Stryker Assault Vehicle: What were they thinking?

[jmowreader]

The Army has long had a problem teaching vehicle identification. I could heap blame on any number of things, from the poor quality of the training aids to combat arms commanders preferring to train things that "look like training" to a general who just might come by. (Incidentally, I could write the same rant about communications, first aid, or anything else that doesn't involve directly engaging the enemy.)

Why am I complaining? This is a Stryker Assault Vehicle, equipped with the "slat armor cage" that is required because the newest armored vehicle in the inventory can't stop the oldest antiarmor round in use in the world today.



Now this is a Soviet BTR-60, one of the most common personnel carriers out there...



Its follow-on was the BTR-70...



The series ended with production of the BTR-80...

(if you know where I can buy one of these, let me know; drivers in Fayetteville can't see red Volkswagens, they can't see gray Hondas, so I figure if I get one of these and paint it Traffic Stripe Yellow or Home Depot Orange with Reflective Beads, I should be okay.)

At this point you're thinking, "hey! Those things look quite a lot alike!" Indeed they do. Too much alike, in fact.

In 1992 I went to Fort Stewart for a field exercise. It was lots of fun and good training besides. At the end they sent us to the 24th ID's wash rack to remove the Georgia clay from our vehicles; the Air Force didn't want it falling into their airplane and I didn't want to take it back to Fort Drum. On the other side of the wash rack was a company of these...



This is the Marines' LAV-25. Well, here I am shooting the shit with the company commander while my vehicles were dripping dry and his guys were still scrubbing. The subject turned to fratricide. He told me he lost three vehicles in Desert Storm because "dumb-ass Army boys" (his words) kept shooting at his vehicles. He lost no lives, but brought only seven intact vehicles back to Camp Lejeune.

Hint: if your vehicle looks like the enemy's vehicle, it will draw fire from both sides.

[kalian]

1. Its not just an issue of mis-identification....

its also an issue about placing LIGHT armored vehicles in an
URBAN environment...
Sorry...steel coffins on wheels.

[jmowreader]

10. This is a stupid thing to do...

because the enemy can drill holes in them.

Unfortunately, the Army has this weird habit: it buys aluminum vehicles, which are designed to be light, then starts loading crap onto them until they go over the Air Force's weight limit for the C-130. After the AF kicks it, they pare away equipment until the vehicle barely makes weight.

Aluminum has a neat attribute: it's flammable if you get it up to the ignition point, which an RPG will do.

Tell ya true, I'd have been much happier (as would have been the troops) if they'd have made these things out of two layers of half-inch steel spaced about an inch and a half apart. That will stop small-arms fire, RPGs, anything little. Now, serious AT rounds like TOW and Javelin will not be deterred, but the idea here is to keep the bad guys from drilling holes in the vehicle with a $19.95 round.

[amandabeech]

14. Flammable Aluminum

Didn't the British navy have some problems with too much aluminum in their ships during the Falklands war? Same idea--to save weight. I seem to remember that the Argentinians shot exocets into the superstructure, which then caught on fire and killed people while also doing a lot of structural damage.

Amanda

[rumguy]

2. I can't believe they have to put an armor cage around it

Wow - does the cage protect against RPG's?

[kalian]

3. Technically....yes....

the theory: will prematurely detonate the RPG's warhead. Of course,
if the RPG has a "tandem warhead" configuration...it makes no
difference what-so-ever...

[amandabeech]

5. Strykers are now on patrol in Iraq

Check out this story in the Tacoma News Tribune:


Pair of Stryker Vehicles Come Under Fire in Iraq

1/31/2004 by Michael Gilbert

The Army's new Stryker vehicle had its first combat encounter with a rocket-propelled grenade Friday.

The round struck the front of the vehicles above its slat armor cage, cutting a hose inside the engine compartment. The vehicle commander suffered a superficial cut near his nose, officials said.

<snip>

Depending on the type, RPGs are capable of boring through a Stryker's armor and spraying hot shrapnel all around the interior of the vehicle.

