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Ever hear of the Sedition Act comrade?!

Your make a good candidate!

Stryker demo debunks critics and comrades

http://www.dtic.mil/armylink/news/Oct2002/a20021025strykerdemo.html

Moving to take the Stryker out of the "waiver world" into the "routine business world," Simmons said the Air Force is conducting extensive testing with C-130s, Strykers and the associated crews of both. A test conducted Oct. 15 verified that the Hercules' crew, Stryker's crew and infantry squad could exit a C-130 with a Stryker aboard in less than 90 seconds. The test subjects did it in 48 seconds.

http://www.dtic.mil/armylink/news/Oct2002/r20021021transcrip101502.html

Question: General, or COL Simmons. [inaudible]. Talk a little bit about the significance of the waiver required to move the vehicle on a C-130. How timely [inaudible] from an operational standpoint on a routine basis for 130 operations. Address that general point.

Col. Simmons, USAF: First of all, it's not very significant. We've begun training programs already to reduce the impact of the new size variance inside the cargo department of the C-130. The personnel on board conducted some drills last night. In fact, 15 individuals were on-board [a C-130 aircraft] with the Stryker on it. It took them 48 seconds to get off using the emergency escape hatch on board. Our target is 90 seconds.

The waiver process we use in the Air Force is essentially to raise awareness that we're doing something a little bit different than the way we normally do. The regulations, in the last 46 years or so, the C-130s have been deployed in a lot of arenas [inaudible]. In fact we have 153, give or take, different types of vehicles that have permanent waivers in effect so we can carry them on the C-130 for various reasons -- size, weight, whatever. It appears the Stryker will join that family of vehicles.

Here's a quote from a guy present during the field testing.

NTC was ordered to support MC02. It was told to provide whatever support JFCOM required. Trouble is JFCOM does not know what it wants. Does know what it does not want. OPFOR waxing the Stryker company or Blueforce brigade. OPFOR allowed only one Stryker kill per engagement, and is a considerably weaker OPFOR than a regular rotation. Also not allowed to attack without permission from JFCOM/JTF. Big events are a light battalion airdrop to secure Bicycle lake. C-17 air landing of 4 Strykers (2 per plane), an attack against a small remnant of an OPFOR regiment,securing an area for the SOF to dismantle a weapon of mass effects, and a live-fire. -The infantry O/Cs (Tarantulas) are managing the operation. Light units have FBCB2 in their TOCs, (which will not move during the rotation)but no land warrior, no digital conect One light battalion is at NTC the other two are added via virtual simulation. Not clear if the other two battalions are going to be used. Air drop of light infantry to secure the landing field (Bicycle lake) was done with 12 C-130s loaded with a total of about 600 soldiers and two artillery tube drop packages. Drop started at 2:10 AM. First drops were the artillery. Then for the next 45 minutes the battalion dropped from the sky. OPFOR was in position to lob motors at the rather noisy and bright airdrop, but was not allowed. Lots of VIPs watching from bleachers(over 200 generals scheduled to visit NTC during MC02). Drop was very impressive, even when viewed via Low light TV. Only 3 soldiers and two O/Cs injured in the drop. Took a long time to regroup on the ground. At 4 am, the tarantulas were still trying to figure out who had jumped, location of units and injury list. The blueforce soldiers were stil wandering/regrouping on Bicycle lake. Looked like another hour before they would be ready for combat. Majority of OPFOR were out of direct and indirect fire range. Looked like a company minus of OPFOR. Some engagements/ clashes with OPFOR planned for that day. HUMMWV surrogates for the mobile gun system will be principle blueforce fire power. The Stryker air lift was delayed because the AF wanted to land under limited vis conditions so the whole rotation/demo was delayed about a day. No problem the OPFOR was more than happy to be finally allowed to use its mortars. AF had not delivered any Q-16 counterbattery radars so the blueforce got mangled up in front of a lot of VIPs. Another example of the fine joint spirit that permeates the experiment. Another confidential source of mine quibbles with my first source by noting that the LAV-III/Strykers after being flown long distance from Fort Lewis by C-17s, were flown a ridiculously short distance from Victorville to Bicycle Lake, NTC which saves fuel weight so the C-130s can carry these overweight vehicles. What are you going to do if you have to fly a LAV-III/Stryker from Diego Garcia to Afghanistan in a C-130? We should not lose sight of the fact that only TWO weakly armored LAV-III/Stykers with .50 cal popguns can fly in a C-17---we can fly TWO far more capable M2A3 Bradleys which are RPG-protected and have 25mm cannons, TOW ATGMs and a 7.62mm co-ax machine gun that doesn't malfunction in a C-17. Better yet, we could instead fly 5--that's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...upgraded, RPG-protected M113A3 Gavins with autocannon turrets in every C-17. The M113A3 Gavin at 10.5 tons empty can be fitted with all the armor, fuel, ammo and C4I you could dream of and be under the 16 ton C-130 short, unimproved runway payload limit to roll-on/off the rear ramp COMBAT-READY. The LAV-III/Stryker without C4I, applique armor is 16.5 tons, with the added weights the Army wants 19-21 tons. However, my second confidential source makes some important observations about the "smoke and mirrors" the Army is doing to make it appear that LAV-III/Strykers are C-130 transportable, like stripping the vehicles down to make weight and using two aircraft. My source reports: "Yes, they used C-17s to fly from Lewis to SCLA (Victorville) but they used C-130s to fly from SCCLA to Bike Lake (desert strip) at NTC. I was on the ground at Bike Lake when they arrived. I stood beneath the tail as they unloaded. But it wasn't without problems. You just need to get your facts straight. The FACT is that it required two C-130s to transport one vehicle. The crew and their gear had to come on a second aircraft (8 C-130 lifts for 4 Strykers). When the groups arrived at SCLA, they loaded all their gear into the Strykers. The AF then told them that the vehicles were 2000 lbs. heavy. Apparently, they could have redistributed this weight on pallets in front of the vehicles and still made weight. However, no pallets were available so they had to come in two aircraft loads".