Posted on 10/16/2003 8:17:21 AM PDT by Cannoneer No. 4
Semper Fi
Carry on.
Schoomaker said he wished that the Army's new Stryker Brigade had been ready for the Iraq war. He would love to have seen it flown in to join the 173rd Airborne Brigade when it jumped into northern Iraq. ''Stryker comes with more infantry in it than any other formation - 1,160 per brigade. the Stryker's speed and agility gives us the best operating radius and abilities we have ever had.''
The Army is sending one brigade of Strykers to Iraq this month, and intends to organize five more, including one for the Army National Guard. ''By the time we get to five or six,'' Schoomaker said, ''we may want to go for even more.''
He said that if the Stryker is used properly, he wasn't worried that the lightly armored, wheeled vehicle would be too vulnerable to hostile fire. ''It doesn't matter what you wrap yourself in; someone is always going to build a bigger bullet,'' he said.
The approximately 300 eight-wheeled armored vehicles that make up a Stryker Brigade Combat Team wouldn't start arriving until early 2006
If the brigade is approved, the military would need an additional 23,000 acres on the Big Island, 1,400 acres on O'ahu, and land for 49 miles of private trails to keep the 20-ton Strykers off public roads as much as possible during training.
The vehicles would be based at Schofield and travel by private trail to Dillingham Airfield and Kahuku Training Area for training. Strykers also would be transported by C-17 cargo jets, and use Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island.
So the first two RPG rounds blow away all this crap, then what happens? Please God, the boys will dismount about a mile from town and go in in some appropriate patrol formation, with artillery back-up, and on-call air. THis is a big taxi-cab ... no kind of fighting vehicle.
You could not drive this thing down an American alley.It will be immobile and helpless in the rabbit warren towns and villages of the rest of the world.
The survey by the military newspaper Stars and Stripes says one-third of U.S. troops surveyed in Iraq say their morale is low. And half say they're not likely to stay in the armed forces.
The Canadians are running their 8-wheeled armored cars in Kabul with fair success. You reckon Afghan towns are easier to get around in than Iraqi towns?
They will be stationed on Oahu and shipped or flown to the Big Island for training.
150
My understanding is that the ceramic armor not only failed livefire testing with 14.5mm ammunition, but also was penetrated by hits from the 12,7x108mm DShK heavy machinegun sometimes referred to as a *.51 caliber* and slightly more powerful than the US .50x99mm M2 Browning MG with which the Stryker is armed.
The 12,7mm Dash-ka is not exactly *concealable* under a jacket, no mor than a .50 M2. But it's easier to move than a 14.5mm KPV or PTRD rifle, and should be quite capable of chewing the tires right off one side of a Stryker, and when used from above, as from atop a city roof or the sides of a mountain pass [as when the Afghan Mujahadin ambushed Soviet BTR wheelies in Afghanistan and cut through their roof armor from above] should cut through the Stryker's half-inch steel top plating like hot marbles through butter. And the KSVK semiauto 12,7 Russian rifle equivalent of the M82A1 Barrett Light Fifty should do the same.
-archy-/-
2 Strykers per C-17 sortie load, plus seperate transport for crews, spare parts, [LOTS of extra wheels and tires; I understand they're deploying with 150% spare tires, 12 spares per vehicle] maintenance crews and other useful accessories, assuming fuel and ammo in place where they arrive. Accordingly, a ballpark answer would be 300 flights.
The Air Force originally programmed to buy a total of 120 C-17s, with the last one being delivered in November 2004. The fiscal 2000 budget funded another 14 C-17s for special operations duty.-US Air Force C-17 FactFile.
-archy-/-
If I was a little birdy wanting to see something interesting, I might fly over the Steeles tank gunnery range and Wilcox Multi-Purpose Digital Training Ranges....
Or as the little birdy said: Hey, wasn't that a MGS I just spotted...?
If that's all a C-17 can carry, I don't see the point of the Stryker. You can pack 10 time the HUMVEE mounted fire-power in that bird for a fraction of the cost. Or even one Bradley or M1.
If that's all a C-17 can carry, I don't see the point of the Stryker. You can pack 10 time the HUMVEE mounted fire-power in that bird for a fraction of the cost. Or even one Bradley or M1.
The reason given for the cancellation of the Crusader self-propelled 155mm artillery piece [and more importantly, its equally high-performance ammunition support vehicle] was that only two could be carried aboard a C-17.
And so, given a choice between a full-tracked 155mm SP gun also mounting an M2 .50 Browning heavy MG, with the main gun having a range of 30+ miles, commanders can instead have their choice of an eight-wheeled armored car of similar size and bulk, which mounts only the .50 MG usable out to 1200 meters, or they can walk.
The usual loadout for the M113A3 personnel carrier in a C17 is five of the fully-loaded, 11-ton vehicles, which can also be airdropped from a C17- the Stryker can't. There's also a 1-meter longer stretched version of the M113 known as the MTVL, which can carry a squad of 11 over the Standard M113 or Stryker's 9-man squad, should a medic, combat engineer/EOD minesweeper, K9 operator or POWs need to be transported with the squad. The MTVL is also adaptablte to a somewhat wider range of armament than the parent vehicle, to include the now-experimental 8-shot ground launch Hellfire AT guided missile with a near 10KM tankkilling range.
And of course a mix of armored HUMVEEs and M113A3s in a C17 is very possible, and has been done dozens of times, probably hundreds- if not thousands. The M113A3 and MTVL are amphibious and can swim a river or lake; the HUMVEE of course, is not.
-archy-/-
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