Kevlar Coffins

[Battlefront.com]

While I too don't have any specific gripes with what is actually in the article, as I also couldn't find any glaring faults with it. The problem I have with it is what the article doesn't have:

Big Picture Context

How many wheeled "patrol" vehicles have been blown up within the same period of time theater wide? How many as a percentage of the total? How many tracked vehicles have been blown up numerically and as a percentage of total theater wide? What were the respective casualty counts for each of the other groups? What do the average soldiers think of their light wheeled or tracked vehicles in terms of being able to protect their lives while out on patrol?

It could be that Strykers do not fair any worse than lighter wheeled and heavier tracked vehicles. Or it could be they are far worse. It could be that Stryker soldiers feel less vulnerable than other types of soldiers, or it could be that they feel more vulnerable. There reporter made zero attempt to answer such questions, therefore the reader is left with a distinct impression that the Strykers are death boxes in an absolute sense.

I honestly don't know what the Big Picture Perspective is, I just know that this article didn't even try to help the reader out with it. But a quick check found this from the end of October this year:

"the latest deaths occurred as a result of "multiple, complex" bomb strikes in southern Afghanistan, bringing the grim total of deaths for the month to 55."

As far as we know only 2 of them were Stryker soldiers. That means 53 were killed in vehicles other than Strykers. Which indicates that context is important.

Steve

[YankeeDog]

While I think some very good points, BigDuke, I am not very impressed with the the Washington Post Article. To me, it is at best a collection of compelling anecdotes, and really fails to present any useful criticism of US tactics. To me, the primary failure of the article is that, while it does illustrate some very serious problems and challenges the US forces are facing right now, it completely fails to investigate any possible alternative to the Strkyer, practical or even theoretical, and that is what good investigative journalism should do. Soldiers always complain about their equipment, and wish they had something better. Perfectly understandable given the risks they have to undertake. But this doesn't necessarily mean that there's a practical, better alternative.

For the purposes of argument let's take the article's thesis at face value: Strkyers are "Kevlar Coffins" and ill-suited to the current conflict in Afghanistan.

So, what's the alternative? The article mentions the names of a few other IFVs, but doesn't present any of them as a better alternative to the Stryker. Nor does it offer any assessment of what a hypothetical better IFV for the Afghanistan conflict might be like.

Would the US be better off with a modern tracked IFV along the lines of the BMP-3? Should we send every Bradley we have to Afghanistan, pull our M113s out of mothballs, or even see if we can buy some BMP-3s off the Russians? (Yes, I know this would never happen; talking hypotheticals here).

In the 1980s, Soviets found themselves mostly road-bound as well, even though they had plenty of tracked IFVs in their inventory. Even for a tracked force, moving off-road is slow, and very hard on vehicles. And a bunch of BMP-type IFVs creeping along at <20kph across rocky afghan fields isn't necessarily any safer than the wheeled AFVs on the road. They might avoid the IEDs, but their slow speed makes them much more vulnerable to other types of ambushes, and the additional logistical cost of such movement means that now you have to move that much more fuel, spare parts, etc. into theatre to sustain the operation. And all those supplies are going to have to come in on a more efficient, but highly vulnerable, wheeled transport vehicle. Basically, tracked, heavier IFVs = more fuel trucks for the Taliban to attack.

And in any event, much of the terrain in the areas of heaviest Taliban activity is so rough that even the best tracked vehicles are limited to roads, so there is no net advantage to tracks.

The article does offer one criticism which offers a concrete improvement to what's being done at present. The article references a Col. MacGregor (not, surprisingly, a "Tank specialist), as follows:

"Col. Macgregor said the U.S. Army would do better to follow the example of Canada, which has bought German Leopard II tanks for use by ground forces in Afghanistan."

Classic strawman argument. Leopard II is not an alternative to the Strkyer. It's an MBT, and while it's armor and firepower are far better than the Strkyer, it has no protected passenger or cargo capacity. Even if it were hypothetically possible from a logistics standpoint, you can't patrol or secure Afghan with MBTs alone. You need boots on the ground, lots of them. And you need a way to move the boots from place to place.

Pure conjecture on my part, but what Col. Macgregor may be trying to say is that what the Strkyer-equipped forces are missing in Afghanistan is not a better IFV, but rather heavier armor that can accompany the the IFVs, take the vanguard, and provide fire support. This may well be true. If so, though, the failure is not with the Stryker IFV per se, but rather the lack of a heavier AFV to accompany the Strkyers. Hypothetically, such a vehicle could take the vanguard in convoys, setting off IEDs with a much lower chance of casualties, and also provide heavier fire support when contact with the enemy is made. I don't think the US Military has a good choice for this role right now -- the Abrams just eats too much fuel to be practically deployed in an area like Afghanistan.