Friday's strike didn't answer the question of whether the slat armor will work as advertised and diffuse the impact of the RPG before it strikes the body of the vehicle.


Lots more, but you get the drift.

These things sound about as safe in Iraq, home of the RPG, as the British Navy's "battle cruisers" were in the WWI Battle of Jutland (if I recall correctly). The British convinced themselves that the lightly armored battle cruisers would stand up in battle just as well as the heavily armored battleships. Ordinary German naval guns blasted them out of the water with great loss of life.

ARGH!

Amanda

[rumguy]

7. "spraying hot shrapnel all around the interior of the vehicle"

fucking-a

[amandabeech]

8. Really brings it home, doesn't it.

rumguy--

I would like to know:

1) Who came up with this wonderful vehicle in the first place; e.g., which defense contractor(s) located in which congressional district(s)?

2) Who had the brilliant idea of putting these things in Iraq, particularly without complete and independent testing of the slat apparatus?

Whoever did the latter in particular does not, IMHO, care too much about our troops.

I can guess the general type of individual who would do this, but I sure would like the particulars.

Amanda

[jmowreader]

11. Idea good, execution bad

The bad guys have had wheeled APCs for decades. They are just the thing for pavement, because tires are good on asphalt and tracks are Not.

What, besides the fact it looks like something from the USSR, is wrong with Stryker is the overabundance of technology on the machine. They got some weird ceramic armor that's supposed to be ultra light weight yet invincible. Problem is, the stuff they approved and the stuff on the Stryker are different, and the issue armor doesn't stop RPG rounds. Make the vehicle from two 3/4" spaced steel plates, and suddenly you don't have to worry about RPG-7 rounds.

[Beaker]

4. optimal designs are often similar.

look at a lot of the cars on the road today(moreso several years ago)...when they use the wind tunnel and computators to help come up with the most aerodynamic design, they all start looking very similar.

same with military vehicles- there's always going to be an optimal design for the specific purpose.

[jmowreader]

9. There's a reason for the BTR to have eight wheels...

but not the Stryker.

The BTR-60 (means "infantry transporter (bronetransportr), first issued in 1960") has two 90-horse gasoline engines mounted in the rear of the hull. One engine drives each set of four wheels--left engine, left wheels; right engine, right wheels. On a vehicle with a front-mounted engine you can open up the whole back of the vehicle as a door. The BTR's rear engines don't give you this option, so they put the door between the front pair of wheels and the rear pair. (On a -60 it's above the beltline; the -70 has it between the wheels below the beltline; the -80 has a "clamshell" door that you can see in the photo I published of it. And in case you're wondering, no one liked the -70's doors; it was too easy to get pulled into a wheel when unloading the vehicle on the move, and a few troops did.)

The Stryker's engine is in the front; there are no side doors on it like there are on the wheeled BTRs. Hence, no need to use an eight-wheeled design.

There are other wheeled APCs. The first one that comes to mind is Panhard--made by some big German company, Panhard is a six-wheeled APC. It looks a little like a BTR-60, but with six wheels you'll never mistake it for a BTR-60. The Brits have the Fox, which also has eight wheels--but four of them are small and retract when not needed. IIRC the French have one too and it doesn't have eight wheels either.

The Black Hawk shootdown I discussed earlier? Easy to fix if you just stick another hardpoint on each winglet, so it doesn't come out looking like a Hind.

Basically, except for the French and their Soviet-looking tanks, no NATO country save the United States ever issued a vehicle that looked so much like those the enemy uses that its own troops take potshots at it.

[Baclava]

6. They all look alike...

from the air...Hua!

[alfredo]

12. Doesn't the Stryker have a problem with turning over?

Do you remember anything about that?

[KG]

13. what good is such a lightly amored vehicle in any shooting environment?

what's the theory behind such a vehicle in a world where RPGs and mine are sold like candy.

[Nlighten1]

15. This is a Wookie...

It just does not make sense.