Reactive Armor for Strykers in 2010:

[Sivodsi]

You're right in that the unit is organized as a traditional cav unit, however they have strykers. Its a weird mix.

Yeah, really. I would have thought a traditional cavalry unit would be composed of horses...

<Ok ok weak civy joke>

[Battlefront.com]

Oh, and a correction... I forgot 172nd got reflagged. Looking it up quickly... dang, that was 2 years ago! Time flies

The whole heraldry of the Regiments confused the HELL out of me in 2003 when I started doing basic research. Each battalion has a lineage to a Regiment, which is completely nostalgia since Regiments (except for CAV) don't exist any more. On top of that, the reflagging done during the changeover to BCT had little to do with actual lineage a battalion had. Heraldry choose which Regiments to preserve and they were handed out like extra fine candy to the battalions. Here's 1-25 SBCT's lineup at the time of their reflagging:

• 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment (formerly 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment)

• 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment (formerly 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment)

• 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment (formerly 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment)

• 5th Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment (formerly 4th Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment)

• 2nd Battalion, 8th Field Artillery Regiment (formerly 4th Battalion, 11th Field Artillery Regiment)

• 25th Brigade Support Battalion

And if you want to get really confused, this is from the Wiki article on 24th Infantry Regiment:

The 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment served as part of the 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry (Lightning) Division from 24 August 1995 to September, 2006 in Fort Lewis, Washington. The battalion was reflagged in December, 2006 in Fort Wainwright, Alaska.

...

The unit has now been reflagged as the 3rd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment and moved to Vilseck, Germany. The 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment has replaced the 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment of the now decommissioned 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team as of December 14, 2006. The 1-24 Inf. is now part of the 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division based in Fort Wainwright, Alaska.

So, what happened is 1-24 Infantry (1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment) was part of the original 1-25 SBCT (1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division), but then was moved to the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment. In doing so it was renamed 3rd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cav Regiment. The old 172nd SBCT was then removed from its independent status and reflagged 1-25 SBCT to replace the new 3-2 SCR (if that is the right abbreviation!). In doing so the old heraldry of 1-24 Infantry came along for the ride and got assigned to the former 2-1 Infantry.

What I hate about this is how you can have two "1st Battalions" within a single Brigade simply because of the heraldry. I'm a big believer in preserving tradition, but I'm an even bigger believer in straight forward military designations

Steve

[Apocal]

What I hate about this is how you can have two "1st Battalions" within a single Brigade simply because of the heraldry. I'm a big believer in preserving tradition, but I'm an even bigger believer in straight forward military designations

I always wondered why they didn't simply reflag or redesignate or whatever the brigades as regiments and go from there. Especially now, since an Army brigade combat team is a close organizational parallel to a Marine regimental combat team. And aren't the 82nd's brigades known as their respective parachute infantry regiments anyway?

WTFO?

[bodkin]

The problem with these possible changes to military tech is the affect on the CMSF games currency.

The game is set in 2008, do BFC try to keep the game current by updating it with patches that address new tech or decide to leave it as a fictious historical game? Any noticable changes in US land forces hardware over the next year or so will make the game look dated quickly, then again we'll hopefully all be playing CM Normandy before then I suppose.

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request

[Battlefront.com]

Correct. The fact that "current" stuff is an ever changing target means we can never have a fully accurate picture of contemporary warfare unless we release patches for whatever happens to wind up in the field (or get removed, don't forget!). That's simply not feasible. So what we intend on doing is giving you guys a pretty good snapshot of what the near future battlefield looks like at the time we do it, then skip ahead to start fresh for a new "Family" of products. That means CM:SF 2 will have significant differences on the Blue side of things. Red is already slated to be very, very different simply because it won't be Syria again.

The thing about predicting the future is that the future is never certain. Some things we predicted would happen by the time CM:SF was released didn't. Other things that we thought would take longer to get into the field came out a lot earlier. Still other things came out of the blue. Very hard to predict how things will be when a significant force is in the field and engaged in combat.

An example of this is FCS (Future Combat Systems). If the Pentagon gets its way, the program which should have been fielded around 2012 is going to be slaughtered. Primarily because it appears like there's no way it will be ready by 2012 (or ever ). Now, if we had taken the Army at its word last year then we would be planning on a FCS dominated game. Fortunately, we predicted (correctly) that FCS would never see the light of day as intended and therefore haven't made any such plans.

Steve

[Apocalypse 31]

How much time and how many men would it take to put the slat kit on a single stryker?

