Posted on 06/12/2015 9:41:40 AM PDT by re_tail20
Between fear of Russia, urgency from the Army, and lobbying from General Dynamics, funding to upgun the Army’s GD-built Stryker armored vehicle has grown 350 percent in three weeks.
In mid-May, the House approved a $79.5 million addition to the administration’s budget request. Yesterday, the Senate, not to be outdone, voted $371 million — four and a half times more. The House Appropriations Committee has actually approved $411 million on Tuesday, but that hasn’t passed the full chamber yet.
Why does Stryker have such momentum? Some of our sources cynically pointed to General Dynamics’ lobbying operation, which is one of the defense industry’s most aggressive, even ruthless. GD publicly took on the Army over the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV) contract when it felt the terms of competition were unfair, and it stealthily tried to get competitor Harris excluded from a critical radio competition.
But in this case the Army itself was leading the charge, with General Dynamics scrambling to keep up. It was the Army that asked the House to add the $80 million in the first place, and it was the Army that then revised its requested figure upwards to $411 million, forcing GD to hastily revise its briefing slides to catch up.
“Unlike in the case of AMPV, General Dynamics is basically doing the Army’s bidding on Stryker,” said Loren Thompson, a well-connected consultant and analyst at the Lexington Institute. “Its numbers match what the service thinks needs to be spent to improve Stryker firepower in Europe.”
That the often-lumbering Army is moving out fast indicates its whole-hearted commitment. “If the Army is ambivalent about something, it can take a long time,” Thompson told me. But when the Europe-based 2nd Cavalry Brigade submitted the original Operational Needs Statement for heavier weapons, he said,...
(Excerpt) Read more at breakingdefense.com ...
How well has the Stryker performed so far?
This is good news. The Stryker has its faults and limitations, but it is fast, agile, and relatively quiet, proving highly effective in Iraq’s chaotic post-war environment. A remote operated 30mm auto-cannon would be a potent addition to the Stryker’s suite of weapons. And with the energetic and reform-minded H.R. McMaster at TRADOC, the Army has the right man in the right place to develop weapons, tactics, and doctrines needed for today’s conflicts.
I do believe the Stryker had to be up armored to stand any chance against RPGs and IEDs. The original armor was only good against heavy machine gun rounds. If you see pictures of Stryker’s in Iraq they have a metal cage around them to detonate RPG rounds before they hit the vehicle itself. The up armoring and now adding more firepower shows the deficiency of the original idea of the vehicle as maximizing strategic mobility and making up for the lack of armor/firepower with computer power.
The Stryker will now be upgraded into an Abrams
Between every conflict mobility and fire power become more important than armor. Armor returns when the bullets start to fly.
We need more A-10s!
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