Marine Ontos:
M56 Scorpion/ SPAT:
Posted on 09/30/2003 4:08:04 AM PDT by SLB
Edited on 04/13/2004 1:41:14 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
WASHINGTON
(Excerpt) Read more at usatoday.com ...
Stryker would be a great convoy escort gun truck.
The advantages of the wheeled Stryker over tracked vehicles are less maintenance, higher mpg, quieter, faster on roads, less wear & tear on the highways & byways than tracks, and it carries a crew plus a full infantry squad & all their gear--something a Bradley cannot do.
That all translates to less cost, a smaller logistic tail, less vehicle "down-time", less annoyance to the locals as you aren't shaking them out of bed as you go by or grinding up their roads & curbs, and better ability to escort convoys & then chase down the bad guys either mounted or on foot. A pretty good fit for the situation in Iraq right now.
Hehehehehe...not in the slightest! The MPs I used to know all wished they could emulate their civilian counterparts on "Cops". I wouldn't trust one of them to do anything other than play road guide.
Scoputs Out! Cavalry Ho!
1-Build strong convoys; arm the vehicles, provide escorts, etc so the convoys can fight their way thru.
2-Secure the route; outposts, patrols, etc so the convoys just roll right thru.
3-Go after the bad guys until they are all killed, captured, running away, or have given up the fight.
The last is the best & decisive way, but is also the hardest to achieve. We are doing a combination of all three methods based on the specific route, the enemy, the friendly forces available, etc.
STRYKER is RPG bait. You watch.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
take care
This is a good idea, but if there's not the killer instinct to use these wepons, or the skill to use them effectively, then what's the point? Hell, the 507th Maintenance Company couldn't bring its one 50-cal to bear becasue it was dirty and jammed! Giving weapons to REMFs is about as effective as a mosquito net condom.
"3-Go after the bad guys until they are all killed, captured, running away, or have given up the fight."
This is what I'd like to see more of, but unfortunately, we don't have the manpower to do it. Hell, that should have been accomplished during the first phase of the war! What did we accomplish by disarming the surrendering SOBs, then telling them to "go home, we're not fighting you, we're fighting Saddam's government". Crap! We should have kicked the living sh** out of the entire country, knocked the wind out of their sails, sealed the borders, then told Iran, Syria, Jordan, Saudi, Egypt, etc., that they're next unless they start singing "God Bless America". Of course, you have to have enough manpower to do that, and we don't. Unless and until we re-build our fighting strength, our enemies will continue to play musical chairs, and dodge us all over the globe.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
As a former 11B and now a REMF officer, you are, unfortunatly, correct. I am hoping that one of the AAR lessons from Iraq is a change in CS/CSS basic training to include full training of small arms. Most new troops show up to units unable to even battlesight zero their weapon on the qual range-forget SPORTS or any such activity.
Our pre-range PMI classes turn into all day weapons training exercises, in CA land you just went to the range, drew ammo, shot, and went home. Not so here. And since we only shoot about twice a year-you see where this leads. Hopefully a more full weapons training course in basic will instill the weapons knowledge and confidence so PMI's don't turn into: "now this is the M-16, you put your eye hear, and look down the rear sight, see, squeeze that trigger...."
That's a "lesson learned" that has been applied & checked & checked again--notice you haven't been hearing about that type of problem anymore.
Giving weapons to REMFs is about as effective as a mosquito net condom.
I hope you are not telling us this based on personal experience.
we don't have the manpower to do it. Hell, that should have been accomplished during the first phase of the war!
Absolutely--we tried to do this on the cheap and because we were too thin on the ground at the beginning, we are having to spend a lot more time and effort solving problems now that we could have taken care of earlier if we had the ground troops we needed.
Yeah, but we shouldn't have heard about it in the first place. That convoy's weapons should have been clean and properly maintianed...the leadership of the 507th is to blame for those jammed weapons. The lesson should have been remembered from Vietnam, but we Americans just never remember history, until it comes back to bite our a**es.
"I hope you are not telling us this based on personal experience."
Hehehehehe...no, I was just trying to illustrate absurdity by being absurd.
"Absolutely--we tried to do this on the cheap and because we were too thin on the ground at the beginning, we are having to spend a lot more time and effort solving problems now that we could have taken care of earlier if we had the ground troops we needed."