A few hours to put it all on. Of course a crane of some sort would be required. The stuff is ALOT heavier than you think.

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request

[flamingknives]

However, whatever they are made of needs to stop an RPG7 warhead travelling at a few hundred metres per second

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request

[Apocalypse 31]

Which is odd isn't it, since everywhere I read that it is the *shape* of the grates by which they defuse an RPG rather than the strength of them. They could be made of hard plastic, theoretically, if the "fuze" thesis is correct.

Hmm. Well it needs to be tough enough to STOP the RPG. It is a rocket, afterall.

[StrykerPSG]

I don't think so. I think the round passes through, it just is defused in the process. The round either continues past the vehicle or impacts the hull. That is the impression I got of it.

The way current slat works is no different then some of the bar armor used in WWII against panzerfausts. You basicially have metal bars spaced far enough apart to allow the RPG to wedge itself between the two bars. The RPG then run out of propellant and having not made contact with anything, then detonates prematurely, ensuring there is not enough inertia from the momentum of the round and contact with a solid object to form the lethal plasma cone. That is why there is also standoff from the vehicle (distance will remain unmentioned) and a strict compliance (as can be permitted) with noting stored between the slat and vehicle. As Lt Mike stated, you could not use anything but a metallic material because the rocket is still travelling several hundred feet per second and is propelling a weighted projectile.

As for how long it takes to place slat on, it took us initally about 12 hours, with crane support and no pneumatic tools to place all of the slat. It is definitely a depot level application if practical application allows.

[Battlefront.com]

The primary reason the cage has to be strong is so that it will survive contact with the 19 year olds driving the Strykers Seriously though, can you imagine how long thin, lightweight armor would last on a combat vehicle in any environment, but especially a rubbled up urban one? Not very long is my guess.

The other thing is that some types of RPG rounds have kinetic energy that is completely separate from their capabilities to damage armor. The slat armor is designed to deform these rounds so that when they strike the primary armor they are no longer optimally shaped, directed, and/or functional. Thin armor decreases the chances of doing that big time. There's some first hand examples of RPG rounds literally wedged in the slat armor, though I'm sure that's a fairly rare thing to have happen. Extreme range perhaps?

Anyway, the point is the slat armor has to be pretty rugged to be effective.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

StrykerPSG,

no pneumatic tools to place all of the slat.

Oh that sounds like fun! Well, at least you were probably in a nice air conditioned aircraft hanger working 45 minute shifts with lemonade and cookies right next to you too, right? Please tell me they at least allocated extra Band-Aids to you guys so your skinned knuckles didn't bleed all over the place!

While it's true that the slat armor can actually arrest the incoming round, the more likely thing is the round hits the hard edge of the slat in a way that degrades the round's ability to penetrate armor. Which is the weakness of HEAT especially. The SABOT rounds, unfortunately, tend not to have much of a problem with slat armor because the penetrating rod is small enough to go between the slats and, even with deflection and deformation, probably still strong enough to penetrate the primary armor. The good news is that if it does it tends to do less damage than a HEAT round would.

Oh, and the armor that was added to the top deck of the Strykers was done, in part, to protect the exposed crew from "RPG Splash". This is what results from an HE or HEAT RPG round detonating on the slat armor and the effect "splashing" the side of the Stryker. Early on there were some instances where the vehicles were able to shrug off a hit, but they lost one or more crew to the after effects. Notice how the top add-on armor is angled towards the slat armor instead of away from it.

Steve

[StrykerPSG]

The primary reason the cage has to be strong is so that it will survive contact with the 19 year olds driving the Strykers Seriously though, can you imagine how long thin, lightweight armor would last on a combat vehicle in any environment, but especially a rubbled up urban one? Not very long is my guess.

Anyway, the point is the slat armor has to be pretty rugged to be effective.

Steve

When we went over initially, and we were less concerned with community relations, we gave a lot of "Stryker lovin" by simply pushing aside vehicles in our way during convoy movement. It's not that it was a free for all, but when escorting logistical convoys from Balad to Scania, there were the odd vehicle borne IED that would infiltrate the convoy column and blow themselves up. So, the lesson learned was to push through intersections and allow no one to pass the convoy. This was generally accomplished by using hand gestures and pointing the M240 or M4 at the driver, but some chose to validate the threat and the quickest, less lethal action was to swerve the vehicle against the oncoming vehicle and simply rip off most of the quarter panels and the odd door. Again, a clear signal that they or anyone else behind were not going to pass.

