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The main advantage to the Stryker is the cost. More cost, more of a margin of profit. This is important in the age of the miitary industrial partnership. Retrofitting the Stryker with more armor provides a new element of cost.

Now a new element of cost should include a larger version of the C-130 to carry the heavier Stryker. A good example of the thinking in the Pentagon was exhibited when the unarmored Jeep was replaced by the unarmored Hum-vee. The Jeep was more economical, more maneuverable, burned far less fuel, and did not have the huge profile the Hum-vee did, but was retired for economic reasons.

LOL. Once an 11M Staff Sergeant showed me a 25 mike-mike round. Held it up in the air like it was some rare specimen. He said the way the Bradley Fighting Vehicle came about was that an Army General took a 25mm round to Industry and told them- "We need something that will shoot that round downrange".

Now a new element of cost should include a larger version of the C-130 to carry the heavier Stryker. A good example of the thinking in the Pentagon was exhibited when the unarmored Jeep was replaced by the unarmored Hum-vee. The Jeep was more economical, more maneuverable, burned far less fuel, and did not have the huge profile the Hum-vee did, but was retired for economic reasons.

The old M151A1 Mutt jeep went through three major production phases of attempts to cure its tendency of overturning on curves, reselting in literally hundreds of soldier deaths and thousands of injuries. I had that unhappy experience twice, once on the West German border, helpfully protected by the pintle-mounted M60 machinegun and $60,000 worth of radios that were crushed instead of me, a bargain IMHO. Hanging a trailer on behind helped, not for any improvement in handling, but in that it slowed some drivers down a bit, though I've seen M151A1s with trailers upside-down too. This is a particularly nasty treat for the patients being carried aboart the M170 ambulance jeeps, with two stretchers piggybacked lengthwise across what would usually be the passenger's seat.

The gasoline engined M151 went up in a fireball when its gasoline tank ruptured, a situation considerably improved with the Diesel Humvee. And the Humvee comes with an automatic transmission, which means that the vehicle spends less time having clutches replaced after mistreatment in an age when most young drivers are more used to automatic transmissions, though a auto transmission retrofit for the M151 could easily be arranged.

Really, the Humvee family is really a much better replacement for the old Dodge ¾-ton weapons carrier and *crackerbox* 4-patient ambulances. And the variety of commercial pickup trucks, some gasoline engined [M715; M880 Dodge] and some Diesel [CUCVEE Chevy Blazers] that have come and gone [and a pending buy of Ford commercial trucks to replace unarmored HUMVEES has been reported] The old Dodges first made their M37 appearance around 1952, a 24-volt electrical system of the old half-ton WC Weapons Carrier of WWII. The Humvee is a reasonable replacement for a vehicle whose antecedents go back to 1942....

But what's really needed as a replacement for the jeep is a vehicle that's amphibious. As it stands now, when an American infantry company comes to a river, it either heads for a bridge, too likely to be preregistered for artillery fire, a ford, or waits for helicopters for an airlift, IF the air assets are available. It'd be nice to be able to at least be able to move scouting elements and platoon support weapons across a river, but whether that job is better handled by a jeep that swims or an amphibious version of the John Deere *Gator* or the old *mechanical mule* or some other form of ATV remains to be seen.

The latest strategy of the Air Force is to allow the Army to build its Future Combat System (FCS) which is already over 20 tons per vehicle (too heavy for our 600 C-130s) and then hit Congress up to replace the C-130s with C-17s.