Pics courtsey of Kglack!!

Thanks guys... Interesting that this has reverted back to the (bright) white interior. (?)

can anyone give any info on this vehicle,

this is the first time ive seen one

cheers

joe

Looks like another variant of the LAV.

Yes, it is the latest version of the LAV, called the LAV Generation III. It is being fieldid in the US Army to make our forces more mobile and more rapidly deployable. It is generally disliked by the troops because of light armor and light firepower, heaviest it carries is an M-2 .50cal.

Great photos Matt. Any idea wherre they were taken? Looks like it is straight from the assembly line. Highbury complex in London perhaps?

...a MOWAG LAV Gen III. Now called the 'Styker'.

to HeavyArty: I believe they carry more firepower than that.

to greatbrit: It's a vehicle that has become 'controversial' because of a number of things...air transportability, armament, armour protection, blah, blah, blah....

Thx for the pics....great ref for interiors. And I agree.....back to white huh?

I think that's to offset the potential for claustrofobia.

Tread.

Treadhead,
No, believe it or not, largest armament on them is a remotely sighted .50 cal., can also mount a MK19 grenade launcher too. There is a Mobile Gun System with a 105 cannon that is still in the planning stages. Like I stated, they are disliked because of this, among other things. We had the one of the first Brigades(2nd BDE, 25th ID) of them here at the National Trainig Center, Ft Irwin, CA a few months ago. They didn't do too well in the desert terrain. They are currently deployed in Iraq.

Yeah, it is pretty controversial - there's a lot of gossip and rumors flying around about the thing on military (real steel) discussion forums.... can't blame them either, the US army would IMHO be better served by air-transportable light tanks (they had one called an M-8 AGS in the works, but it was cancelled), and the M-113s they already have....

BTW, I remember reading some threads on another site about how General Shinsheki (sp?), some high-up official in the US Army (not sure of rank), was planning to eventually replace most or all of the Army's tanks with Strykers or a similar vehicle. For the sake of the US Army, I hope these rumors are untrue....

Guys, if you want more walkaround photos of Stryker, visit the Gallery section of my web page:
http://vodnik.net/index_gal.htm

(Those photos are hosted on a painfully slow web server, so some patience is required... Sorry, I ran out of space on my main server.)

Regards,
Pawel

Kglack took them @ the Anniston Army Depot

This is not correct. The purpose of the Stryker is to give the rapid deployment forces more mobility, fire power and survivability during the early stages of a conflict. Currently, when the airborne drop in, they get there quickly but in essence are infantrymen on the ground with small arms and boots to get around.

The heavy armor takes too long to get there in any sufficient numbers. Until then, the light fighters are "out there flapping." The Stryker Brigade Combat Teams (SBCT) is designed to get there in brigade force in a matter of days. While the Stryker is not as survivable as a Bradley, it is more survivable than a uparmored HMMWV. Also once the 105mm equipped version is fielded (if), it will give the medium fighters a better chance against enemy armored vehicles and bunkers.

The Strykers are not meant to take the place of tanks. It is to give the light guys a better chance to survive the early stages of battle. The current heavy force, light force and the new Stryker medium force may someday be merged into an "objective force". The Army wants this "objective force" to be as rapidly deployed as the airborne, but as lethal and survivable as the current heavy armor force. Only time will tell if they are heading in the right direction.

Is this by any chance one of those Strykers in Iraq?

Hello
That picture is of me and a BTR-60.
I was just in Mosul yesterday, the majority of the Strykers are based there. My camera was acting up so did not get any pictures. I saw a anti-tank version with what I think was a TOW system, a 50cal version and MK19 version. The vehicles are extremely quiet. All the ones in Iraq also have the supplemental armor to defeat RPG, this armor makes the Stryker very wide, causing problems on the roadways.
Rich

Just to add a point of interest. the Canadian Army will have several variants as well but referred to as the LAV III. the APC variants are all in service. We will be getting an Engineer variant, very similar to the US Army Stryker Engineer, TUA, MGS and a thing called the Multi Mission Effects Vehicle MMEV. Essentially a LAV III with the ADATS turret on it. Lots of dicussion up here as well, since we are retiring our Leopard tanks without replacing them with a tank. At least there are another five things to build models of.

