The new US Army APC the "Stinger" (Stryker)

> CNN is giving what the Army tells it in this case
Lets see, the light divisions were formed as a fast reaction force that could
be transported in about 2/3 of the airlift as the airborne / airmoble
divisions. The only problem was that without APC's the light divisions are not
good for mobile war where artillery becomes extremely dangerous. Sadam's army
during the Gulf war was heavy in artillery. The original talk was to have
reserve (or national guard?) units equipped with the LAV that could be
attached to the light division and flesh it out for a mobile war. As a side
light the Tiger brigade (Ft Knox training cadre?) was attached to the Marines
to give them more firepower in the Gulf war.

> Blackhawks (You may not have heard of them, I'm not
The only problem with the Blackhawk or the UH-1 is that if you do not
control the air then they get to play a new game "duck or die" (The quote is
from one of my wargame friends who was flying a recon copter at Fort Sill and
I suspect he was at the Gulf war). The estimates I heard at the time was that
Sadam could contest the air over his forces for at least 2 to 3 weeks after he

invaded Kuwait.

> sure if they were in inventory by '81. Replaced
So the M551 Sheridan can be pushed out of a C130. I think they tried that once
but it took a couple of weeks to fix it ( the Sheridan that is). In

desert storm they reassigned the armored bn. to the division and it was
equipped with Sheridens.

The armored bn. was supposed to receive the "light tank" but the program went
to the same way as the Army LAV. I guess they solved the problem by removing
the armored bn. from the division.

> these Strykers. 3/2, 3/25th are the first two
Let see. If 1 or 2 of the Navy transports are sunk or badly damaged that
should
easily cost us 200+. If you say it is unlikely then tell that to crew of

the British Type 42 destroyer HMS Nottingham who "ran aground" (yes it is CNN
and I assume the ship had GPS) off Australia. Guess what, this would turn
mechinized infantry into motorized infantry (borrow the trucks from the
locals).

> man the rebuilt brigade without stripping the units in
With costs of 1/3 of the Bradley, fuel efficiency that was twice as good

as the Bradley and the highest reliably of any of the US APCs the LAV25 can
hold its own. The Marines have 2 LAV25s for each squad and even support,
medical and supply versions of the vehicle. The lighter armor was more due to
the Marine requirement that the LAV25 be able to swim on to the landing beach
(I wonder how well the Stryker can swim).

If you don't bite off my head if my count is off there is 135+ LAV25&
variants per Marine light armored battalion (I have 1 battalion in 1/300
scale). Due to it's cost the Bradley never did come out with all of the
variants
it needed in it's battalion (I have a battalion of Bradleys in 1/300
scale too).
As a side issue I have most battalions (in 1/300 scale in 1 to 1) of the
US, Russian, German and British armies both regular and reserve (if it would
fight in Europe). I stopped collecting modern in about 1993 when a Europian
war became unlikely and I went over to SciFi in 1/300 scale in a big
way..

Yes I do have Blackhawks and UH-1 and Cobra'a in 1/300 scale as well
as copters of most of the other powers mentioned above up to 1993.

> I mentioned this before.
The question is academic. The Democrats are screaming budget deficit and the
news media is screaming about $4 billion needed for airport security so I
suspect that improving conventional forces is DOA for the foreseeable future
and the money will go for special forces and specialized units (10th Mountain
division for example).

When the Russian threat was greatest the Abrams MBT, Bradley APC and the
TACFIRE FD(it does work fantastic but what a waste of time to get it). Without
a ground threat I suspect that the Army will delay entry of any new vehicles
till the next generation of APCs or another ground threat pops up.

If you don't mind the heresy I think we do not now need a new APC but would be
better off spending the money training the units with what they have got. The
peace dividend has cost the Army much of it's readiness and as Sadam learned
trained soldiers with good equipment beat untrained soldiers with lots of
equipment.

> --- Scott Siebold <gamers@ameritech.net> wrote:

BTW, in the future, if you're going to respond to my last 2 paragraphs and
ignore the first 12 paras, then snip what you're not responding to.

> Lets see, the light divisions were formed as a fast

IMHO, light divisions are a symptom of testosterone poisoning on the part of
infantry officers.

Light infantry divisions suck ass for anything besides jungles and maybe
mountains.

Finally, with the IBCT, there's a prospect of
motorizing the last of our non-airborne divisions.

> The only problem was that without APC's the light

They're no good for any kind of conventional war.

> light division and flesh it out for a mobile war. As

Guess those LAVs weren't enough.

> >Blackhawks (You may not have heard of them, I'm not

Welcome to the United States.

We own the air over any piece of the planet we choose. Maybe, just maybe if we
took on the Israelis we might have disputed air superiority until they ran out
of
US-manufactured spares for their F-16s.  No other Air
Force on the planet is capable of matching quality of planes, quantity of
planes, and level of pilot training.

(The quote is
> from one

Reality check: Saddamn couldn't contest the air over his own country for 6
hours.

> >sure if they were in inventory by '81. Replaced

Yes. They have been and were repeatedly.

> The armored bn. was supposed to receive the "light

Actually, the M-8 AGS (NOT a light tank) was cancelled
to pay for Bosnia because it was ordered by the Pres and Congress refused to
appropriate to fund it.

Your point re: 2 LAVs per squad is fine, but the Army doesn't have the manning
levels to man infantry platoons to 100% as it is. Double the size of
platoons (3-man crew, 8 vehicles, and 30 dismounts,
and you're talking over 50 men per platoon) and they'll never man them.

> On 8-Jul-02 at 22:00, John Atkinson (johnmatkinson@yahoo.com) wrote:

Oops, sorry about the excessive post. I was going to "me too" in on J.A.s
comment about cutting posts, thought better of it, and hit send instead of
delete by mistake.

It's my right hand which I messed up rock climbing. I need to figure out some
exercises to get the dexterity back. It causes me fits with the mouse.

On Mon, 8 Jul 2002 23:45:32 -0400 (EDT) Roger Books
<books@jumpspace.net> writes:
> Oops, sorry about the excessive post. I was going to

Maybe but that's certainly better then I sliced open my hand slamming the
carving knife into the cutting board on Thanksgiving while arguing with
my wife at the family gathering (actually happened to a GS-15 at work -
a
jerk extraordinaire - of course he was hired away by an agency in the IC
and promoted to the august ranks of the SIS (Senior Intelligence
Service,) - who never understood why some of us could never keep a
straight face when he walked into a conference room. He's probably the clown
in charge of finding OBL now days...

Gracias,