Why you should be skeptical of the skeptics

[Battlefront.com]

There are many critics of the Stryker vehicle, concept, and related program elements. Some of this criticism is valid, some of it is baseless. A fair amount of the criticism that is valid is either applicable, in some way, to other systems NOT being criticized. And some of the criticism that appears to be valid is actually something that is taken out of context, or at least not presented fairly to what alternative vehicles can do or not do. Most of the critics of the Stryker program that resort to these tactics are doing so with an agenda. That agenda is to oppose anything on wheels in favor of things which are on tracks.

The Abrams, as we all know, is the most heavily armored and armed vehicle in the US inventory. That does not mean, however, that it isn't without its flaws. When pointing out issues with the Stryker (or anything else) it must be kept in mind that one can find plenty of flaws with other vehicles, yet they are still considered to be net positive in combat. Meaning, just because the Stryker has some flaws (like all vehicles) that doesn't automatically mean it is a piece of junk nor does it mean criticism of it is fair or kept in perspective.

What I would like to do here is to underscore how the methodology of the criticism of the Stryker program can be easily adopted to something which those critics believe to be the best thing since sliced bread - the Abrams Main Battle Tank. What follows is an "anti-Abrams" rant based on a US Army After Action Report on the Abram's performance in the opening phase of OIF using the "anti-Stryker" method of building a case against the vehicle. Unlike much of the criticism of the Stryker I've seen, I am not purposefully distorting the AAR's presentation or context (except in one case which I'll let you guys figure out ). So without further ado, here is my "axe grinding" example that I hope people will keep in mind when reading criticism of any vehicle, but especially the Stryker:

April 5, 2003 - C12, 1-64 Armored Battalion was towing an Abrams which had an engine fire. It was determined that it could not be towed to safety so it was shot to pieces and left on the battlefield. I count 2 Maverick missile and one1 Sabot penetrations of the turret, which resulted in the vehicle being completely destroyed.

Conclusion - Not only do Abrams have engine fire problems, but they can't be towed back under battlefield conditions. Airpower and ground forces had to expend time and energy to destroy the vehicle, which is an extremely expensive way to "spike" an extremely expensive piece of equipment. Had I known this I would have bought shares in General Dynamics. They're going to make a killing replacing all the defective vehicles our guys had to shoot up.

Overall very little SABOT used. Crew served MGs ended up being weapon of choice for many engagements due to the plehtora of targets and the fact that Iraqis chose to open up at close range, thus negating the use of the main gun.

Conclusion - All that money, all that training, and all the support issues to field heavy armor with a big ass gun and what do they do? They used MGs that any grunt could have lugged around at an infinitesimal cost.

Abrams had significant problems acquiring targets in sandstorm conditions.

Conclusion - the Abrams is useless when confronted with common desert conditions. Guess we should stay out of the Middle East then, because they lack the rolling green pastures of central Germany.

Extreme dusty conditions required continuous cleaning of the VPACs. Failure to do so could result in engine failure. Many engine failures noted, blamed on lack of PJAS (Pulse Jet Air Systems).

Conclsuion - a little bit of dust and this multi-million Dollar behemoth comes to a screeching halt unless crews are on their toes and out of their tank cleaning a simple air filter! The solution? A self cleaner that costs tens of thousands of Dollars EACH! Haven't these guys heard of NAPA? No air filter I know of costs that much!!

High rates of failure on #2, #3, and #5 left and right road wheel arms and assemblies. Under investigation by PM Abrams and GDLS engineers.

Conclusion - the suspension system of the Abrams is inherently defective. It is weak and can't support all that weight piled on it. This puts every tanker at risk because once one of these things fails, they are sitting ducks. And if they belong to 1-65 AR perhaps it will be their own guys shooting it up to make sure it doesn't fall into enemy hands. Heck, it sounds like we need to double the number of Abrams we have simply to ensure we have enough in running condition to kill the ones that break down.

Road wheel and track wear proved to be significant over long distances and high rates of speed.

