Problems with armor found on Stryker combat vehicle

The Seattle Times ^ | September 5 2002 | By Ray Rivera and Hal Bernton

[lshoultz]

Weeks before the Army's Stryker vehicle is scheduled to make its combat debut in Iraq, the Army has discovered manufacturing problems in some of its armor plating that could make it vulnerable to heavy machine-gun fire, according to Army officials familiar with the program.

The extent of the problem is still unknown, but it's serious enough that Army officials have launched a crash program to test the plates at their Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland. They are hopeful it won't delay deployment of troops from Fort Lewis, said two Army officials at the Pentagon, speaking on condition of anonymity.

[lshoultz]

Once again General Dynamics has been caught in a lie about this unarmored fat armored car. Nobody really knows what it is except a government boondoggle to make several generals rich but now its got another bug. Why is that not a surprise?

[donmeaker]

Testers at Aberdeen found that at least one variation of the armor could not stop a 14.5-mm round, the Army officials said. The armor's supplier, German military contractor IBD, could not be reached for comment yesterday.

The german company that made armor for the Leopard I (and I don't know if it is the same company or not-this was 30 years ago) made two versions, one for the mobility test, one for the armor test. When the mobility vehicle broke down, they hauled it out, and use it for the survivability test, and rounds whistled in one side and out the other. The former survivability vehicle failed the mobility tests miserably, having far more armor and weight than proposed.

I guess the point is that GD is not the only problem. Thales (french company) has the reputation of bidding foreign stuff, and then delivering their own crap. The best companies deserve the very large amounts of money they get for their amazing products.

[lshoultz]

The latest story this afternoon was that 39 additional types of ceramincs had been produced but only six were approved. All 39 got installed.

General Dynamics put out a story last year that they were reformulating the armor to stop the penetration of both the 7.62mm and the 14.5mm rounds up to 200 yards. That apparently didn't work because then they began buying the ceramics that don't work.

Can you imagine how much weight the ceramics add to the air transportable by C-130 Strykers? The only C-130s that fly these will have C-17 painted on the side of them. General Dynamics is in complete default of this contract. They should be forced to walk away empty handed and BROKE!

[gitmo]

A Stryker vehicle, with soldiers from Fort Lewis, is shown during a training exercise last month in South Korea.

[FreedomPoster]

ping list ping.

[centurion316]

A useful technique, when posting on FR, is to do a search on the title of the article prior to posting. Had you done this, you would have discovered that this article has already been posted and you could have avoided the dreaded double post syndrome. You can find it here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/977010/posts