Kevlar Coffins

[DaveDash]

I think it's more practical than that. The point for the insurgency is to kill Americans, they do that often enough, they win.

In the part of Afghanistan where there are Strykers, the Americans are most available to be killed when they are riding around in a vehicle that will win pretty much any firefight with the insurgency, but on the other hand really can't go off road very much. And since the Americans are casualty-shy and support-weapons friendly, very often, the Americans are in their Strykers.

So the task for the insurgency becomes, how do you kill Americans riding around in Strykers, that are staying mostly on the roads, and the Americans are mostly staying in the Strykers?

Seems like booby-trapping the road with a bomb big enough to kill people inside the Stryker, seems to me like a no-brainer.

I mean, what else is the Afghan insurgent going to do?

Try and overrun firebases and get waxed? Write to the US Congress calling for subsidies to high-colesterol snack foods? Infiltrate suicide sleeper agents into the US? Wait around until the Americans in the Strykers debus and deploy, and then take them on in a firefight where the Americans can call in everything from B1A1 on down, and the Pathans can call on, er, their Maker?

The concept of active patrolling by US forces is a Godsend to the insurgency, what if the Americans just stayed in their bases?

Whoever controls the support of the population wins, actually. By sitting in bases, ISAF and OEF forces will not win the support of the population.

Not sure if you're being serious there... ?

Anyway, regarding Strykers, over on militaryphotos.net just about everyone who has actually served in one (Iraq/Afghanistan) swears by them.

The problem isn't Strykers - it's getting the local population on side - that is the best defense against IEDs.

[GSX]

Not dwelling too much on the issue but the whole mission statement for being in Afghanistan in the first place is getting a bit skewed. I believe we are there to 'support the democratically elected Government', which as we now know means supporting a very corrupt government

I'm not entirely sure its in our strategic interests to be there, let alone de-stabilise its southern neighbour in the process.

That being said, I imagine the Aghanis that are fighting against us see themselves as 'Freedom Fighters' from both the Wests invasion and their corrupt dictatorship government. There is always more than one side to a story after all.

I agree with big Duke here. How else does a native force fight a superpower? And even a superpower cant afford to develop a different vehicle for every different situation and so Strykers and the like will have to be used in police actions instead of warfighting.

Maybe we should all stay in our bases and let them get on with it, in ten years time nothing will have changed except the fact that a lot of NATO soldiers didnt get ten years older, have kids and enjoy life a bit longer...

Im not against the conflice per se but I am against all this floundering around. If were going to do something lets just go and do it!

[sigop22]

Well, there's no such thing as a 'safe vehicle' when you're talking 1,500 pound IEDs. Still, I recall Canada had rushed old M113s into Afghanistan after having disappointing results with LAV IIIs.

I don't think there was any real dissapointment with the LAV's as much as there was a need for vehicles. The LAV is the primary vehicle of the infantry, and they need as many as they can get considering the damage a lot of them have taken. The not-as-pointy trades needed armoured means to get around so they were the ones that recieved the TLAV's and Bisons.

And I'm not sure what problem the off roading is. I'm not sure about the Stryker, but the LAV is able to take off roading pretty well. I'm not an expert as I've only been in them but never driven them extensively. But I have driven the Bison overseas and it took the offroading we did really well, considering it was older and not as powerful. We managed to travel half the province from Helmand without using roads up until a certain point.

And from what I've seen, the LAVs can take some really nasty hits and still keep rolling.

[Bigduke6]

I am being provocative a bit, but still, there is this deeply-rooted idea in many Western militaries that active patrolling = success in war. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it isn't, and failing to recognize the difference gets people killed for no good reason. I would say that's the case here.

Sure, if your patrol gets somewhere, and does something useful or finds something, then well and good your patrol was useful. Certainly, there is the angle that if you sit on your base and hide, the tribesmen are going to conclude you are scared of them, which is not good.

But patrolling for the sake of patrolling is no panacea. You take casualties during your patrols, that's a hit to support at home, as well as a bump to insurgent morale. If your patrols are in (to the tribesmen) huge armored vehicles that can't drive much off the roads, you are already behind in the hearts and minds game.