Conclusion - the Abrams is touted as one of the fastest MBTs in the world. Doctrine calls for it to slice through enemy opposition and drive deep into enemy territory. Now we're finding out that there had better be a full on repair depot, stocked and waiting, at the end objective. Otherwise they'll be sitting around with broken tracks and wheels waiting for the Air Force to take 'em out with Mavericks.

Rate of movement and maneuvering over vast distances in a short period of time caused units to use more fuel than projected, which ended up taxing the logistics system.

Conclusion - obviously the designers of the Abrams didn't read up on their history since this was the same problem German armor faced FIFTY YEARS AGO! Seems some engineers have been asleep at their drafting tables.

Combat conditions required a lot of turret movement due to the need to continuously scan the battlefield, which requires the engine to be running. This requirement was a previously identified problem and the EAPU (External Auxiliary Power Unit) upgrade was installed on many M1A2s to overcome this issue. However, feedback on the usefulness of this package was mixed.

Conclusion - OK, so the original design is flawed so they come up with an expensive fix for it. Now we find out the expensive fix doesn't work either? Great! More hard earned taxpayer's money being spent on keeping our soldiers in harm's way!

If a unit did not have a required spare part on hand then the vehicle was stripped of all usable components and left where it sat.

Conclusion - these logistically complex vehicles are put into a real world situation and fail. Then the crews spend battlefield time scavenging parts to keep the others running so nobody has to shoot them up lest they fall into enemy hands. Sounds like our tankers spent more time stripping and blowing up their own vehicles than they did engaging the enemy.

Majority of losses due to mechanical breakdown, being stripped by friendly units for parts, or "severely vandalized by Iraqi people"

Conclusion - I stand corrected. The biggest threat to this multi-million Dollar, heavily armed, heavily armored vehicle is not only its own failings but also being vandalized by civilians. Hopefully the Iraqis knew to take road wheels #2, #3, and #5 since they'd only fail on our boys anyway.

Documented instances of 25mm AP-DU ammunition disabled a tank from the rear.

Conclusion - Even a Stryker could have survived that hit!

Documented instances of turret ready rack (ammo) being hit and penetrated, igniting ammo. Blast doors worked as intended and crew not harmed.

Conclusion - well, if the turret armor worked as intended the blast doors wouldn't need to do anything except open and close now would they?

In some instances, catastrophic losses resulted from burning EAPU material and/or packaged POL products dripping down into the engine compartment and catching the engine on fire.

Conclusion - adding insult to injury, the EAPU upgrade not only doesn't work but it causes engine fires. Whoever designed that EAPU should have to stand on the engine grill when one of these EAPUs fails.

Cost comparison:

Costs per M1A1 Abrams tank:

Original Cost - $4.3 Million

AIM refurbishment (not upgrade) program for older M1A1s - $1 Million

Total: $5.3 Million

Costs per M1A2 Abrams tank:

Original Cost - $5.6 Million

M1A2 SEP Upgrade - $2 to $3.7 Million

SEP Repair/Modification - $260k

Total: $9.56 Million

Costs per M2A3 Bradley:

Average - $3 Million

Costs per Stryker:

Average - $2 Million

Overall conclusion:

The Abrams is a vast waste of money and resources. When the suspension isn't breaking down the engine is acting as a marshmello toaster for the crew. The enemy doesn't need expensive and technologically superior weapons to kill the few that remain operational. All they need is a 25mm gun, which even an armored car can defend against. And before certain disaster befalls these vehicles, they can't hit the broad side of a barn when the dust kicks up, they have to run their vehicles to rotate their turrets even though the taxpayer's bought them extra power units, the crews spend their time cleaning air filters instead of looking for those 25mm gunners, and when they do find the enemy they are likely to use a M240 MG to cut them down. One has to ask if it is worth all these millions and millions of Dollars to field a portable weenie roaster with a popgun for the occasional firefight situation. I certainly don't think so.

Steve

[stoat]

Did you subcontract that post to JasonC?

[stoat]

You mention engine fires. The tank in question had its external packs (crew belongings) set ablaze, but the engine itself didn't catch fire. It was abandoned because it was taking part in a thunder run that would only experience heavier combat as the day went on. Who wants to fight while towing a tank? It was blasted in place. Are there any other recorded events of engine fires? If not, this could be your distortion.