I think the rumor about replacing Heavy armor with Strykers comes from 2 different directions:

1. The Canadian Military is SUPPOSEDLY going to replace all their Leopards with the 105mm version of the Stryker (LAV III). This may have fed into the "rumor Mill".

2. the heavily discussed "tupperware tank" IS supposed to replace heavy armor inthe future...of course it is still onthe drawing board, but the idea is to have a MBT that has all the capabilities of the M1 but with a weight making it capable of transport via the C-130. Really.

I think these two discussions have gotten intertwined with the entire Stryker debacle. These seem to be vehicles that had good potential in thier given role, but have succumbed to being a round peg stuck in a square hole...and then there is the politics...

There really is a tremendous amount of confusion regarding the Stryker Program.

1) No.one has ever envisaged the replacement of the MBT with the Stryker. Both perform different roles. Stryker would be deployed in Low-Intensity warfare operations against militia type forces. With the variants (existing and on the drawing-board) they would with, the correct air-support and troop deployment, fulfil this option admirably.

2) With point 1) in mind, this is why the basic design criteria was their ability to deploy using C-130s. C-130 is (as people should be aware) a TACTICAL transport, unlike the C-17, while used in a tac. role in Iraqi, is primarily STRATEGIC. This is not simply a question of semantics.

3) Since CentCom was first established, development of light/easily deployable forces has been a high (and correct) philosophy within the U.S. military. Stryker for me is a vital component of what will inevitably be the future operations of commands such as CentCom. A lot of armchair strategists have been constant in their attacks against Stryker. Stryker was developed to fit a need within the armed forces not, as some of the more hysterical elements have described it, as a mission designed for a system.

Sorry to be so 'Bolshie' over Stryker, I am a strong defender of it , it's a bit sad when every new system has to run the gauntlet of ill-founded criticism. Gentlemen please...We are not politicians.... ..Jim

Hey Jim,

while I agree that the Stryker, and Centcom, have their place, the whole discussion of the Stryker falls on your point #2. Stryker does not fullfill the "transportable by C-130" as it was envisioned by the drafters of the vehicle requirements. Although it is a good system with future potential, it has, in this one respect, failed.

And since it is a major project within Centcom's "light" thinking, it is a pretty spectacular failure. I think this is why it goes beyond "working out the bugs" to a more political discussion.

My personal feelings are that the airforce should not be allowed to dictate the terms of future vehicle developement because they do not want to invest in a new aircraft design that would be more capable. Eventually the whole fleet of C-130's will have to be retired...then what?

SO, just to make it clear, I personally do not dislike Stryker because of any general feeling, or because I do not like the envisioned "light-lethal-quick" philosophy of Centcom, but because the stated objectives of the vehicle were not met even though the competition had a vehicle that did meet the requirements. Thus a pure discussion of system capabilities becomes one of politics and favoratism...of which I hate to discuss.

Yo Jaques, this is why I love this site! Yeah, there are about 3-4 variants which could just about be transported in a C-17 (non TAC Transport However, the dominant 'philosopher' within the current CentCom thought is probably USMC, we are within a different ball-game...I dunno, perhaps we should start a Stryker Philosophy Corner.... I bet we would get a response. Stryker is not my Ideas, nor Sabot's nor yours...it is getting an awful lot more complex than that. Whether i thas any practical modelling applications is of course another question.... Jim

Yeah thats the biggest achilles heel that the Army faces...they are faced with developing a 20 ton tank or so that can only fit into the C-130. If the Air Force had a Tactical transport that could haul 30-40 Tons, the Army could develop a lighter MBT that would more capable and have less trade offs in the armor department

Oh, that Hercules will be around for another 50 years.... Juliet has only been in production for a year or two.