The tribesmen most of them are fighters, they know terrain and tactics, and they will see that sort of limitation put on fighters as stupid. And when they take advantage, and hit the infidels riding in the vehicles, not only do they kill Americans (or whatever NATO), they reinforce their rep among the population - which General McChrystal tells us is the important part of this war - as an agile and Islamic David, fighting a clumsy and often immensely stupid Christian Goliath.

Sure, you can argue that line isn't reasonable, it doesn't have a logical leg to stand on. But if the tribesmen believe it, whose opinion is more important? Just because the command chain on down says active patrolling is a fine idea, that it helps control the population (whatever that means), it doesn't mean that the people living where the patrolling is going on - the tribesmen - are going to be convinced.

Certainly, if the patrols are gathering in lots of prisoners and dead insurgents and weapons caches, then that can be worth a few blasted Strykers with crew. But if the Stryker patrols are coming up with little - which I would assume to be the case, as all the insurgents have to do to stay away from the Strykers is get away from the road network - then why are Stryker patrols something that must be done? Is it really worth paying lives just to prove a wheeled armored transporter can be used in an insurgency, sort of, if you really want to?

I think I read somewhere that something like one in ten of all the Strykers in this brigade, have been road bombed one way or another. Not sure about that off hand, some one correct me on that if I'm off base. But my point is, this bomb-the-Stryker deal has been going on a while, and if all this patrolling is supposed to have demonstrated NATO resolve, it also has allowed the insurgency a whole bunch of "victories" over the Christian infidels. So you have to put it in a balance, is the "demonstrated security" worth the "blasted Strykers?"

My point of view, you want the population on your side, a good start is dont' act like a fool in their eyes. In this case, these are not suburbanites in Illinois or Kansas we are talking about. These are Pathan tribesmen, they know terrain and infantry tactics, and attacking the overequipped Christian soldiers as they drive down the mountain road is a Pathan tradition dating back to at least 1837. I for one fail to see the sense in behaving, in the eyes of a population you're trying to get on your side, pretty much the same way as every invader of Afghanistan has behaved, for the last 150 years.

As to the troopies swearing by Strykers, well, in Iraq that's one thing, that's a relatively civilized country with roads, communications, education, an industrial infrastructure, major resources, and not so much wheeled vehicle no go terrain. You can make a case that a wheeled APC is a good idea in a place like Iraq, although, I would say a great deal depends on the opponent. If you are in a conventional fight against a competent opponent, and he has tracks and you have wheels, you are really up against the eight ball, he is going to exploit the Hell out of that.

But in Afghanistan...well, maybe Strykers are great, but then the troopies riding around in Strykers there also say, most of them, the Pathans can be induced to accept peace, the Karzai government needs defending, the population is coming over to our side (because our translator told us so) and that if you give the ANA some time they're turn into a really solid force, just trust us!

[lomir]

The following documentary about some Canadian forces in Afghanistan goes with this threat and with the "Generation Kill" one, too. I post it here because you might want to see the problems a wheeled LAV III vehicle - here in particular, can face in the common Afghan roads used for patrolling. Maybe that's why they are calling up the good old tracked M113s. It's in the third video, but I think the whole documentary is worthy to be seen.

Afghanistan: The Other War part #1

Afghanistan: The Other War part #2

Afghanistan: The Other War part #3

[YankeeDog]

Speaking of IEDs, apparently the US Marines had quite a find in Afghanistan on Sunday:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/world/asia/11afghan.html?hp

That's a lot of boom...

[MikeyD]

About that Stryker-in-mud clip - yup, that's what I heard. Wheeled vehicles, even the best of 'em, tend to dig-in when they hit mud. A South African 8x8 Rooikat or German 8x8 Luchs would do the same There was a reason why in 1945 the U.S. decided to go with an all-tracked force.

[JonS]

... there is this deeply-rooted idea in many Western militaries that active patrolling = success in war. ...

Well, of course, it's not quite that simple. Active patrolling is a component of offensive action, and offensive action is one of the Principles of War.

However, if offensive action isn't coupled to, say, surprise, flexibility, maintenance of morale, and - most importantly - selection and maintenance of the aim, then yeah, you're going to flounder.

This, I think (pontificating from on high and afar ) is where things are going astray. The Coalition has got that whole Offensive Action thing, including the use of active patrolling, *down*. But the patrolling doesn't seem to be coupled to any coherent aim, and surprise is often lacking for various reasons. Ergo, patrolling may not be acheiving what's expected of it.