[Battlefront.com]

Stoat,

Good guess, but no. Engine fires were mentioned in several places in the report. The EAPU issue was also specifically mentioned to have been a cause of some of them.

BTW, there was a note in the report about externally stowed equipment being highly vulnerable and it being important to stow things according to official doctrine. I didn't include that in my mock-rant because I was getting tired of typing

Steve

[stoat]

A great source for Abrams action is the book "Thunder Run." It highlights the problems tank crews had with maintenance and tells of how platoons would go into battle at half strength because filters had to be changed, or sparkplugs cleaned, or whatnot. It also tells of how tanks could weather small arms and RPGs all day without serious damage but the crew's gear would be gone or shredded beyond use because of its exposure to the enemy fire.

I feel I can at least pretend to be an expert on the subject.

[Seanachai]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Some of this criticism is valid, some of it is baseless. A fair amount of the criticism that is valid is either applicable, in some way, to other systems NOT being criticized. And some of the criticism that appears to be valid is actually something that is taken out of context, or at least not presented fairly to what alternative vehicles can do or not do.

Steve

I...

I demand that you appear before us all, cross-gartered, and wearing yellow.

[lucero1148]

Why bother to destroy the M1 since the enemy wouldn't be able to make use of it anyway? I would think it would be better to let them tow it away themselves and just follow them to wherever they tow the thing to and blow everyone up around it.

As for the M1 being destroyed by 25mm DU rounds doesn't that mnean friendly fire? I doubt the insurgents have easily available DU rounds available even if for 23mm AA guns.

Definitely the M1 isn't the best vehicle for urban warfare but it wasn't meant for street fighting I believe although it should be capable for whatever threat is at hand.

Al best

Patrick

[Battlefront.com]

Apparently the Army is reexamining their destruction policy. Does seem rather stupid to spend a half hour blowing up the thing only to have the logistics guys come upon it an hour or two later when there is ZERO chance of the bad guys retaking the terrain and moving a 70 ton vehicle to a safe location. It's not like that Apache that was shot down behind enemy lines and carted off intact somewhere. Anybody know if it was recovered?

Yes, the 25mm DU rounds were most certainly from a Bradley. Whether a Soviet 23mm AA gun could do the same in real battlefield conditions is not known.

Still waiting for someone to spot my small distortion through omission. Tricky to do when one doesn't have the original report, which is sort of ignorance that reckless skeptics (of any sort) count on in the court of public opinion. For example, when you see a fact like "Stryker Brigades lose 9 tires a day in Iraq" things look pretty dang'd bad. But if the skeptic mentioned that it is 1/3rd of 1% of what is being used at any given time and that tire only has single ply walls, well... the point seems kinda trivial so hopefully the reader's don't figure this out

Steve

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Costs per M1A2 Abrams tank:

Original Cost - $5.6 Million

M1A2 SEP Upgrade - $2 to $3.7 Million

SEP Repair/Modification - $260k

Total: $9.56 Million

i remember reading that the total cost of the full SEP project itself leads to a single M1A2SEP costing around 20 million due to the small number of delivered systems.

[Holman]

Sheesh--I won't pay enough taxes in my lifetime to buy one Stryker, let alone an Abrams. Who's funding this military, anyway?

[stoat]

Microsoft.

[Abbott]

Documented instances of 25mm AP-DU ammunition disabled a tank from the rear.

Conclusion - Even a Stryker could have survived that hit!

???

[Andrew H.]

Originally posted by Abbott:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Documented instances of 25mm AP-DU ammunition disabled a tank from the rear.

Conclusion - Even a Stryker could have survived that hit!

??? </font>

[hellfish]

Great post!!

[Peter Cairns]

Couple of points.

On destroying M1's, There is some evidence that the current Russian and potentially Chinese and Iranian UAV programmes have benefited from technology that has been aquired from downed UAV's in Bosnai and Kosovo.

Lesson:- If in five years time you don't want Chinese tanks to have reverse engined copy of the M1's fire control system, you spike M1's.

