I agree, the Stryker program is not a complete, or even horrible waste, taken alone. Again, beating a dead horse, it has to do with the fact that for all this $$$ we could have just bought off the shelf LAV-25's or so...and replaced Amphib capability with armor if need be. And the Stryker program is, as said, draining $$$ away from other projects that might have a better dividend inthe future, like the M8 Buford...not that I am a particular supporter of that program either.

As for Bosnia, I have spoken with several "vets" of that setup, and with many who have just recently served and are serving now (the most local NG armor unit - Hibbing - 20 miles away- is currently deployed there) and the problem with the Russkies was about how FAT and SLOW they made us look. We may have a chip on our shoulder about moving forces quickly and thus be going a bit overboard on the Stryker stuff...and the tupperware tank too.

Finally, when the C-17 was initially being pitched and promoted, it was set up as a ideal hybrid between the C5 and the C-130...it could do both jobs, especially the delivery to FEBA (which was heavily stressed as a HIGH point, to get the M!'s in quickly). That does not sound like a pure strategic aircraft to me, even if that is how it is used.

As for plastic, look for Italeri to do it. I doubt anyone else would want to, other than maybe Trumpeter. It is not WWII German. Or modern German. Maybe if the German's bought some, then Tamiya would make one.

Scott,




Thanks, I stand corrected.

There is a long list of Stryker gripes and so on. I think the main one is no one imagined Gen. Shinseki's (that BTW is how you spell his name) idea could take so long to come to fruition at such an expensive cost. Gen. Shinseki was sold on the idea by General Motors of Canada only to find that it was a hell of a bear to stuff the Stryker into the C-130.

For the record, some corrections/ clarifications:

* United Defense filed a protest over the "Tracks vs. wheels" debate so it's not a lawsuit per se as I incorrectly said before. The Army had to reevalute the Ft. Knox tests and the tracks vs. wheels idea again and that took many months. Time = money.

* Yes, the Russians made an illegal move, but the fact remains that no LAV ground force could get there to challenge them. Sending Humvees or FAVs might work, but just doesn't look as good as having LAVs challenge LAVs. Just like Desert One, the Americans were caught flat-footed.

* AFAIK, the tests from Knox are still classified. All I know is that of all the 90-105mm MGSs there, they all more or less performed the same from M8 to LAV-600 to Centauro to MGS to Stingray in terms of accuracy and shoot-on-the-move performance. No one won in the MGS category.

* The Special Forces bought the Pandur 6X6 "as is" for their troops. No modifications needed and it entered service way before the Stryker. Yep, Pandur was there at the Ft. Knox competitions, as were a lot of turrets too like DELCO, KIFV, 90mm, Scimitars, etc. So in essence, the Army could've bought an LAV and upgunned it too instead of buying an entirely new LAV and modifying it so much.

I'm not panning the Stryker, but it's clipped so much to reduce weight that some things just don't make sense. And the Stryker is a black hole draining money when it STILL has technical problems.

* The RWS camera is B/W like a dog's vision. The Army said it can't afford to buy color TV cameras for 2,000+ Strykers. So a Stryker gunner can't tell the difference between a white flag or a red flag (exaggeration). Actually, in tests, crew members complained that they couldn't tell enemy uniform color from friendlies. And still the Stryker sucks money, but the Army has no plans to change the B/W TV camera (being interim and all), which was the main complaint from the tests!

* To save weight and make more space, the Army removed the automatic ammo loader mechanism from the Norwegian-made RWS. So to reload, the gunner has to pop out of the hatch, which kind of defeats the purpose of the RWS in the first place. Even if the mechanism is optional, the Army has no intention of buying it to save weight. I guess that's OK since the troops run ahead of the Strykers. But in MOUT...complaints (I'm saying too much here).

* The Strykers cannot swim. Where the propellers are has been replaced by fuel tanks. Hmmm...I don't think the LAV 3 can swim anyway.

* As an APC, let's not forget the Stryker is an APC....so were like 40 other LAVs tested at Ft. Knox too with the others like LAIFV with >20mm autocannons. At $2M per Stryker with so many mods and computers, is this worth it for an APC, or could the Army have gotten a LAIFV like the Wiesel 2 or Pandur or whatever that will definitely fit in the C-130, throw the computers in, and spend more money on other areas to fix it up?