[MikeyD]

The U.S. has always had something of a problem with 'sealing the deal', especially in places that weren't exactly happy to see us. From the Invasion of the Phillipines 100 years ago to Vietnam to Lebanon 1983, etc. We're like the guard dog who's got into the habit of chasing cars. The worst thing that could happen to us is if we were to actually catch one as it passed. At some point in strategizing a conflict you have to put down your Clauswitz and pick up your Machiavelli.

[YankeeDog]

Don't give Clausewitz short shrift. After all, he's the one who said "War is the continuation of Diplomacy by other means."

So I don't think Clausewitz would grade an indefinite occupation with no attainable objective or endgame any higher than Machiavelli or Lao Tsu or anybody else for that matter. To me, a parallel diplomatic strategy to a war strategy like this would be a speech with lots of passion and histrionics, but which has no real point and fails to bring anyone close to your point of view. That speech Muammar Gaddafi gave at the UN recently would be a good example; even his allies were deeply embarrassed .

[MikeyD]

Russia excells (or at least the Soviets excelled) at the 'Machiavellian' endgame to their various invasions. Get everybody paranoid about everyone else, install your guy here, subvert their guy there, grease some palms, sow some disinformation. I've got to admit, the U.S. turning 'insurgent' militias into 'awakening' militias at the cost of chump-change in 2007 exceeded my wildest expectations. A means to an end.

[DaveDash]

Russia excells (or at least the Soviets excelled) at the 'Machiavellian' endgame to their various invasions. Get everybody paranoid about everyone else, install your guy here, subvert their guy there, grease some palms, sow some disinformation. I've got to admit, the U.S. turning 'insurgent' militias into 'awakening' militias at the cost of chump-change in 2007 exceeded my wildest expectations. A means to an end.

Don't underestimate the U.S.'s ability to play Machiavelli on the strategic level, they've been doing it successfully for quite some time. A classic example would be pushing Egypt out of the Soviet sphere of influence and retaining Israel after the Yom Kippur War.

It seems they are learning to do it on the tactical level - the hard way, we will see if McChrystal's change in strategy pays off.

[cabal23]

Don't give Clausewitz short shrift. After all, he's the one who said "War is the continuation of Diplomacy by other means."

So I don't think Clausewitz would grade an indefinite occupation with no attainable objective or endgame any higher than Machiavelli or Lao Tsu or anybody else for that matter. To me, a parallel diplomatic strategy to a war strategy like this would be a speech with lots of passion and histrionics, but which has no real point and fails to bring anyone close to your point of view. That speech Muammar Gaddafi gave at the UN recently would be a good example; even his allies were deeply embarrassed .

...or any recent American president for that matter. Sorry I had to throw that in. Certainly I am not anti-us, but suspect of the players.

[cabal23]

I am going to claim ignorance on this one, but why can't we come up with a troop transport that is heavily armored and prepared to take the damage from and IED and keep on rolling? This can't be that hard and must be a case of armor and a movement system that is not inhibited by explosion damage as much as current models. Come on, we can send people to the moon but can't come up with an anti-ied vehicle? I am aware of British anti-ied systems,but where is the US on this?

[DaveDash]

I am going to claim ignorance on this one, but why can't we come up with a troop transport that is heavily armored and prepared to take the damage from and IED and keep on rolling? This can't be that hard and must be a case of armor and a movement system that is not inhibited by explosion damage as much as current models. Come on, we can send people to the moon but can't come up with an anti-ied vehicle? I am aware of British anti-ied systems,but where is the US on this?

You already have one. It's called the MRAP.

The problem however heavily armoured vehicles in Afghanistan do not have the offroad capacity required by the AO.

The U.S. has developed a new 'light weight' MRAP that apparently offers the same IED protection as the MRAP, and they are rushing it to Afghanistan. It's called the M-ATV.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-11-02-voa48.cfm?rss=topstories

We will see how effective it is.

[JonS]

I am going to claim ignorance on this one, but why can't we come up with a troop transport that is heavily armored and prepared to take the damage from and IED and keep on rolling? This can't be that hard and must be a case of armor and a movement system that is not inhibited by explosion damage as much as current models. Come on, we can send people to the moon but can't come up with an anti-ied vehicle? I am aware of British anti-ied systems,but where is the US on this?

cost <-> mobility <-> protection <-> firepower

You can pick two. The other two will be compromised.

