Worst Stryker attack ever kills six

[MikeNearMcChord]

MICHAEL GILBERT; The News Tribune
Published: May 8th, 2007 05:37 AM

The bomb that killed six Fort Lewis soldiers Sunday was the deadliest attack on a Stryker since the armored vehicles entered service in Iraq 31/2 years ago.

It was also the worst loss of life for local soldiers since the December 2004 chow hall bombing in Mosul, when six Fort Lewis troops died in an attack that killed 22 in all.

Few details emerged Monday about the improvised bomb strike in Diyala province, north of Baghdad. But in a Web statement, an al-Qaida front organization, the Islamic State of Iraq, claimed responsibility for the attack.

In addition to the six soldiers who were killed, a Russian news photographer died, and two other soldiers were wounded.

The soldiers were from the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, one of the infantry battalions of the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division. The Stryker brigade has been in Iraq since June and was recently extended to remain into October.
http://www.thenewstribune.com/293/story/57157.html

[jollyreaper2112]

1. ugh

Maybe the wartards can help me out here. From everything I've read about the Stryker, it sounds like a world-class cockup. Too heavy to be airmobile as was the original requirement, not enough armor despite all the weight so RPG's can take it out just like a hummer, the gun is oversized and can knock the damn thing over if firing broadside, wheels give it diminished mobility in offroad situations, not enough carrying capacity for soldiers inside, and damned expensive compared to older, cheaper alternatives such as the M113. Basically it's armored warfare's answer to the Osprey, proving the Army can fuck it up on the ground just as badly as the Marines can fuck it up in the air.

Anyone have positive info to counter this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stryker_Vehicle_Controversy#Against_the_Stryker

[Kagemusha]

3. Less vulnerable than a truck and losses haven't been as bad as feared

Now, actual positive info? I'm not sure. Just the methods used to employ it seem to have minimized the disadvantages somewhat. Also, if you're using an IED meant for a Humvee and not a Stryker, the Stryker may survive a lot better. Actually devoting time to an IED worthy of the task makes success a lot more likely. Maybe in this case the enemy specifically went after Strykers, armed with info about what had failed in the past.

[jollyreaper2112]

5. But they still have to escort trucks, right?

Seems like the tactic would be to pop the bomb when the truck goes by, now the armored vehicles have to stop to defend the truck or else bug out and leave the driver to die. If the armored vehicles stop, perfect RPG target. If they move on, drivers are less likely to want to go out on these missions.

[Kagemusha]

6. Yeah, pretty much.

So it's not necessarily worth it to insurgents to go after Strykers themselves. Well, I'm sure they have differences of opinion. The longer Strykers are in-theatre, the more insurgens will be able to pick them off. Just how it works.

[jollyreaper2112]

7. If I were in the armored vehicles, snipers would be my biggest fear

In WWII, snipers were the bane of the tank commanders. A good tank commander always spent as much time with his head poked out of the tank as possible. You have pitiful situational awareness inside a fighting vehicle and if you stay buttoned up, you'll most likely miss signs the enemy is in the area. Of course, poking your head out took away the main advantage of being inside a big chunk of metal, i.e. protecting your tender flesh from fast-moving chunks of lead. The good tank commanders had a high mortality rate from snipers and that left the poor ones to blunder into ambushes.

If I were an insurgent, it seems like the role with the greatest chance for survival would have to be sniper. Shoot and scoot, don't go toe to toe with the big guns. If I were in the Stryker, I'd be wondering who had me in his sights every time I poked my head up. Ugh! Between snipers, mortars, IED's, there's a hundred ways to die without ever seeing the enemy.

[Kagemusha]

9. I think they design those vehicles so you don't have to poke your head out.

Now, how well they succeed is not something I personally know, but they certainly are trying.

[jollyreaper2112]

10. it's better but not great

They have all sorts of fancy flatscreens they're working on for better inside visibility, feeding you images from cameras located around the vehicle. They're also working on remotely operated turrets so a crewman doesn't have to poke his head out to use the pintle mount. But for all that, the visibility still sucks.

I can't find any good examples on the web for what the interior of a tank looks like. Old-style tanks had view slits, deliberately kept small so stray rounds couldn't make it through and so nobody could chuck a grenade in. Modern tanks use armored glass over the slits as well as periscopes.



The best visibility solution I've seen theorized is still from scifi. You have a curved screen extending through a 270 degree arc with the image blended in realtime from multiple cameras around the tank. The image is slightly compressed because it shows the full 360 degrees surrounding the tank, thus giving the commander the ability to look everywhere at once. Someone walking behind the tank would walk off the left side of the screen and onto the right. The orientation of the screen could also be turned so if the commander wanted to have the view centered on something direclty behind, the "gap" would now occur at the front of the tank. When combined with a head-mounted targeting system so that the gun can slew to where the commander is looking (already exists on modern attack choppers) the commander would be able to engage targets as soon as he sees them.

The next step would be cutting down on the number of crew in a tank. Right now the Abrams requires a driver, loader, gunner, and commander. Some modern tanks have made use of an autoloader but the US Army has traditionally not trusted them. The Stryker's autoloader is troublesome. Assuming you can lick that target, that's one crewman down. The next question is one of multitasking. In a modern tank, driving, shooting, and directing the tank are seen as three different jobs that require the dedicated attention of a crewman. In modern combat choppers, flying is seen as complicated enough without trying to shoot as well so the second crewman is a dedicated gunner. That same divison of labor is seen in some combat aircraft with a backseater required to operate the additional systems the pilot does not have time to mess with. The Commanche managed to do away with the gunner, the pilot operating all of the aircraft's equipment. The Raptor does not require a backseater. I can't really see a tank getting down to less than two crewmen since the tank can move and shoot in different directions, you have to have someone driving it when the gunner is looking somewhere else.

[meldroc]

8. Haven't heard anything that bad.

From what I remember, that slat armor that you see on Strikers seems to do a good job of fending off RPGs (the slats are designed to dentonate the RPG's Monroe Effect warhead before it hits the hull, thus keeping the explosive force and shrapnel from punching a hole through the armor.)

They're certainly better than going around in Hummers (which are good vehicles, but shouldn't be used as they are in Iraq as substitutes for fighting vehicles like tanks and APCs)

[Toots]

2. an al-Qaida front organization, the Islamic State of Iraq,

Why on earth would Al Qaeda want or need a "front organization"? I would think they would want all the "Glory" Are the American people ever going to awaken?

[Kagemusha]

4. To work with what are technically other groups under an umbrella.

And in the first place it is "Al-Qaeda in Iraq" that's part of that, not "the" Al-Qaeda. And that's even going by what's public info - which a lot of people here don't believe at all. Which is fine with me. I'm not forcing anyone to. But skepticism should not be an excuse to deliberately evade slightly deeper thought.