So the AF came up with a C-17. But wait, it has trouble landing at most of the airstrips the ground forces need to go to, so it too can not handle the required mission.
Well, no. It's time and combat proven and tested, and pretty much a known quantity, though there are always idiots who will try to stretch it's capabilities way beyond those known limits. As an aircraft for airdropping circa 95 paratroopers it's superb; it has no particular problems associated with shortfield lansdings of supplies or LAPES deliveries onto unimproved airfields, and can get to them following repeat aerial refueling as required, a feature devoleped in later models not to be found on the original A and B models. But if a C-130 can take off with the load stuffed aboard, it can land with it, or get it delivered another way [though not a Stryker, which, like the Bradley, can't be airdropped]
Hmmm...and somehow you then say the Army guys are stupid and are developing the wrong equipment. What is wrong with this picture?
Well, you'd think they might have wanted a vehicle that's amphibious, so they don't have to come to a halt when they come to a river, since like the HUMVEE [and unlike the M113A3], the Stryker can't swim. And it's too heavy to be airlifted across rivers via CH47 $h!thook helo, the most common army cargo helo. Likewise the army screwed the pooch with the HUMVEE's inability to be carried inside a CH47, the reason the Army Ranger battalions are equipped with British-built Land Rovers.
Not that I am against the AF...I actually think they are a great service. But again, if neither the C130 nor the C-17 (nor the C-5) can handle the required missions for this nation in the coming decades, does anyone else see a problem with the logic being expoused here. Is the only solution to go with even lighter armored vehicles? Most on this thread have already stated emphatically they think the Stryker is too light to start with. Where do we go from here? Again, no insults on my part intended, evryone is bringing up great arguments; I am just expressing some of the frustration those of us working around the program have felt.
Again, it's not *just* the aircraft load requirement limitations, though they certainly play a part, though one supposed reason for the cancellation of the Army's proposed Crusader artillery system was the fact that only two could be moved aboard a C-17...the same number of Strykers that could be carried aboard one. Neither can the fault be said to lie solely with the USAF or their aircraft suppliers when the army's rotary wing aircraft often exhibit similar inadequacies and shortfalls.
But maybe if we're going to redisign our army to be transported primarily aboard Air Force *trash hauler* aircraft, some thought out to at least be given to coordinating the design of future Army AND Air Force equipment for compatability, even in the design stages.
I think the whole concept of the Stryker as an intirm wheelie for the air-delivered force is flawed; if they really wanted something that could be reasonably delivered via C130, they should have started with a six-wheel M35A2 truck chassis, start adding armor plate to protect the most vulnerable components and passengers, and we might have come up with an air-transportable vehicle that could carry 9 dismounts, [3 on either side facing outwards, plus one in the ashtray] would fit in the Hercules, and could swim. It probably wouldn't be .50 cal or 14.5mm gunfire resistant, no more than a Stryker or HUMVEE is, but the fromt armor could have been, and there are ways to defeat incoming RPG-7 shaped charges too; I used them in 1969 and '70 and they worked then. Give a half-dozen ordnance and Special Forces NCOs the requirement, materials and a reasonably well-equipped maintenance shop, and you'd have a more usable vehicle than the Stryker within a month.
It wouldn't be a *replacement* for the tank or even for the old tracked M113, and either an antitank weapon or mine could kill it as easily as they can a tank- you CAN'T get past that vulnerability factor, so you HAVE to develop operational tactics that minimize that very real vulnerability. But it might have been a lifesaver for the Rangers in Somalia who died aboard unarmored trucks and HUMVEEs [Stryker wouldn't have sufficed- the ambulance version only carries 2 nonwalking patients, same as the circa-1965 jeep-based FLA F/ront L/ine A/mbulance.]
But the point of the exercise hasn't been to develop and operate the most mission-capable vehicle for the Army; it's the opportunity for Shinseki's retired deputy to siphon off as mich of the 3 million dollars each of the development and procurement costs of the Stryker into his retirement fund and to create a few more such cozy positions for other soon-to-be-retired Friends of Eric who now get a reward for their Monica-like services during the Clinton years.
-archy-/-