[StrykerPSG]

StrykerPSG,

Oh that sounds like fun! Well, at least you were probably in a nice air conditioned aircraft hanger working 45 minute shifts with lemonade and cookies right next to you too, right? Please tell me they at least allocated extra Band-Aids to you guys so your skinned knuckles didn't bleed all over the place!

The air force wasn't available with koolaid and bandaids, though did at least provide a portable shelter

[dima]

The way current slat works is no different then some of the bar armor used in WWII against panzerfausts. You basicially have metal bars spaced far enough apart to allow the RPG to wedge itself between the two bars. The RPG then run out of propellant and having not made contact with anything, then detonates prematurely, ensuring there is not enough inertia from the momentum of the round and contact with a solid object to form the lethal plasma cone. That is why there is also standoff from the vehicle (distance will remain unmentioned) and a strict compliance (as can be permitted) with noting stored between the slat and vehicle. As Lt Mike stated, you could not use anything but a metallic material because the rocket is still travelling several hundred feet per second and is propelling a weighted projectile.

As for how long it takes to place slat on, it took us initally about 12 hours, with crane support and no pneumatic tools to place all of the slat. It is definitely a depot level application if practical application allows.

Just a few minor technical corrections

Buy the time PG round hits the target the rocket motor is no longer burning. In RPG-7 it only burns for 0.6 seconds after leaving the launcher and in RPG-29 it only burns while the round is still in the tube. The round reaches 300m/s for RPG-7 and even more for RPG-29.

Also, the "plasma" effect of these rounds is technically incorrect. It is not the plasma that penetrates. Shaped charge is "shaped" so that it forms a metal rod of the sort that moves faster than the speed of sound in metal. When that happens the armor at such circumstances behaves not as a solid object but as a liquid. So technically the armor is not burned through but liquified and pushed in. To slightly offset this composite armor was developed using ceramics, and other non-metal materials. But that's another topic

[StrykerPSG]

Great graphic Dima and I stand corrected, or mostly corrected. the design of the slat is still to keep the warhead from contacting the vehicle though, just misinformed about some of the mechanics of the RPG. Thanks for the correction.

[Battlefront.com]

Correct. Shaped charges are designed with certain assumptions about standoff distance so that the effect is optimized. Screw around with any of those assumptions and the effect is no longer optimized.

The Germans were, IIRC, the first to apply these principles to their vehicles during WW2 in the form of skirts and spaced armor. Spaced armor also had some benefits against solid shot AP, but the skirts generally did not because they were too thin. The concept about spaced armor was that the AP cap (hardened tip) couldn't handle going through two face hardened surfaces, so it would breach the first one, deform the cap, and cease to have the capability to breach the second one. This worked great against smaller caliber rounds, but larger caliber rounds could slice through both since they had enough kinetic energy to overcome both plates. And since two plates are less effective than a single plate, the Germans stopped using spaced armor.

Steve

[MikeyD]

There's some first hand examples of RPG rounds literally wedged in the slat armor

I'm reminded of a story told in the book "Achilles in Vietnam" about a Huey pilot. They were entering a hot LZ. The pilot saw the RPG guy stand, aim and fire at his hovering helicopter. The round squarely struck the plexiglass windscreen on the copilots side and got wedged in the windscreen. There hadn't been enough resistance hitting the soft plastic to trigger the fuze. The crew took a deep breath but hadn't counted on the RPG round's self-destruct mechanism. Instead of 'exploding' the round suddenly flaired, hitting the copilot in the face and killing him.

[tiny_tanker]

The slat armor is designed to defeat the RPG-7 specifically, since its most prevalent in Iraq, and its probably not to effective against anything else.

Lt Mike, I've worked with the 3-2 on multiple occasions over the last few years, in an indirect and visual nature if you follow me. You guys do good work.

[Battlefront.com]

in an indirect and visual nature if you follow me

Oh great... a peeping-tom

Steve

[tiny_tanker]

Something like that.

[Apocalypse 31]

Lt Mike, I've worked with the 3-2 on multiple occasions over the last few years, in an indirect and visual nature if you follow me. You guys do good work.

Thank you. This Brigade, specifically is built on NCO's that know their ****. Guys with Stryker experience, who have done a tour or two and know the vehicle and its capabilities.

[MikeyD]

About your NCO comment, Steve has often said that a major (fatal) flaw of Syrian command structure is their lack of NCOs. You've got draftee soldiers and officers with nothing in between. Career sargents are where most of the Army's warfighting "institutional memory" resides.