willysmjeeps.com

Based on my experience with modern US military vehicles, and Ryan can back me up on this, we do that as SOP. It's either done at the unit level or at the BDE (or appropriate) servicing and maintenance motorpool. It's to prevent them from being driven by any unauthorized personnel, military or otherwise at any location. In our case, it helps to keep the average Joe from trying to take it for a ride. But I would imagine any determined thief who knew the vehicle would have a set of bolt cutters handy just in that event. So we are back to the professional vs. the opportunist. Perhaps a hidden motion-sensitive alarm?

Yeah overseas locks are a must, but as whydaver said, determined people can still get things.

On a related story, last spring (2008) in Afghanistan, I was in the Kabul area and one of the FOB's lost 2 Hummers that were assigned to Navy personel.

These vehicles were locked with padlocks on all doors/hatches and parked within the compound of the FOB. (the FOB's are not very big anyway- 2 to 6 football fields in size)

Yes there was a big search and shake down, but according to some of my friends who are still over there, the vehicles have not been found as of last month.