Which do you pick?

[YankeeDog]

Jon has it right. The fact of the matter is, it is far easier to build a slightly better IED that will penetrate significantly more armor, than it is to build a much better IFV, that can withstand said IED, and still (a) carry a good load of troops/equipment, ( carry decent offensive weaponry, and © do (a) and ( reasonably cost effectively.

As for the MRAP, I suggest you read some of the reports coming out of Iraq about the vehicle before getting too excited about it. Some of the reviews by those who have actually fought the vehicle are not very positive.

But as I indicated earlier, this all misses the main point. It doesn't matter how good your IFV is, if you don't have a combined military/diplomatic strategy with a coherent goal and endgame...

[MikeyD]

Let's recall Germany's "ultimate response" to the increasing threat was the Maus. Its widely believed that Germany's fascination for monster machinery lost them the war that much quicker. If they had come up with a tank design of simple construction halfway between a PzIV and Panther and built eight thousand of them it would've been a very much harder fight for the allies. An anti-IED 'Maus' in Afghanistan would be of no help to anybody.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

It could be a help to collectors of white elephants.

Regards

KR

[Apocalypse 31]

Just 2 cents from someone who is on their second deployment in a Stryker Brigade.

I think the Stryker is the safest vehicle on the battlfield. Hands down. It's not good offroad and definitely not good for the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan, but it has proven successful in Iraq because that is what it was designed for; urban conflict.

Would you say that a Corvette is unfit or unsafe? It is if you try to mudding with it.

God damn media. They know nothing.

[Bigduke6]

CPT Mike,

Which media are you talking about?

[Apocalypse 31]

Reference the original post. Washington Times

[Battlefront.com]

Today I heard a first hand report of a Stryker getting hit by a huge IED a week or two ago in Afghanistan. Two dead, two seriously wounded. The transmission was thrown 50 ft away and the Stryker flipped. IIRC the reporter said the crater was something like 75' diameter and quite deep. I bet it was large enough to destroy an Abrams, not to mention a MRAP. I don't even want to think what it would have done to a Humvee.

As stated above... done right an IED can defeat any vehicle ever made. The only defense against them is to not get hit by one. That's tough to do 100% of the time.

Steve

[Bigduke6]

Reference the original post. Washington Times

CPT Mike,

Well, you're entitled to your opinion and all, and if you look around some people will say Washington Times is supposedly not the most reliable newspaper, as the Moonies own it.

Still, the reporter seems to have done her job. Personally I'm convinced, and even without my opinion there's a lot of evidence that backs up the article as pretty durn solid.

This reporter, she isn't quoting unnamed sources, for practical purposes. She spoke with a bunch of soldiers, and all but one of them she listed by name. Every one of them rides Strykers in Afghanistan, or commands soldiers riding Strykers in Afghanistan. So it's not like she was talking to people who didn't know the subject.

SGT Josh Gooding (Injured in IED blast on Stryker)

CPT Adam Weece (Bde media guy)

SSG Joshua Yost (Survived IED blast, two buddies in Stryker killed)

SSG Daniel Rabidou (Serves in Stryker Bde)

PFC Carlos Martinez (Survived IED blast on Stryker, buddies injured)

CPT Casey Thoreen (Stryker Company CO)

COL Harry Tunnell (Stryker Bde CO)

Plus one "young soldier", who calls Strykers "kevlar coffins".

Except the last, you cannot get more solid sources than that.

Further, the reporter rode at least one patrol, in Afghanistan, in Strykers. I suspect more, but I don't know that to be a fact. She spoke, according to her, to a fair representation of the unit. She gave the cheerleaders for Stryker - the higher chain of command - opportunity and space to say what a great combat vehicle it's supposed to be.

So what's your problem with the report? I'm actively looking, and I can't really find any holes at all.

Yes, of course, it is possible the reporter hunted down the complainers and the whiners, and morfed their gripes into a general opinion that in reality doesn't exist. Maybe it's the case, that most of the people in that Stryker brigade are really hooah on Stryker, and what we have here is a case of unethnical reporting. Small chance.

But there are several things that make me think that that is not the case, and that the reporting is solid.

