LUCASWILLEN05

The issue is NOT survivability. The issue is giving Strykers something to fight tanks with. A pop gun grenade launcher or a machineggun will barely scratch the paintwork of a T90 - and that is if the T90 is in range of these weapons. A TOW on the other hand could do that T90 some serious harm. However, as you say some compromises may have to be made such as reducing the strength of a squad. On the other hand maybe the whole concept of the Stryker is flawed and tey should have gone for the Bradley. There is however the debate around the FFV http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/land/vehicles/2015/06/08/army-ffv-future-fighting-vehicle-bradley-bae-requirements-abrams-stryker/28535079/

Or in the real world something went horribly wrong.It is an unfair fight. However, if the SBCTs and other light forces are committed to combat because you could not wait for the heavy armour for whatever military/political reason that and probably a mauling is what you can expect. One wonders what might have happened in August/September 1990 had the Iraqis come across the Saudi border. That doesn't mean you lose. Just that a lot of US soldiers get killed, wounded or captured And if they don't have the best possible equipment the price of that is to be paid in blood whether the reason is politics. money or military arrogance and complacency. Sometimes I think that the US military deserves a beating on the battlefield - I am reminded of those arrogant Prussian officers sharpening their swords on the steps of the French embassy before marchng of to a couple of places called Jena and Auerstadt. Maybe the US army will meet a similar debacle n Ukraine or the Baltic States before the institution learns a necessary lesson in humility - as it had to learn the necessary lesson at Kasserine n WW2

No. But I do not have the time to deal with what is very obviously classic groupthink. I can and will make use of the ignore option though

My point for the umpteenth time is at "the next war" may well be a high intensity armoured conflict of the type we see in CMBS. If that turns out to bbe the case I suggest you rad up on what happened at Kasserine where he US army went into battle with unsuitable equipmetnt and, at least in the early phases got their asses handed to them The risk of something similar happening in a future war against Russia applies today Even Trump thinks there are problems. t may well be that Mattis and McMaster have raised issues with Tump. Even though the military may well be training hard does not preclude deficiencies in certain areas that do need to be dealt with. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/us-army-combat-readiness_us_57f25436e4b024a52d2fa563 http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/how-the-us-army-getting-ready-the-unthinkable-war-russia-or-17267

Come on, Do we really expect anything like ideal advertised performance on the test range let alone the battlefield. TOW failed on this occasion but it has been tried an tested in combat on many occasions since the early 1970s Sure there are issue with trainng and maintenace. So address those issuesToW is certainly not the only option but it is at leas tried and tested. A known quantity. We don't know what issues Javelin might have assuming it can be vehicle mounted

So expain this then http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/army-manufacturer-face-criticism-over-combat-vehicle In particular this with the caveat that Iraq was COIN. not armourd warfare "The whole basis for the Stryker was the fundamentally false assumption that you did not need heavy armor and you did not need direct, organic firepower," retired Col. Douglas MacGregor, a military writer and analyst, told Cybercast News Service. "The idea was that you would know where the enemy was and the enemy would not know where you were. This is hardly the case in Iraq."

Yep, as I said earlier politics and/or budget could well be the issue

The MGS which is a long way from ideal,general firepower. We are talking AT capability. Specifically!

The point should be perfectly clear. Bradley has a TOW ATGM plus the portable Javelin ATGMso why ot do something si milar with some or all of the Strykers

Yes there is Those who forget their History are doomed to relive it. You are again foolishly missing the point which is that the next war might we;l NOT be a COIN but rather a high intesity armoured war against either a second rate power or another Great Power.

Rinaldi I have repeatedly said that the issue is not wheels or tracks. It is Anti Tank capability. All I am saying is that if you go to war against an enemy with a large tank force (like Russia, China, North Korea, Syria) you can expect to face tanks!!!

Yes I know. That is also the case with the Bradley as I made very clear in an earlier post. With all due respect that is not a intelligence test anybody should fail!!! However, as I myself said earlier you don't necessarily have to add an ATGM to all Strykers. Maybe just one platoon per company or one vehicle per platoon. However the deal would be each vehicle having the ATGM in addition to the grenade launcher or the machine gun. I kind of assumed everybody would know that it is sensible for any armoured vehicle to have an anti infantry defense in addition to AT capability.Again I kind of assumed I would not have to spell that out to anybody.

Oh dear. More Groupthink! That often is what leads organisations into big trouble You often get the war you do not expect. For the past few decades mos conflicts have bee COIN with a smattering of high intensity armoured conflicts such as the Arab Israeli Wars, the India Pakistan Wars, Desert Strm. Until he end of the 1980s most peopl expected the big one to be a high intensity armoured war in Central Europe (at least until it went nuclear . Prior to 1914 everyone expected small colonial wars and maybe short European Wars such as the Franco Prussian War. In 1914 the war that we actually saw was a Great Power World War. History has a way of surprising us and we don't always see the kind of war we thought was going to happen. Yes we might see more of the same. However. looking at the changing geopolitical scene we might find that the next conflict is actually a high intensity Great Power affair or perhaps another World War If that turns out to be the case we cannot afford the luxury of being equipped for a COIN only. The price of that would be paid in blood and at least early battlefield defeats

I agree with you there. It could be a political issue. It could also be a procurement issue. Quite possibly it may be both of the above

