[historian1944]

The Mobile Gun Stryker is not designed to be a tank killer, period. The only variant remotely equipped to do that is the Anti-Tank Guided Missile variant.

That M68 105mm is still in use with the Army National Guard. Not all Guard units have been equipped with M1A2s yet or what is it the M1A1 SEP that upgraded the gun? Suffice to say there is still armor using that gun. The Mobile Gun System is designed to do direct fire infantry support.

This whole concept relies on situational awareness, and the crunchies in the Infantry Carrier Vehicle. Consider this an armored bus. If the potential enemy has a large number of armor available for their use, there will be tank slices deployed with them. There is also a huge array of commo equipment that will allow the Stryker Brigade Combat Teams to call for fire of all kinds quickly and effectively.


The biggest thing the National Command Authority is seeking to get out of this program is the ability to project force suitable for Operations Other Than War (i.e. Somalia, Haiti), where most of what you are going to encounter is guys with M2s mounted on the backs of pickup
trucks. It allows the President to project force very quickly. Being on the Stryker program, do I have reservations about the way it potentially might be used, and the way potential enemies could exploit its shortcomings?

Absolutely.

I remember on active duty when commanders were convinced that Bradleys were tank killers and would try to chase tanks around the battlefield, because someone believed that a Bradley with a 25mm gun was suitable to do such a thing.

How well will this new Brigade concept work? Only time will tell.

[Thunder 6]

You are on target. BTW, it is the M1A1 that converted the Abrams fleet to the 120mm Rheinmetall smoothbore.

Used to chuckle at the Bradley Scouts. Told them they had a valuable place on the battlefield: their burning hulks would mark the TRP's for my tanks ;) Best thing the army did was get them out of Brads and into HMMWV's...put a guy in the M2 and all of a sudden he thinks he's a tank killer.

regards,