Secretary Rumsfeld is getting some grief this week for not waving his magic wand and making all Humvees impervious to bad guys by adding armor to them. But I can think of two very good reasons that the up-armored Humvees wouldn't necessarily be desirable....
(The rest of this post was transferred to CommentaryPage.com)
only ambulance Hummers have air conditioning
Why?
For the patients.
Robert,
You misread my question. I was asking why only ambulance Hummers have AC units, not why ambulance Hummers have AC units at all.
I assume because that would add tens of millions of dollars to the cost of the Humvee fleet, for one thing. It would also be one more system to support in the logistics train, and it would also be one more system that would break. Also, increased fuel consumption must have been a consideration as well.
I can't think of any Marine vehicle or aircraft (other than the ambulances) that has air conditioning, come to think of it. Maybe the F/A-18 does.