Stryker Vehicles deploy to Iraq.

[Kirnwaffen]

Word is they go this week. They'll deploy to the Sunni Triangle to replace 3rd Armored Cav. My knowledge of the Stryker system is certainly limited, but my initial thought is "you thought 20 in a day was bad, just wait." What do you all think?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Purple Heart boxes all over again.

The Germans in WW2 and the Soviets have demonstrated the limitations in wheeled AFVs already.

They're also going to likely deploy them in a way to keep them relatively safe to "prove" the way overpriced Stryker concept without having to get into a real hard AFV operating environment.

[axi]

What are the Stryker Vehicles?

[MichaeltheGreat]

They're overgunned, way under-armored, wheeled, virtually road-bound pieces of **** that are the next fetish for the Army, since the wheeled vehicle faction of Chairborne types has won out in influence and political promotion over the traditional "treadhead" tracked vehicle tanker knuckledragger faction.

There's a bunch of variants from infantry carriers to command vehicles to an ambulance to a 105mm anti-tank gun vehicle and several more. The overall weight requirement (which is the limiting factor for armor and a lot of other stuff) is that it be light enough to be transportable by C-130 transport, which is a real tits on a bull requirement.

http://tanxheaven.com/stryker/stryker.htm

This link gives you a zillion up close views of it inside and out.

[Space05us]

whats so bad about it?

[Ted Striker]

well the gun looks bad azz

however that thing looks like RPG-bait big time

[The Mad Monk]

Aw, how kyuoooot.

[Space05us]

how much damage can an rpg do? You hear about them taking down helicopters and slow airplanes all the time, but an AFV?

[The Mad Monk]

An AFV with tires.

[Space05us]

So basicaly its an immobile fort wityh a set of disposible tires?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Space05us
how much damage can an rpg do? You hear about them taking down helicopters and slow airplanes all the time, but an AFV?

RPG's are purpose built to destroy AFVs. If they get lucky and hit an aircraft at all, they can do a huge amount of damage, but hitting is a matter of very close range, low speed, and luck. In the Stryker's case, there's very little A in that AFV. Due to the thinness of the armor, internal electronic systsems, ammo, and fuel tank placement mean that the probability of cookoffs is very high, with 100% fatality rates for the crews in many cases. If these things ever run into real enemy armor, they're way over their heads.

None of that is the real problem - the real problem is that they're wheeled, not tracked, so in soft ground or adverse weather conditions, they're roadbound. That makes them very convenient for mines and ambushes as well, because they'll herd themselves into nice little killing zones in a road column where they can't provide good overwatch coverage, or they'll have to spread out on the road so much that each vehicle is vastly reduced in effective ability to provide supporting fire to it's leading and following vehicles.

And for all that, they're expensive as hell - it'll cost more to outfit six brigades of Strykers than it will to outfit two full heavy divisions, which put a hell of a lot more firepower on the ground and in the air than the Strykers can even dream of, with far less vulnerability.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Space05us
So basicaly its an immobile fort wityh a set of disposible tires?

Line the interior with silk and put a nice gloss on the exterior finish, and you can bury its crews in place without even having to try sifting out a few ounces of their ashes to put in regular coffins.

[Space05us]

who was the genious that invented that. and why would the government deploy them if even you can give a reason not to?

[Alexander's Horse]

hmmm, we've gone to wheeled troop carriers - they make a lot of sense in desert terrain and where large distances have to be covered.

Now what country does that sound like apart from Australia?

[The Mad Monk]

Oh, I can think of at least two...