- First and foremost, the reporter was on the ground, did the legwork, got the names, and did her homework. That article took time and money to put together. As a general rule, the harder the reporter works, and the closer the reporter gets to the story, the more likely the reporter is going to be doing his/her job right. So on a gut level, the story rings true.

- Second, it is really hard to fake US unit discontent for any length of time, as the troopies have Internet and if a reporter lies about the troops, it takes about 2 maximum 3 news cycles before the reporter and his/her employer gets hammered. There are bazillions of people, lots of them very smart and well-informed, out there checking everything reporters write on subjects like this. The absence of a major media scandal "The Washington Times lied about our troops" is very good evidence to me, that basically the reporter reported what the troops were saying in a fair article.

- Third, and following on the previous, US troops know what they say gets read and parsed, and that a civilian reaction to their complaints is far more likely, and quicker if it happens, than griping/complaining to the chain of command. The chain of command I guarantee you just tells the soldiers to "Suck it up, get in your goddam Strykers and Charlie Mike."

Since the chance of death or dismemberment seems to be pretty serious if you ride a Stryker in this brigade ops area, I would say soldiers interested in retaining life and limb would be more likely than normal, to tell a reporter from Washington DC they think a piece of their equipment is dangerous in present conditions. Which is consistent with the theory "Yes, the troops there most of them really do think the Stryker is not a great vehicle for Afghanistan."

- Fourth, and this is not a big point but still I think indicative, if you look at the reader comments on the article they are almost totally supportive of the reporter, and when they are not the comment looks suspiciously like a soldier who rides or loves Strykers, but is not in this particular Brigade AO. It takes some guts to say a reporter doesn't know jack, when the criticizer is sitting at a computer way far away, and the reporter was on the ground putting his/her life at risk.

(Just to be clear, IMO you certainly don't fit into that category, obviously, you have a ton of experience operating Strykers, just not in that Bde AO)

- Finally, both from a personal experience and a general tactical knowledge POV, it makes lots of intuitive sense that an armored wheeled vehicle deployed with developed world forces in Afghanistan, is going to get road bombed alot. A whole lot.

You don't have to be Gudarian or a graduate of US Combined and General Staff School to know wheeled vehicles get stuck easily where roads are bad and it rains a bunch, and that if it's mountains vehicles basically have to stay on the roads, and in the mountains it pretty much always rains more than in the valleys. Almost all of deciding what combat vehicle might or might not suit a particular terrain is not rocket science, after all, in the US Army a driver with a High School GED is suppoed to be able to figure something like that out.

And no matter how you cut it, 21 vehicle kills out of 350 Strykers deployed is not insignificant; just think of how many Strykers got bombed and maybe some one got killed or wounded, but they eventually put the vehicle back together. Sure the US can replace 21 Strykers, but if you think about the casualties implied by 21 vehicle kills - I'm guessing maybe 80 - 100 vehicles have been hit - then you have to start dealing with unit morale problems, and home front "are these casualties worth it?" problems.

If I was in a Stryker unit, and basically I knew that over the course of my deployment I had a one in four chance of getting hit by an IED, and about a 1 in 10 chance of being hit by an IED where the vehicle is a total loss, and a reporter showed up at my unit and asked me what I thought of my chances, I would say something very similar to the soldiers in the story. Something like "I don't like those chances, they suck, I want more protection against IEDes, the vehicle the Army issued me isn't safe enough. Sure maybe the Army thinks so, but I'm the one riding around on these roads in a Stryker, not them."

As the article makes clear, deploying Strykers to Afghanistan has a cost. It's left up to the reader to decide, whether that cost in lives, limited military capacity, and "victories" chalked up by the resistance, is worth it.

But maybe I'm missing something here. If the article is way off base in some way I haven't noticed, clue me in.

[Bigduke6]

Speaking of roads, any one interested on how stuff moves along the Afghan road network, should read this:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091130/roston

Bottom line, the Taliban is probably making between 100 - 300 million dollars a year in protection money, paid by security contractors who don't want their road convoys hit.

The security contractors, naturally, are hired by the US taxpayer. So literally, we are funding the insurgency.

Still, it seems to me that if the goal is to make Strykers impervious to IEDs, the solution is simple: Just pay protection money to the tribesmen.