But wasn't the main reasoning behind the development of the C17 to give the Air Force an oversized strategic and tactical capability combined? (Also to be a C141 replacement.) The Globemaster has demonstrated excellent rough-field capability to deliver M1-- MBTs right up to and on the FEBA and it did so exceptionally well in Northern Iraq.

But then there are the costs and associated risks of the C17 being subject to AAA small arms fire but, I do hope that the Air Force gets all the C17s that it needs/wants. Heavy Airlift has always been in short supply.

It isn't supposedly, The decision has already been taken. the Leopards are being retired, and we are not getting an MBT to replace it.

People forget the controversies over the Stryker and like to talk about the actual LAV, but forget the IDEA, HISTORY, and TIMELINE behind the Stryker.

What I'm saying below is nothing new since I've said it many times before on the DGs.

#1: The Russians drove their BTRs and siezed Pristina airport in Bosnia before any NATO armor in strength landed. Of course the US was red in the face because with the BTRs sitting on the tarmac, no plane could land!

#2: The ribbon bridge over the river in Bosnia took such a long time to set up and send our M1s and M2s over one at a time. And by the time they got there, they were so stuck in the mud that they often had to be left behind and the GIs had to hop into unarmored Humvees and trucks. So the US Army was red in the face again.

#3: The AH-64s proved to take 30-45 days to set up before they could be effective to hunt Serbian armor. Sure the Humvees can go anywhere, but so can Toyotas and Fords with MGs in the back. So the Army was red in the face yet again and the newspapers had a field-day about the AH-64 Apache turning out to be high-maintenance.

#4: The US Army dropped out of the USMC LAV idea for RDF in the 1980s because during the Cold War, the US Army didn't want LAV hulks littering the European battlefields in WWIII. So the USMC bought the LAVs and the US Army opted for Humvees and M3s with a gap between the M113 and M2/3 in terms of armor protection.

So Gen. Shinsheki came up with the Stryker idea as a lesson to Bosnia's problems of rapid deployment.

So why the controversy? Well, the Army invited like 50 foreign LAVs to Ft. Knox to compete and tested the bolts out of them. And the results? And the results? And the results? Let's see those test scores again because, gee, the Army can't seem to make up it's mind!

The thing is, almost any off-the-shelf LAV at Knox could've satisfied the LAV/ RDF concept. But the Army stalled and instead of looking into the book , decided to modify the LAV 3. Well, golly gee, why not Bionix or KIFV/ AIFV, or Striker, or Bv 206S, or Stormer, or LAV-300? To invite 50 AFVs from like 25 nations to Knox and and then still not come up with a fast decision is totally because that test went on for YEARS on end!

So that's one controversy. The "wheels vs. tracks" became another. So the Army went back to the and because it couldn't figure out if it wanted wheels or tracks although it tested the bolts out of both concepts at Knox.

THEN the Army chose wheels over the M113 => MTVL track conversion idea and awarded the contract to General Dynamics LAV. Luckily, no foreign competitor sued for the "Made in the USA/ N. America" concept. But United Defense sued in the "wheels vs. tracks" debate, thinking the Army was biased towards wheels from the very beginning. So that's another controversy, which took a long time to clear the courts.

The THIRD controversy is that the Stryker MGS lost to the M8 AGS way before the idea for the ICBT formed, hence one reason why United Defense sued. So the MGS is the actual loser and the Army bought the loser, after judging it a loser in its own tests. The loser literally became the winner now. The death of the M8 AGS killed the idea of putting LOSAT on an armored AGS chassis so LOSAT went to UNarmored Humvees!

The FOURTH controversy comes from Think Tankers, some who believe the US Army is rushing with the 20-ton wheeled idea too far---just like General Custer and his men rushing in to get slaughtered. That's some Think Tankers' fears anyway. In fact, the same applied to the AAV7 with its .50 cal in the 1980s. Armchair Quarterbacks moaned that the .50 can't do much and the AAV7 lacks organic firepower, hence the UGWS with the 40mm in lieu of the .50cal. Now the USMC EFV AAV7 replacement has the 30mm cannon.