To a certain extent Stryker gives greater mobility and t is less vulnerable than a truck. It does however lack the AT armament the Bradley has. The Stryker's armour does give some limited protection against small arms fire and maybe against anything other than a direct HE hit, So does Bradley. As I keep saying to you it is the lack of ATGM capability that seems to be Stryker's biggest drawback

My view is why not consider adding an ATGM capability to some or all Strykers in the real world. It should be obvious this would improve capability against heavy armour. For the same reasons that the Bradley was better than the M113. Given the geopolitical changes of the last few years it can be argued that priorities need to change as well such hat the army can be regard to fight a range of conflicts from COIN to high intensity armoured combat against another Great Power. We really don't know for certain who the next War will be against. It might be against an opponent like ISIS, t might be North Korea , Iran or Syria. Or in might be against another Great Power - Russia or China I would not expect a SBCT to fare too well in high intensity armoured combat against the modern tanks of another Great Power unless they get the ATGM capability which will give them a fighting class. Otherwise the SBCT could find that the first battle of the war turns nto a nasty little Kasserine - by which time it is a little late

Well #I would rather have a Bradley than a Humvee :-) Yes, Stryker is intended to be rapidly deployable but given that a lot of armies in the world do have tanks it should be obvious that, even in an intervention scenario your SBCT likely will face tanks. In the CMSF scenario that can range from the T54/T55 up to the T90S export model. However in the Ukraine scenario your SBCT is facing Sir Russian. The big boys :-) In a high intensity war against a Great Power opponent - not a COIN or a mid to high intensity war against a second or third rate power. In the Great Power War scenario and in the scenario of armoured combat against say Iran or North Korea that ATGM capability would be preferable. Instead of one Javelin ATGM launcher you could have both that and a vehicle mounted TOW launcher doubling your long range AT capability. And before we start objecting that you are carrying two different ATGM types this is currently what is done in the case of the Bradley - hence anyone who objects on those grounds is making a bit of a straw man argument IMHO.

My point is really a very basic one. If you go up against a Main Battle Tank a machine gun or a grenade launcher clearly are not the tools for the job. Even this civilian amateur can see that. Yes, ideally APC's and IFVs shouldn't be going toe to toe with MBTs but we both realize hat sometimes, in the real world bad things happen. In theory the other solution might be to attach MBTs o the Strykers but that is clearly often going to be impractical for obvious reasons. Altering the weapons on the Stryker (adding an ATGM capability) may be the next best option As you say however there may be very good reasons why this cannot be done with the Stryker such as the procurement issues you mention or that there simply isn't the budget to upgrade he whole fleet. If that is he case maybe there are other ways to do it for instance one vehicle per platoon or one platoon per company which would grant you some capability which would be better than nothing. Or as you suggest a future Stryker replacement might include such capability. Perhaps what we are really talking about is whether an APC like Stryker or an IFV like Bradley is better. Personally I prefer Bradleys :-) That said thank you for the links which I am sure will be as educational and informative as always. I will study them latter in the week when I have a bit more time. Right now however I have real life assignments to complete :-)

Well i don't think you would have much luck in an argument with a T90 when all your Stryker has is a machinegun or a grenade launcher. Hopefully the guy with the Javelin is able to deal with the threat but maybe having the extra ATGM capability like the Bradley have might possibly be quite helpful when you go toe to toe with Russian heavy armour units which is obviously going t be the case. So, what reasons might here be NOT to add ATGM capabilty to all the Strykers assuming the budget were available to pay for the work?

What about taking a situation like Objective Montgomery which involves a fight around an overpass but morphing it from Iraq to Ukraine using a Russian force equipped with the T-72B3. They will still be better than the Replican Guard of course but at leas his way we won't have terrain issues. It will however not be n the Middle East :-)

Do you think this could be done? I am not an engineer :-)

I am not saying Stryker does not do a reasonable job in low intensity COIN environments. I am fine when using Srylker in hat kind of simulated environment. However I am less happy with it in a higher intensity armoured combat role and his is true in both CMSF and CMBS.. I find that the best way to use Stryker against a heavy armour opponent is to dismount the infantry somewhere safe and leave the vehicle somewhere safe while he infantry move up on foot. The Stryker serves to get the infantry to a suitable point to do the above. Interesting video though. However it does not mean that mounting a TOW all Strykers would not be a bad idea. A Javelin might be even better but this may not be feasible. This is why we have engineers :-)

Arguably performance in Chechnya was at least partly to do with poorly trained conscripts and poor command decisions. It is possible he 2008 Shaposhnikov Reforms have addressed those issues at least to some extent. This however seems like an upgrade to bring the T80 up to modern standards Possibly this may be a stopgap measure while the other developments are being worked on. Obviously the T-14 if it comes into service at all will need new production lines with all that entalls, In the meantime upgrade the T80s they already have to modern standards as the easiest and cheapest solution Anyway, perhaps this gives BF a good enough reason to include some late T80 models like the UD and the new BV version although we might all accept these will be rare beasts indeed :-)

This is interesting Can anyone shed further light on the status of the T80BV n the Russian army? https://southfront.org/reactive-t-80bv-tanks-returning-in-service-of-russian-army/ Maybe we will see BF including this as an option for the Russians - I am sure here will be those who will be celebrating that :-)

Certainly there are good reasons for Stryker. However I think CMBS shows us the limitations of the combat system. Maybe mounting a standard ATGM capability (in the real world :-) could be the way to go. Probably TOW although a vehicle munted version of Javelin would be wonderful if it is possible to do it