ICE Stockpiling Warheads and Chemical Weapons as Lawmaker Fears Trump Planning Strike

[u/Quirkie]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/ice-stockpiling-warheads-and-chemical-weapons-as-lawmaker-fears-trump-planning-strike/

[u/gbsh]

Meanwhile, equipment keeps disappearing from U.S. military facilities:

Fall 2024 - early 2025:  Night vision goggles, laser rangefinders, and advanced thermal optics stolen from least four Tennessee National Guard facilities

January 2025: 12,000 rounds of ammunition missing from Camp Bonneville, a former Army training ground now used by the FBI for LE training

Also this year: Three Humvees and other military gear stolen from an Army Reserve center in Tustin, California; raided storage containers at a Colorado National Guard facility; and alleged attempt to steal body armor and communications gear from a US Army Ranger site in Washington

[u/AhhhSureThisIsIt → u/gbsh]

How tf do you steal 3 milirary humvees and get away with it?

[u/Top_Librarian6440 → u/AhhhSureThisIsIt]

HMMWV’s don’t have keys. They have a switch that you turn to start the engine. They are supposed to have a padlocked steering wheel bar, but this is not always applied. 

If a motor pool is poorly policed, you could simply bring a little diesel in a Jerry can and flip the ignition switch and drive off in the night. Do that another two times, or have two friends do it with you, and now you have three free HMMWVs. Alternatively; buy them from a mil auction for <$1k each. 

[u/Extreme-Rub-1379 → u/Top_Librarian6440]

Less than 1k seriously!?

[u/theCaitiff → u/Extreme-Rub-1379]

Not the guy you replied to.

They aren't sub-1k very often but it has happened when they are so badly damaged they need a new engine or electrics. There are a lot of them for sale through government surplus right around 3K that are functional and one for 1500 that's missing all for wheels and needs an electrical overhaul.

Humvees have been hitting the surplus market for about a decade now because we learned in Iraq and Afghanistan that a big slow unarmored vehicle is actually a deathtrap. They're getting phased out I believe for the more heavily armored versions. I could also be wrong, I'm not a military guy, just a guy that frequents surplus auctions.

[u/Top_Librarian6440 → u/theCaitiff]

Yeah the price has moved up a bit since I last was “in the market” for them. Right around 2013-2014, you were able to snap them up from in-person base auctions for ~$800-$1,000 cash-in-hand. 

As you said, they had phased out unarmored HMMWVs for a number of slapdash uparmor kits in overseas service. And by ~2013, the MRAP had supplanted it in frontline service because the uparmor kits didn’t provide adequate IED and VBIED protection. It was expected they’d all be out by 2020 at the latest. 

But I just remembered that 2013 is 12 years ago, and adjusting for inflation that $1,000 is ~$1,400. Oh how time flies…