Point two, Everything performs badly at the limits, be it sandstorms or whiteouts, including people, that's why we have friendly fire deaths and the like.

You never know how good anything is until you push it too the limit.

In the six day war the Israeli's had some early night vision equipment but didn't really use it, because well after 12 hours in a tank in the Sinai, to use a military expression, everyone was f**ked....

One issue that may be worth discussing is a sort of CM:SF speed penalty, where people who complete scenarios to quickly or successfully find their force more and more fatigued, because in effect they are pushing themselves to hard.

It depends on Scenario design, but their are plenty of historical cases ( which I can't quote not being a grog) of units running low on fuel or ammo, or just having to stop because they were exhausted or had outrun their support.

That alone might make a good scenario.

Horses for Courses, the fact that an M1 has limits doesn't mean it's bad, the same for the Stryker, It's not as if the US is abandoning one for the other,

If you find yourself with a tank in a swamp, the fact that it's the best tank in the world won't do you much good. The CM:SF setting seems to have been designed to make sense for the STryker and as such it will probably show it at it's best.

As people design their own Scenarios people will test it's limits and show it's limitations, but they would do that with an M1, M2/3 game as well. That will be all part of the fun.

Peter.

[Battlefront.com]

Peter, I hope you understand that I posted my Abrams Rant to show that anybody can take a "lessons learned" document and go crazy with criticism. I chose the Abrams because I had a handy report and it is the vehicle many of the anti-Stryker camp feel is above criticism. Well, at least in the same way they criticize the Stryker. It is the pot calling the kettle black, someone living in a glass house throwing stones, etc.

I am hoping that people previously buying into the Stryker criticism start to question whether they are against the Stryker for real reasons or as a result of a propaganda campaign being waged by an agenda driven group of people. If they have come to the conclusion that the Stryker, as it is and is intended to be, is a bad direction for the military that is one thing. But to have this conclusion be based on utter crap like on Combatreform... well, I ask that they reconsidder their stand on the Stryker and keep an open mind in these discussions.

Steve

[Rick]

I think these discussions on this forum and the reading I've done to back it up are convincing me that the Stryker is much better than I originally thought.

OTOH, if my rear was over in Iraq, I would still prefer that it be in an Abrams.

[Kellysheroes]

The AAR about the Abrams now becomes exactly the reason you should do a WWII module first.

[Midnight Warrior]

Just imagine how these types studies would have rated WWII vehicles

The Sherman is under gunned and torches up too easily and does not have good flotation

The Tiger is too heavy, too expensive, too slow, the turrent rotation is too slow and it breaks down too easily

US Tank destroyers too lightly armored to stand up to heavy German armor

US Halftracks are too under armored

Has there ever been a perfect military vehicle?

[Peter Cairns]

Steve,

My points weren't aimed at you, just general observations on the thread.

What can be said about the M! can be said about almost MBT, used in the wrong way you'll get problems. Likewise the Stryker, or indeed anything else.

Personally I am a big fan of the concept of Intermediate forces for two reasons.

Firstly being in the UK I watched the Uk army effectively split in to two. It had the BAOR in the Germany which went from Chieftan and FV432 to Challenger Warrior, while the bulk of the rest was light Infantry with armoured landrovers being rotated out of Ireland.

This made real sense given the two dominant missions of the time but left us with a situation where for rapid deployment and a crisis or heavy stuff could be moved by air, and or light stuff was too bloody light.

If you look at current MOD plans and what has been done over the last 5-10 years in terms of aquiring equipment and changing structures then we are well on the way to creating forces to fill that gap and in many respects they mirror BCT and a Stryker force.

Secondly, and this is a birt Bizare,

For a good few years I've been a member of the SNP's ( Scottish National Party) defence working group, looking at what kind of army we would need ( and could staff and afford).

We strted with the existing infantry regiments and then one of Light armour, Engineers and Artillery, plus some form of Special forces. About 10,000 in all.

However over time I have come to think that having say an Artillery regiment of 700, and say 50men in evry infantry battalion with 81mm mortars isn't the way to go.

