Replies

Am I the only one who looks at a Stryker and identifies BTR-60?

I am all for mobility, and I wish those fine troops the best, but can somebody tell me what a Stryker can do that some variant of the LAV could not?

Back in the 1970's the Soviet Airborne had motorized rifle regiments mounted in air droppable BMD Infantry Fighting Vehicles, with fire support provided by ASU-85 self-propelled assault guns. That was 30 years ago and our Airborne is going to war in GAC's.

I think it is a good thing that we have to go to the other side of the world to get to the bad guys, but how we get there affects how fast we go and what we can take with us. I'm a Stryker skeptic. I wonder if it is just too big and heavy and hard to maintain. Wouldn't we be better off to give the light infantry and airmobile and airborne armored HUMMV's and ATV's and Chenoweth's and an air-droppable Sheridan replacement, and give the Marines more M1A2's and the amphibs to haul them?

Seems to me what we need instead of Strykers is an amphibious armored cavalry regiment.

Your LAV question is relevant. LAV III's were used as surrogate training vehicles for the (then) IBCT at Ft. Lewis. Stryker vehicle has no turret (other than the MGS variant which won't be fielded unitl later this decade...)
The whole "vehicle will get killed by tanks" arguement is a canard. It was not designed to go against tanks (that is why we have tanks...), but is designed to get the Infantry to the objective quickly, with some measure of armor protection. The guts of the vehicle are what is supposed to be "new and improved". Whether the digital technology will work remains to be seen. When it does work, it is impressive. Guess we'll find out shortly. And, I suspect we'll get an answer to whether or not it will survive a mine strike or an RPG ambush.
What the BDE has, that no one in the media ever talks about is an additional infantry battalion of over 400 soldiers...that is three infantry battalions and a Cavalry Squadron that the BDE CDR has to play around with (patrolling, kicking in doors, etc...) and each unit has snipers and other toys most regular infantry units don't have. The unit was really built for these types of fights, so this should be a decent test of whether or not the army is on the right track. There are 5 other brigades waiting to be fielded after this one.
regards,

Am I the only one who looks at a Stryker and identifies BTR-60?

No, I see BTR-60 too. Or a BTR-80. Or that German thing, I believe it was the Spahpanzer Luchs. And, of course, the LAV-25. Or the old Czech OT-64. Can you say, "Friendly Fire?" I knew you could.

In responce to your post #5, this Stryker is what the officers in charge of procurment called for. This is a cooperative development from the ground up.

We at General Dynamics have watched as army and marine officers have monitered and given input in all stages of development.

In other words, they asked for it.

There is no substitute for a tank, and the Stryker is just another case of the Army designing a square peg to fit a round hole. Plus, Strykers are sure to shot up by our own guys mis-identifying them as BTR's.

The solution of the whole problem is not waste time and money trying to develope IFVs. We need to develope fast, drive-on, drive-off sealift that can load and deliver a heavy armored division to any coast in the world at the same speed a carrier task force can deploy. Our big deployment problem isn't that our tanks are too damn big, it's that we don't have adequate sea-lift, and the Navy doesn't like spending money on transportation/non-combat ships.