Yep...to fight this war the right way, it seems to me we should be back to the force levels we had during Desert Storm, if not larger. But to accomplish this, we'd need leaders with cajones, and they're in short supply in DC these days. Even if Bush had put out a call on 9/12 for a couple hundred thousand news volunteers, and told COngress to find him the money to reactivate four or five divisions, four or five fighter wings, and a hundred or so ships, the CommieLibs would've put up a fight, and the Pubbies would've gotten scared, wet their pants, and run off to hide somewhere. Meanwhile, our guys are over there trying to rebuild a country with one hand, while fighting a whole region and it's cult religion with the other.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
That's a "lesson learned" that has been applied & checked & checked again--notice you haven't been hearing about that type of problem anymore.
The problem wasn't the gun itself, but the gun mount. The unit had been busy getting its wheeled vehicled unstuck for the previous 14 hours, and all their equiopment was covered with the talcum-like grit dust kiscked up from those recovery operations.
That offers an interesting set of questions both about Strykers that get stuck in the sand off-road, and about maintenance of their Norwegian-designed Remote Gun System for their .50 caliber or 40mm Mk.19 automatic grenade launcher.
-archy-/-
Well, no. The Airborne's 90mm Scorpion or SPAT as it was more commonly called, was an open mounted 90mm antitank gun on a light tracked chassis; the Marine's Ontos was the enclosed vehicle a bout the size of a passenger car that mounted six 106mm M40A1 recoilless rifles and a machinegun; sometimes dropped in the back of a 5-ton truck as an *instant gun truck* for protection of Marine convoys. I was around the things in use a couple of times; spectacular, but they worked, and a heckuva anti-sniper response when loaded with canister rounds.
It was the US version of the German WWII STUG III series of "assault guns". Very handy, we could use one over there for immediate fire support and suppression of ambushers. 4 90mm flechette rounds would end an ambush real quick.
Again, not quite. The lack of traverse of the main gun of a StuG suits it better for a role as an *ambush tank*, as used by the Finnish forces to repeatedly kill Russian T-34 and other tanks during their Jatkisota *Continuation War* with the Soviet Union following the November 1939-March 1940 Talvisota *Winter War* invasion of Finland by the USSR. The Finns were likely THE most effective users of assault guns, but now find their *Sisu* wheeled personnel carrier to be most suitable...when the ground is frozen.
But the Germans found themselves with a similar requirement for internal security vehicles and infantry support in cities, and found that six and eight-wheeled armored cars with 75 and 105mm low-velocity guns worked fine...until they met up with raiding jeeps mounting .50 caliber machineguns, bazookas, or flamethrowers.
Soldiers could be much better marksmen if they were given the opportunity to practice and achieve a higher level of proficiency on their weapons, instead of just running them out to the range, getting them zeroed, then putting them in the hot seat, with their chain of command breathing down their necks. I never shot less than 36 on the 16A1, but never better than 28 on the A2. I never had the opportunity to practice with those goofy new sights, and my marksmanship suffered accordingly.
Good luck with your unit, sir. Hopefully you won't get deployed, but in today's Micro-Army, the chances are pretty dang good. I'll be cheering for y'all.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Marine Ontos:
M56 Scorpion/ SPAT:
The M8 had the 37mm gun, also found on the M3 and M5 light tank of the period, and the M20 version dispensed with the turret in an attempt to lighten the vehicles to prevent their getting stuck so frequently. They were found to be a fine vehicle for armoured cav, the recon sections of tank destroyer units, and Military Police units.
The open-topped M20 version fitted a .50 Caliber M2 Browning machinegun, the same gun that's to equip the Stryker, though the Stryker's Remote Gun System was unable to fire more than 45 rounds continuously during initial gun testing; the ring mount *free gun* used on the M20 had a 105-round ammo box, and a 225-round *tombstone* ammo can could be fitted.
Some M20s were also fitted with other weapons packages, including the 81 and 4.2" mortars, the quad .50 AA machinegun, and 20mm cannons. The French have also developed a turret mount to fit the turret of the Panhard AML90 armored car with 90mmgun on an M8 or M20 chassis.
M8 Greyhound:
M20 Armored Recon Car:
Go ahead and bump this onto your Stryker list.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.