* The Think Tankers/ authors in the defense magazines said the ICBT idea was a very good idea. HOWEVER, I never saw an article as to WHAT LAV they recommended. But then again, they haven't supported or panned the Stryker though. I think there has been some gripes about the MGS though, namely that the other MGSs with turrets are better than the turretless MGS.

* And the MGS is a prototype when the Centauro, Panhard, Ratel wheeled APCs with cannons already exist. So the critics pointed that if Gen. Shinseki wanted RDF, he didn't buy RDF MGS and instead went down the path of developing the MGS. The LPT 105mm can mount in almost any 8X8, let's not forget that. The Low Profile Turret doesn't come with the LAV as one package.

Politics indeed play heavily in the Stryker program.

* Finally, YES, I know of a famous modeler who has solicitated Tamiya and Trumpeter to do a Stryker model a few months ago (he told me). But, NO, without actual blueprints and so on, at least Tamiya is not biting. As for Trumpeter, who knows? I'll keep his name annoymous, but don't think no one is championing the Stryker model cause---or tried to. I guess we're partly to blame because everyone wants an ACCURATE model, right? If not accurate, no company wants to risk getting flamed on the DGs...but that's another post.

The Russians were part of SFOR already in theatre before they stole away to Kosovo. They never told the Div Comd that they were heading out, they just made a decision.

You have to admire they way they cut through NATO red tape, and acted like soldiers, not politicians. I was in Bihac the next day, watching Sky new.. and the BTR's on the airstrip.. we were laughing our asses off at the sheer audacity of the move.

I thought so and thanks Jacques. :-)

Hello
I just got a Stryker pic here in Iraq, check page 6 in my gallery.
Rich

You know -- this is the most civilized conversation on the Stryker I have ever been involved with. Something to be proud of gang!

Also, I have friends and relatives in NASA, Raytheon, and United Defense. You think the kind of politics you see on the news is FUBAR, you should hear the stories they tell of inside-industry lobbying/bartering/and even out and out bribery (no proof so don't ask! :-) ) I am surprised that the entire defense industry has not yet imploded on itself...yeesh.

I also have bought/do buy into the ICBT theory. But the timeline they are using for implementation seems to be more of a "how to keep a contractor happy" rather than getting the equipement as fast as needed.

And finally, to prove the Army loves to screw things up too, in my 6 years of NG duty, during reorganizing I served with 2 Inf Batt. 1 armor Batt, and 3 seperate artillery Brigades ( I was a FO), as well as went from Light Inf to Airborne Assualt (for 2 months!) to Mech Inf, to Armor, and back to Mech Inf. All inside the same building. I also started out using M151A2 Mutt's, then CUCV's, then a M981A1, and finally finished on a M88A1.

No wonder we can't keep things straight... #:-)

Time for a model related post...wheres the 1/35 scale model of it! #:-) #:-) #:-) #:-) #:-)

I was wondering the same, but there doesn't seem to be a 1:35 model of it yet.

Marc

i dont know much about the stryker or any other current US weapons programs,

but one thing that does strike me about US weapons design and procurement is that everything has to be as high tech as possible with you lot, but why?

military history has proved that often the best weapons systems are the simplest and best thought out.

given the USAs considerable military experience in recent years, im surprised they go down the route they do when selecting new weapons.

why concern yourself so much about rapid deployment etc, when modern warfare usually involves bombing the enemy into submission for weeks,(giving ample time for heavy tanks etc to be shipped) before the ground actions start.

surely the problems faced by many troops in iraq at the moment would be lessened if they had well armoured and armed vehicles,

just my opinion

cheers

joe

IMHO, the answer lies in the fact that not every military operation the US is involved in works like OIF - which, as you said, had lots of time to allow for the heavy metal to be shipped over to the combat zone. Oftentimes, like in Somalia, the US needs to flex its muscle quickly - the faster the heavy stuff gets there, the better the chances of resolving the crisis.

