About 2000 miles, that its. At about 2000 miles the tracks have to be replaced. On a Hummer the wheels can last 50,000 miles (and will last at least 20,000 miles). Thus the Hummer WHEELS can travel 10 times the distance of a TRACKs before the wheel have to be replaced.
If we look at fuel economy, a Humvee gets about 14mpg. Please note all Mileage in this thread is based on dividing the "range" of a Vehicle by its fuel capacity. The EPA does actual tests but not on these vehicles. For comparison a Chevrolet truck with the same engine and transmission as a HUMVEE gets an EPA 9 highway, 12 city, most people get less. The numbers used here are for comparison purposes only but once you realized that ALL of the numbers are inflated about 50% the problem is WORSE than it appears just looking at these numbers.
The M113 gets about 2mpg, the M2 Bradley get less than 1.5 mpg, the M1 gets about 1.9 gallons to the mile (Notice I said Gallons to mile, NOT Miles per Gallon, the M1A2's MPG is less than .5 i.e. it uses 1 gallon of fuel for every 1/2 mile it travels).
Thus if you replace 100 Humvees with 100 M113s you have to increase the fuel allotment by a factor of SEVEN (i.e. since each Humvee has a 25 gallon gasoline tank, 100 Humvees means 2500 gallons of fuel). If you want M113s to do the same job as the Humvees you need 17,500 gallons of fuel (Or 15,000 more gallons of fuel than is being used when you filled the Humvees). Now one Tractor-Tanker can carry 15,000 gallons thus for each 100 Humvees you replace with M113s you also need an additional Tractor-Tanker just ot fill up the 100 M113s over what it took to fill up the Humvees. It gets worse if you use M2 Bradley for the factor there is 9.3 (or 23,250 Gallons of Fuel or 1 1/2 Tractor-Tankers of Fuel). For the M1 tank the factor is 28, or 70,000 gallons of Fuel or 4.6 additional factor-trailers of fuel.
Now lets look at maintenance and support. The Typical Army recovery vehicle (i.e Wrecker) is a 5 ton truck. It has more than sufficient power to pullout of any situation any vehicle 5 tons or lighter (10 tons with help from another 5 ton truck). The problem is the M113 is 13 tons, beyond the capacity of the 5 ton Wrecker. Thus you have to go to a heaver line of Wrecker and that is generally tracked (i.e. the M88). Like the M113, M2 and M1, the M88 eats fuel way more than the 5 ton Wrecker. Being tracked it has increased maintenance requirements, but if you go to the M2 Bradley or M1 Tank you MUST go with the M88. Now the M113 can be hauled by smaller wreckers but takes a good bit of work to get the five ton to do the job, thus you end up using the M88 on the M113 (Please note the M88 is considered marginal for the M1 tank, the M88 Series is based on the old M48 Patton Series of Tanks, most of the problems of the M88s have been solve with the Introduction of the M88A2 series).
Thus if you look at the numbers you see that switching from Humvees to Armored Vehicles increases the Fuel usage by a factor of a least ten (7 for use by the M113s and 3 for additional fuel for the Tractor-Tankers hauling the fuel AND increase usage by the Maintenance section when switched to M88s from five ton Wreckers). My guess, and that all it can be for I have NO information on present fuel usage, you can increase that number by a factor of 20 (i.e. 20 times the fuel being used TODAY). The above explains why the US has NOT shipped M113s to replace the Humvees, even up-armoring the Humvees is cheaper than giving the Troops the Armor they need to truly withstand what the Iraqis are throwing at them. Up-armored Humvees will use more fuel, wear out parts quicker and need replacing soon, but that is cheaper than upgrading the units to M113s, given the additional fuel costs, the additional upgrade in support units (i.e. the M88s) and the additional costs of replacing tracks every 2000 miles instead of tires at 20,000 miles (and remember the replacement tracks has to be hauled to the front by additional tractor-trailers given the situation in Iraq).
Specs on M113:
http://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m113.htmSpecs on the M2 Bradley (25 tons, 300 mile range):
http://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m2.htmhttp://afvdb.50megs.com/usa/m2bradley.htmlSpecs on M1 Tank (M1A2, 265 mile range, 69.4 tons, M1A1 63 tons, 275 mile Range):
http://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m1.htmhttp://www.army-technology.com/projects/abrams/specs.htmlhttp://afvid.topcities.com/specs/M-P/m1a1.html (505.3 Gallons of Fuel)
Humvee Specs:
http://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m998.htmEPA Mileage Estimates:
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/byclass.htmHeil Fuel Hauling Tankers:
http://www.heiltrailer.com/catalog_liquidPetroleum.aspxThe M88:
http://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m88a1e1.htm
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