The truck 1/4 ton 4x4 M151 was the only vehicle of the type that I was trained on and used during my time in the Army and Army National Guard. I was trained on the M151 at Ft. Gordon, Ga. as part of Military Police AIT (Advanced Individual Training) most of which was off road, and thought the vehicle very capable and well built. A trainee managed to destroy the transmission in one by putting it in REVERSE and popping the clutch while driving down grade on a dirt road at around 35 miles per hour. I only saw the long oil trail on the road so cannot say for certain what occurred. I was in the back of a vehicle driven by a guy that was a little daft when we came to a really steep (near vertical) grade during field motor march training. An assistant instructor at the top stopped us and said to put the vehicle in some gear and not to use the brake. The trainee driver started down the grade then pushed in the clutch, so the vehicle free-wheeled down the grade and we hit bottom pretty hard and came to a stop. The only thing I remember about it was I was lying on my back with my left leg between the seats, and looking up at the AI at the top. The AI was asking "Are you all right" and the trainee in the passenger seat was yelling for me to get my foot off his hand. I still think I have some residual lower back problems from being bounced around in the back of the vehicle that day.

I didn't have anymore to do with the M151 until a few years later I was a platoon leader in an armored cavalry squadron, and the armored personnel carriers M113 we were training on were replaced by the M151 "Korean" configuration with Machine Gun M60 on a pedestal mount. The platoon leader and the four vehicles in the scout section had these vehicles. The M151 was satisfactory for training purposes, but I would not have wanted to take one into combat as part of an "armored" cavalry unit. The squadron had quite a few of these vehicles in both the armed and unarmed configuration, and it wasn't long before drivers rolled one once in a while. My recollection is vague on this but I think the problem was that the vehicle would roll over suddenly and without warning in a high speed (over 20 MPH) turn.

At annual training I was assigned as the Support Platoon Leader and the M151 I was using was making a noise that didn’t sound good. When I got a break in my missions I sent the driver to the maintenance section to check out the problem. He never got there, the transmission was damaged for lack of lubrication and the vehicle deadlined the remainder of the training cycle. The maintenance section chief got on my case for driving the vehicle with no oil in the transmission, which was amusing to me because he worked full time as the chief of the supporting maintenance shop that was responsible for the vehicle. In any case it was remarkable how many miles/hours the transmission functioned in the sans-lubrication condition.

One of the soldiers in the squadron was into rebuilding (restoring) M151s and traded in them at the time. My understanding is that the government sold M151s at surplus auctions with a disclaimer regarding the roll over danger, and it wasn’t long before someone tried a lawsuit. As a consequence it was ordered that M151 be destroyed and offered as scrap metal. I saw a few of these in a salvage yard that had been flattened by some method and would have taken allot of work to restore. I also heard that there was a "market" for the vehicle data plates for people wanting to get legitimately released M151s, whether disposed of whole or destroyed. I heard that a batch of vehicles, that had some kind of machinery mounted in the rear, were imported from a foreign country, and that they were in pretty good shape.

In later years I was in assignments that involved using M151s for transportation in the field and never had any trouble with them. From my observation and experience the M151 was adequate for purpose except for lack of cargo carrying space. My last unit in the Army Reserve was authorized HUMMVs and I was licensed and from my experience they were an improvement in several ways over the M151. I never had the opportunity to experience a HUMMV off road but was favorably impressed with the stability at road speeds, and cargo carrying capacity.

As with any equipment the design engineering can only go so far, and then operator capability, and maintenance are crucial factors in the success in service of any vehicle. In my experience (more with the M151 than HUMMV) both of the subject vehicles adequate and functional for the tasks that I was involved with.