Looking at the OIF Strykers I notice that it appears that the guard protecting the light clusters is removed. The bar I am referring to can be easily seen in Gary's posting. Is this due to the "birdcage" armor? Are these bars in place on the latest edition of the Stryker without the slat armor?

slat was originally put on in kuwait, it was the first order of buisness. that being said. 3/2 and 1/25 used the same strykers, 172 brought their own and took them home. 3/2 brought the strykers they picked up (from 1/25)when they returned to Fort Lewis from their first deployment.

Deuce 4 used the punisher symbol.

i received 2 replacement strykers in country with slat already on them. right off of the plane. as a note, the slat upgrade also includes a plate armor upgrade.

the original light brush guard is a standard piece on the stryker. it is removed when the slat armor is put on and the lights are moved.

We lost ours somewhere in the thick stuff. When it was brought up our instructor said "well, you must have graduated..."

The decal deal is really screwball. You can have RVs in an IN BN, but no ICVs in a RSTA Squadron. Why they chose to include those I couldn't guess.

I am interested to see what those wee little decals are...

And not to be a rivet counter.... but the armor tap point bolt heads seem big. It might be the photo, but they look smaller than the trumpeter ones.

I am glad to see the periscopes are molded clear, as well as the lights.

2 things AM companies should offer up... (besides interiors and slat)

The Strut covers...BIG difference, and sets of tires/wheels representing the different CTIS settings.

I can see this is gonna be a LONG running thread LOL Well, I was doing some research on this last night and noticed this wxtra rear armor on the Stryker. Look close above where the rear door / ramp is. My guess is this is used to sheild the rear infantry from small arms fire from the rear.



but, my question is "is this part of the armor upgrade?" Also, is this on all Stryker ICV's? And does anyone have any better pictures of the armor upgrade. I have seen a couple of people attempting to scratch the slat armor with varying degrees of success, but do we really have enough info to successfully reproduce the slat upgrades??? Sorry to make this complicated! LOL

Gary

Gary, I assume when you are asking about the shield above the rear ramp you are looking at a slat Stryker. These are blast shields that have now replaced the sandbags soldiers were using to protect themselves in the crew exposed position (I think the Army calls it something different these days, something with 'nametape' in it, indicating the chest area and above is exposed). This has been in the last year or year and a half.

The blast plates that are part of the "armor upgrade" are sort of a stand-off armor that lays on some U channel steel that is placed on the top edge of the side hull and at the bottom edge of the side hull, and then the stowage/bustle racks are replaced over top of them. The right side blast plate runs the length of the vehicle, and the left side is just on the rear portion, but a third kidney shaped plate is near the driver side too. Here's an example of the left side plate (sorry for those who have seen this before):



Here is an example of the right side plate going all the way down the vehicle:



Here is an example of some of the bolts underneath the plate to give more of an idea of the space between the hull and the blast plate:



Of course these bolts do not need to be depicted, but again, it is illustrative of the space between the hull and plate.

Then don't forget about the louvers sections which are not all the same size when it comes to their "subsections," and many are at angles since the side of the hull becomes pointier as you get to the front of the vehicle. Then some of the louver sections are hinged to allow access to hatches and the front part of the winch.

No doubt about it, the slat package is complicated.

Bob

Sorry Rob, I put up the post and forgot the pic! LOL Its there now. Yeah, you know what I was referring to anyway. Is there a front and side panels to that sheild or just the rear? This is going to be one complicated vehicle to reproduce with Additional armor now added to the list! Thanks for the info!

Gary

There can be. I am not sure there is in this photo; it does not appear there is any side panels, but there is so much stuff there it is hard to tell. There is a design for the squad leader hatch to be surrounded by panels too. Earlier, when sandbags and Kevlar rolls were used, the squad leader, many times, would put Kevlar plates from IBA vests in front of his position. I have seen tankers do this on 3rd ID M1A1s too in the initial invasion.

I want to stress that much of the above is unit specific stuff, as well as time specific. I would not want to paint a broad brush with much of this ad-hoc stuff (blast shields tend to be universal though since they are a manufactured item).

