, wrecked, rolled, and just plain stuck trucks.


Those up armour trucks have a DRY weight of about 10500 lbs, plus a full payload with crew, equipment fuel, and weapons system, and they are rolling out the gate @ 14k lbs +

All of this in a truck that was originally designed to be 5500-6000 lbs. and powered by an anemic 6.5 detroit diesel and 4L80E.
 
Hey man I am here now and let me tell ya I know what you are saying. I just broke the transfer case in mine. I was a jackass and put it in 4 lo then someone took off with it to go somewheres and sure enough boom. They said that it was making a really bad sound before it let go. Oh yeah now most of these have turbos on them now.
 
Ya the Pic with the Hummer up on the rock, well I was the driver for that hummer but I didn't put it up there. A freakin Afgan National Army soldier did that. They thought it would be funny driving those things, We went on patrol and had a few ANA soldiers guard the hummers. well when we came back they were joy ridding in them and you could see them drag raccing across the valley. and one idiot poped it up on that rock. Needless to say their Platoon Sarge, Was pissed and the rest of the day Those ANA Soldiers had there AK-47's above their head and running up and down the mountains all day long. The recovery of that vehical was a pain, but thankgoodness for the armor underneth the hummer.
 
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