Replies

Vetvoice,

I didn't say anything about RPGs. I agree that in this day and age we need to design and build vehicles to handle that most obvious threat.

Nor did I say I was in love with the Stryker. I have always maintained it is an "interim" vehicle meant as a stop gap using basically off the shelf technology to give us a medium capability. Nor have I ever said Archy and SLB and Cannoreer #4 and any others were wrong to say a tracked vehicle would be better.

I am just saying too many take every little thing that happens and try and say ..."therefore, this vehicle is a boondoggle" prior to really knowing all the facts.

I am really on your side as far as wanting to know the truth and getting the best to our soldiers...I am just not as convinced as others that this program should be scrapped. I humbly say I think I am watching their performance in Iraq with a little less prejudice than some...for and against. I am convinced that we must do better in the long run, and that tanks and bradleys will be needed for many, many years...perhaps decades and longer. I am a tanker/cav trooper after all!

Nor did I say I was in love with the Stryker. I have always maintained it is an "interim" vehicle meant as a stop gap using basically off the shelf technology to give us a medium capability. Nor have I ever said Archy and SLB and Cannoreer #4 and any others were wrong to say a tracked vehicle would be better.

I don't necessarily think that.

I think a mix of wheeled and tracked vehicles would likely be better, and at least the tracked M113, already in the inventory and a known item, can be transported in-theater by all models of the C-130 aircraft. The Stryker cannot.

I think the Military Police Armored Security Vehicle was a dandy little vehicle for their purpose, better armed and armored than the Stryker, though probably as vulnerable to RPG fire, and as dubious off-road. Likewise, the Marine LAV-25s that retain their amphibious capability offer the ability to do something a Bradley cannot; again a good rationale for including somethjing of that sort, at least in a Bradley-M113-wheelie mixed force. And I bet something armored could have been worked up on the chassis of the 6x6 HIMARS combat vehicle. If not suitable for carrying a full 11-man squad, I'd bet two could be built for the cost of one Stryker.

Instead, the Stryker is force-fed to the troops as the only possible solution, and it becomes more and more apparant that the reason for that decision lies not with a decision to provide the troops with the best possible equipment, but to provide certain General Dynamics stockholders in past or present decisionmaking positions with the greatest financial return. That has now been done at the expense of the lives of three American soldiers, there will no doubt be more- yes, M113s and Bradleys can overturn, too, and have- and we should perhaps begin to dust off those statutes used to prosecute similar war profiteering during WWII.

-archy-/-

If the Senators who rammed these things through Congress (Stevens and Inouye) would not take the $500 Million dollars for each brigade in defense spending - I would have less heartburn over the vehicle.

In Inouye's case, he got one brigade of the 25th Infantry approved as a Stryker brigade and wanted another. In anticipation of receiving the second brigade he went ahead and requested a priority approptriation of $1 BILLION dollars in Hawaii for Garages, shops, and other buildings they do not have now. Surprise, he got his second Stryker Brigade in the next round of voting AND his $1 BILLION dollars for the Hawaiian contractors who will elect his protege General Eric Shinseki, who selected the Strykers, to the US Senate to Inouye's seat next year.

This entire project has been driven by politics instead of excellence since it began with all tracked vehicles excluded from bidding.