Right now the US has only the Stryker in-between lightly-armored humvees and the incredibly heavy M-1 tank and M-2 IFV. Though it has its problems, and some of us believe other systems probably would work as well or better in its place, it's already here and paid for, and definitely provides something between the 2 extremes.

i think the ideal solution to the US armys needs would be a series of vehicles along the lines of the CVRt series.

small, easily air transportable, able to be adapted to take various powerful weapons systems, decent armour protection, fast, manoverable etc,

the only real problem with the british cvrt is its petrol engine, if it had a modern diesel, it would probably be with us for another 30 years!

cheers

joe

Joe,

Just to clear up a couple things...the Styker Program is a reaction to what the US Army faced in the years between Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

If you look at the Operations that took place during that time, they where low-intensty conflicts, mostly of the Peace keeping varity. An Abrams and/or a Bradley dont make for the best vechicles for that type of operations. They are expesive to operate and cause damage to the host countries inferstructure (which tends to PO the Natives) due to their size and weight.

Look at the Blackhawk down situation in Somolia in 1993...if the US Army had the Styker back then, it wouldn't have been nearly as bad as it was. The Operations in Haiti in 1994 would have been alot easier with a wheeled vechicle like the Styker. Both Operations in Bosina and Kosovo would have been alot easier with the Styker since it wouldn't be as hard to transport the vechicles to the country and they would have done less damage to the roads and be cheaper to operate.

Like I said before...the Stryker isn't a replacement for Manuver type units that have the Abrams and Bradley. They can supplement them and get there to "Hold the Line" in a Invasion someplace till they get there. Think of the Stryker as a armored Vechicle for Light and Airborne units and it works...not as a heavy Manuver type vechicle.

As for the US having High tech weapons....well this has been the par for the course as far as I can remember. Just look at Germany and Russia during WW2. The Germans for the most part had better equipment and training and had high kill ratios in Tank Vs Tank engaugements. That was the US thinking in the 70's and 80's vs the Warpac if they ever crossed over the line in West Germany...they wanted higher tech weapons with good training and they could have fought the Soviet's to a stand-stil with their Numerically higher numbers of Vechicles. If you think about the Russians had most of their units still equiped with T-55s during this time and they would have been taken out quicky by a M60 or M1 without any problems...as long as the T-64/T-72/T-80s in smaller numbers where taken out first.

I rather have the edge Techonglicly over my oppentent, since it will be magifed 10x with good training as we saw in Desert Storm and OIF.

i understand your points,

maybe its a case of which vehicle to deploy where,

obviously vehicles like the stryker are better suited to peacekeeping type operations as seen in the balkans, but to deploy them on the streets of baghdad, with daily attacks by well equiped iraqi gunmen is rather stupid in my view.

the CVRt type vehicle i mentioned would IMHO be the ideal bridge between vehicles such as stryker, and the bigger abrams, bradley type big boys

what do you think?

cheers

joe

What about the M113 series...they are inbetween the Hummer and the bradley?

The main point is that the US needed a light/medium level vehicle for peacekeeping operations that needed to fill some UNLISTED specs:

1. It needed to be relatively homegrown. Many people do not like the fact that be buy/build anything out of the USA. The Stryker was MUCH more attractive in the PR area than a off-the-shelf Armored Car that came from Europe or elsewhere.

2. As mentioned, the airforce had (in my opinion) too much say in what the vehicle would weigh (thus what it was capable of). Had the issue of strategic and tacticle level transport started with capabilities of the ground unit rather than the air unit, I think stryker would be more effective, and attractive.

3. Iraq is now a very large weapons testing ground. Stryker is not really being deployed becasue it HAS to be, but because this is a great way to "work out the bugs". Seems heartless, but it is efficient and usefull.

What the Stryker is, a low-intensity security vehicle, is very good and will probably do very well in places like the Balkans. What policy makers seem to be trying to make it do is something that may be, well, less than a good choice.

As for the High tech comments, yup, it is great to have the edge tech wise, it makes you feel superior (in a good way) and allows moral to remain a lot higher in a firefight, especially if your armed forces rely on volunteers and allowing them to think for themselves.

I do believe had we gotten into a conventional war with WarPac in the '80's there would just have been a LOT of dead people...the russkies are just as good as us, lest anyone forget who bore the brunt of the germans in WWII, even after D-day. Not to say they are better, just that we should, even today, keep a nice healthy respect.

Geeze....all i did was take a few pics of a Stryker at the Anniston Army Depot and shared them with my friend Matt and he linked them for all to see.

hehe

i must admit though, its benn one hellava conversation and ive discovered a few links because of the thread.

so....thanks again Armoramaniacs