The FIFTH controversy is that after the book so much, the Army found that it cost more and took longer to field the Stryker than planned. To fit in the C-130, the turret has to be removed and the suspension customized to lower. (The turret removal was also to allow for more troops because from the beginning, the Army wanted an APC, not an IFV). Remember, the Stryker is INTERIM to bridge the gap until the FCS program comes around in 2010. BUT with 9/11 and the War in Iraq, the FCS may die stillborn, or be pushed to 20## because no money to finance it. And spend all this money for a new 20-ton FCS? That's crazy considering that around 50 20-ton AFVs were tested at Knox in the first place! So why reinvent the wheel again?

The SIXTH and HUGE controversy is that $$$ is literally being drained from other Army programs to push this Stryker project through. And this is supposed to be INTERIM? Is the Stryker so important as to rob Peter to feed Paul? Apparently, the Army thinks so and the Stryker got to the top of the food chain. Ironic when this *L*AV concept is not at the top of any AFV ladder.

The SEVENTH HUGE controversy is that a C-130 can't fly very far with the Stryker, which weighs 18 tons. To get it to fly at ranges the Army wants, it has to be 16 tons and there's no way to trim the weight without making it a sitting duck once it rolls off without fuel or ammo. The Stryker is still too fat. One of the requirements was for the Stryker to roll off and be ready to fight. Ehh...so much for that idea!

And finally, NATO with the European Airbus cargo lifter is moving to wheeled MAVs in the 30-40 ton range and with heavier armor and armament because the Airbus can lift that weight far. The US Army still looks so far behind with its LAV Stryker. 14.5mm AP protection is old now...25-30mm protection is "in."

So after all the and all the tests and all the problems, the Army kind of looks #:-) with the Stryker.

I bet the Russians never imagined what a coup they caused when they siezed Pristina airport because it's costing the US mega-billions to copy the idea to get eight wheels and a machine gun like the BTRs (but with 14.5mm AP protection) when NATO is spending millions to move above and beyond this because NATO has this LAV-type for years already. Crazy...

Peter

OK. Well said. So when can we expect it in 1/35 scale?

Pete,

Your totally wrong on this fact. I was part of first wave of Troops sent into Bosina in December 1995/January 1996. Here goes my Story:

1st Armored Divison was to deploy to Bosina starting in December. The Airborne unit out of Itaty came in to Secure Tulza airbase and other points IIRC. The Division Cav unit, 1/1 Cav was embarked on a Train to goto Bosina (how they where supposed to get incountry I'm not sure), but some where between Germany and Bosina the train got "lost" or misdirected from the story I heard. My Company...C Company 4/12th Inf (M) gets the call to deploy to Tulza Airbase via Ramstein AFB. We cleaned out our Bradleys, M113's and trucks so we can get the Certified to fly on C-17's and C-130s. It took about week or so to get the whole company down there, but we also got iced in at the airbase for a couple days. They Flew in A company of my Battalion also, and my memory is shot if they did it to the rest of the Battalion also.

We had NO PROBLEMS what so ever getting around Bosina. I know where was some complants of us eatting the roads up since the Track pads on the Bradleys where wore down after a couple months.

Pete, In reguards to your BTR Comment...the Russians moving into Kosovo was an illegal act on their part. They never told NATO that they where going to do that and there was some stories curicluation on the net that they might have been trying to hide something at the airbase that they went too. The Brits who where Orginally supposed to occupie the Airbase nearly came to blows with them from what I've read. They also had BMD's that they drove, at the airbase, which is a pretty neat airborne vehicle that weighs in at only 7-8 Tons and is fully tracked.




Well the C-17 is a great Airlifer (got my one way ticket to Bosina on one ) , but the Problem is that its considered a Stragtic aircraft not a Tactical one like the C-130. Theres something like 200 C-17s IIRC and a couple hundred more C-130s...the AF rather lose a C-130 Vs a C-17due to cost and what not.

Yes the Styker Program is very Polical, I'll agree, but its not a total waste.