Given that I don't see a nation of Scotlands size needing Braveheart SP 155mm or MRSL;s and that 155mm towed artillery is vulnerable it would be better to take that total of 1,000 men and divid up.

We would have an artillery training unit as part of a training regiment and give every Infantry regiment an artillery company of it's own with 120mm vehicle mounted mortars.

Do that with Engineers and light Armour and mechanise your infantry with a common wheeled vehicle and you end up with a Scottish army post independence that would to all intemts and purposes be a Stryker Brigade.

It would probably never be deployed as such, more likely Regiments ( which would be more like perminant UK battlegroups) would be rotated in and out,

For a small european nation with no real domestic threat, but a committment to playing a rule with the UN and EU, then it seems to make pretty good sesne.

So you can see why I am quite keen on CM:SF, for me it's a sort of "Future Scottish Army" simulator.

Peter.

[Dinger]

The indo-europeans kicked ass with the horse. It gave them unmatched mobility, armor, and lethality.

If I were building an army for a country that would participate in EU and UN actions, I'd focus on maintenance, hospital, and really, really heavy stuff (SP 155s, MLRS, mobile SAM installations). That way, you can claim a bellicose profile, provide real, needed support around the world, and let the soldiers from the other countries deal with MOUT. Why send your boys to get shot when someone else is willing to do it?

That said, vehicle-mounted 120mm mortars makes sense.

[Peter Cairns]

"really heavy stuff (SP 155s, MLRS, mobile SAM installations)"

How would we getthe stuff abroad, what domestic use have we for it, how often in the last fifty years has the Un or anyone else really required that kind of hardware, would the quantities we could provide be in any way decisive, or even meaningful in such a situation.

The Uk has about 390 MBT's and 80 SP155mm SPGuns, Scotlands proportion of that would be about 35 and 7.

Even to focus on that, at the expense of Infantry would be 100 tanks and say 40 SP's, assuming we send a third, which is a huge proportion which we couldn't sustain over any long term deployment You are talking an armoured company and a gun battery.

Such a deployment would be rarely if ever needed, would never be independanly depolyed and never make a huge difference.

It makes far more sense for Big nations to do big heavy thinks (UK, France< Germany, Italy) and smaller nations to speciallise on the secondary but vital long term low tasks which are the mainstays of UN opperations and where the real work is done.

In that repect the medium weight deployable regiment makes sense. Look at international operations over the last fifty years and such a force would have been in almost constant demand.

I should point out that if there is a difference in emphasis it is that these would very much be "Infantry" in the British tradition equiped with a better armed and better armoured vehicle to support them, as opposed to mechanised infantry who primarily fought out of vehicles.

Peter.

[Abbott]

Originally posted by Midnight Warrior:

Has there ever been a perfect military vehicle?

YES! The quarter ton. And it still is Mutha beautiful!

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by Peter Cairns:

For a small european nation with no real domestic threat, but a committment to playing a rule with the UN and EU, then it seems to make pretty good sesne.

So you can see why I am quite keen on CM:SF, for me it's a sort of "Future Scottish Army" simulator.

i am interested in CM:SF from this viewpoint as well, as Strykers are similar to our domestic wheeled APCs. and Bradley is pretty close to CV90, as is Abrams to Leopard-2.

[Buq-Buq]

Distortion Through Omission:

In dismissing the effectiveness of the M1A1/M1A2 main gun because of the limited number of SABOT (APFSDS) engagements, the contributions of the other 120mm main gun rounds — HEAT, MPAT and HE-OR-T — have been ignored. These have become the "rounds of choice" for engaging the majority of targets in the Iraqi Theater of Operations. In many cases they are preferred to the .50 cal. AAMG, due to the lessened effects of collateral damage: the standard .50 cal. API round penetrates, on average, six buildings before being spent (increasing the chances of danger to innocents in the path of fire), whereas 120mm HEAT normally damages only two buildings. A further advantage of 120mm HEAT is that it usually causes catastrophic destruction at the point of detonation.

See the last two years of Armor (The Professional Development Bulletin of the Armor Branch) for further illumination on these points.

Mark