[centurion316]

Your historical examples, both naval and military, are enlighting and, I believe, help make the point. The Stryker is not a fighting vehicle in the sense that we tried with the M-41 or M-551. It must rely on terrain and stand-off to provide protection from direct fire anti-tank weapons. Try to use it as a light tank, or even worse, as a substitute for the M-1, and you lose. Lind doesn't know the difference between a M-1 and a Stryker, so he tries to convince us that they are interchangable on the battlefield. Note that he believes that the M-1 is a dinosaur - I wonder if tankers of the 3ID would agree with his assessment.

Employed properly, the Stryker provides mobility, protection, and firepower far beyond that available to the light infantryman. I am abivilent on the argument between tracked and wheeled vehicles. Hard to beat a tracked vehicle, but they have made considerable progress in suspension, etc. for wheeled vehicles; so we'll just have to see.

[CatoRenasci]

Thanks. I have to say I fall pretty much on the tracked side of the debate, but I think there is a role for some wheeled vehicles. Didn't the South Africans have some pretty decent and tough armored cars in the late 70's and early 80's before they were abandoned to the communists?

I think that we have to have a force with significant numbers of main battle tanks to defeat any threat. Perhaps we need also something like the Israeli Merkava tank that seemse to be more suitable for urban warfare. You know, as everyone with half a brain does, that urban warfare against a determined enemy will always be a bitch, and armored vehicles will always be vulnerable in spaces where they cannot maneuver.

I'd be inclined to go with something air-transportable, like that M113 variant, for the airborne/light infantry support role.