Bob is absolutely right, prior to the manufactured rear blast shields, turret shields, ICV VC Shield depicted in the picture. everything was crew specific and loosely unit dictated. which was nothing more than scrap plate armor, sand bags, and kevlar blankets if you could get them.

the slat upgrade plate armor is not part fo the crew protection armor shown in that picture. as i get pictures taken i will show them here.

Just saw that the PMMS review is up

http://www.perthmilitarymodelling.com/reviews/vehicles/afvclub/afv35126.html

[quote][quote]


Gary, I assume when you are asking about the shield above the rear ramp you are looking at a slat Stryker. These are blast shields that have now replaced the sandbags soldiers were using to protect themselves in the crew exposed position (I think the Army calls it something different these days, something with 'nametape' in it, indicating the chest area and above is exposed). This has been in the last year or year and a half.


something with 'nametape' in it,

Gary, it is nametape defilade.

I don't see a post from Vinnie. Am I missing something?

James and Cary, I suggest you remove that link from your post if you don't want to be banned

No-one's going to be banned. However, links to that 'site' are not welcome

Here's the Hotlink to Terry's Review though:

http://www.perthmilitarymodelling.com/reviews/vehicles/afvclub/afv35126.html

Mr Branigan was warned numerous times about coming over here to peddle Military Modeling. His comment was deleted and he is no longer welcome here as I am tired of his juvenile antics. I am already on the record for this several times now stating this and here is goes again; I am not going to allow Magicalia, Military Modeling, or any of their staff or agents to use this site as a marketing platform. They are a multi-million dollar/pound commercial entity and pay their staff decent money to work full-time to maintain their sites. On the other hand I make enough money from this site to attend a few modeling shows, buy a macro lens for my camera, and pay for other expenses like shipping and web hosting (and have to work a regular full-time job as well). And the other staff here earn no pay.

I am sure it will interest some of you to know that at one point the powers at Magicalia were rumbling about offers to buy Armorama. They wanted to get the domain and the forum but were not interested in keeping any other aspect of the site. They just wanted the forum to help drive the new MilMod site to quicker popularity. In essence they would have simply chucked Armorama in the long run just to gain usership. Their actual offer never materialized after Vinnie's departure however and to be honest I am glad. They probably would have offered something embarrassingly low anyhow. And if they had offered my something that my wife would not let me refuse (hehe), it would have been the end of this community as we know it.

I don't begrudge the support for Mr. Branigan by his readers that for all intent and purpose started (and some ended) their association with this site during his time here. However I do think they are being somewhat biased in their opinions about this site. From a staff perspective (for Armorama) things have dramatically improved here. Ask any non-biased member and they will tell you so (as I hear it from them daily). This site is running along just as strongly as it was before and we are still setting record amounts of user interaction (450GB of bandwidth for March!).

There are no sour lemons here and for the most part I have been quiet about the whole affair. Well till now anyways.

Cheers,
Jim

Thanks for clearing that up, Jim. I for one didn't know what was going on wrt VB. Now I am enlightened!

Jim C

Well Staphjim, that was very enlightning, i only wish i had been able to read VB's comments to compare notes.

Thanks for not selling us out and listening to SWMBO.

"There's a special place in yer heaven waiting for ya James."

Just an observation though...the "pigs" never messed with you like this. Not where it was a financial thing anyways.

VB filled a spot when one was needed to be filled. My friend from "Down Under" could have filled it much better though.

I love this site. I thank you Jim Starkweather.

And I am a fan of the Stryker in 1/35.

Did everyone see Charles' LAV III? Wow, what a build.

be cool all...

kglack in alabama

I hate to talk shiite behind peoples backs, but IMHO, when Vinny was here, Vinny kind of "took over" here. Being a modern armor guy, it was somewhat dissapointing that everything on the home page was ww2 axis stuff for a while. Now that Vinny is gone, I see lots of good new change, fresh ideas, and more things to my interest. The models on dipslay seem to change faster with more variety to the subject matter too. Dont get me wrong, I have nothing against Vinny, he was cool, and he put a lot of work into this site, but honestly, I do like this site better now that he is gone. Good job as always Jim, keep up the great work!

Gary

what I really enjoy is the wealth of photos made available on the stryker. Including the ones from Perth. I have a whole folder full of detail shots - now just to find some time to build.