I don't know; I suppose one possibility would be to try attaching, say, one Bradley/Strkyer platoon, and using the Bradleys as a vanguard/fire support vehicle. There have been criticisms in the past of the Bradley's vulnerability and crew/passenger protection, but from what I've heard, the reviews of its performance in Iraq have been fairly positive. And especially if you didn't put any boots in the back of the Bradley, you might be able to up-armor the belly so that the crew would have a very high chance of surviving most IED hits unscathed -- better to have to repair and replace Bradleys, than to lose lives. While this wouldn't protect the infantry-laden Strykers from command detonated IEDs (which could just wait for the lead Bradley to pass, and detonate on a more vulnerable target), it would help alot against pressure-plate type, which I understand are a very high proportion of what's being used in Afghanistan right now.

But I don't know enough about the details of the Bradley, or the practicalities of getting them to Afghanistan and using them there. This idea may be completely off-base.

Again, though, to my mind any criticism of specific combat tactics or equipment is largely quibbling over marginalia right now; the war is being lost elsewhere.

Regards,

YD

[Battlefront.com]

Good post Yankee Dog. Pointing to my 1st post in this thread, the crater left by the IED showed that even an Abrams would have been likely turned into a "write off" with crew casualties probable. Saying "we should have Abrams in theater" not only does zero for mounted infantry, but it doesn't necessarily mean anything in terms of better security for the force moving from A to B.

The point about driving off road is one I've seen kicked around time and time again in the wheels vs. tracks arguments. The trackheads always, and I mean 100% of the time, tout the offroad superiority of tracked vehicles (usually true) without addressing their practical operational negatives. Heavier vehicles means a heavier logistics footprint, which is ironically always supported by wheeled vehicles, which in turn presents more road bound targets for IEDs, which in turn could be argued to increase exposure to IEDs.

The logistics situation in Afghanistan is quite bad. Either things come in by air (very expensive) or they come overland through Pakistan (dangerous, time consuming, and expensive). Increasing either the size or the weight of the forces in Afghanistan means increasing strain on logistics, which includes a very large political sub-component (Pakistan). Increasing either size or weight of the force should have benefits which are disproportionally larger than the costs, otherwise straining the system becomes a very bad idea.

And the more you run your tracked vehicles, the proportionally bigger the impact on logistics. The more you run those tracked vehicles off road, things get even worse. Which is why tracked vehicles do not move off road except when tactically necessary. And that means they drive on the roads almost all the time, which is no different than wheeled vehicles from the standpoint of IED ambushes.

I'm not anti-armor, not anti-tracked vehicle. I'm simply restating the position I've held since we first started discussing the pros/cons way back when we announced CM:SF. And that is taking things out of context is a very, very bad idea. The article, as I stated in my second post, lacks context.

Steve

[c3k]

Please don't forget the ROE. Forces involved in Afghanistan have to pay villagers/farmers for damage to fields, irrigation, walls, crops, etc., incurred when leaving the roads. Think what it's like for exercises in Germany. So, the benefit of tracked vehicles would be the ability to leave the road; the cost is monetary damage and enraged locals. (Who cares if your village elder just got some cash after your wall was knocked over? You still need the wall and have to rebuild it.) Otherwise, your tracked vehicle is just as road-bound as a wheeled vehicle. No mobility advantage (due to ROE) and all the disadvantages of tracked (maintenance, cost, speed, reliability, etc.).

This vehicle question cannot be looked at in a vacuum which just discusses automotive engineering pro's and con's or military advantage/disadvantages. The ROE's are critical. They are put in place due to the strategy.

Ken

[sigop22]

You also have to realise that in Afghanistan, all they do to counter bigger vehicles is just make bigger bombs. The Leopards brought over have been great help, both the new and old ones, but it's pretty much just forced the enemy into making bigger and stronger IED's.

[Bigduke6]

So, what's the alternative? The article mentions the names of a few other IFVs, but doesn't present any of them as a better alternative to the Stryker. Nor does it offer any assessment of what a hypothetical better IFV for the Afghanistan conflict might be like.

Would the US be better off with a modern tracked IFV along the lines of the BMP-3? Should we send every Bradley we have to Afghanistan, pull our M113s out of mothballs, or even see if we can buy some BMP-3s off the Russians? (Yes, I know this would never happen; talking hypotheticals here).

You want alternatives? I'll give you alternatives!

(But before I get going, YankeeDog, you make an excellent point, tracked is not a solution to the Strykers-must-stay-on-the-road issue. Tracked IMO is just somewhat better than having to stay on the road as much as a Stryker.)

Anyway, the way to come up with alternatives, is to thing BIG!

Option 1: GO AIRMOBILE!

Get rid of armored vehicles almost entirely, get lots of helicopters, lots of infantry, and lots of intelligence. True it makes Afghanistan seem even more like Vietnam, but maybe you can supress the insurgents with airmobility, assuming they've forgotten to use the Stingers you trained them to use...hmm....maybe that's not such a hot option.

Option 2: BUILD DECENT ROADS!

That makes it alot harder to emplace the bombs, allows your convoys to move a whole lot faster and so avoid ambushes better, and infidels or not the tribesmen are going to like you for it; the honest ones for making it less stressful to their kidneys to go to the provincial seat, the dishonest ones because better roads means more traffic from which to extort money.

Of course, the insurgents will probably attack your road crews...hmm...maybe that's not such a hot idea either...

Option 3: BRIBE THE TALIBAN TO LEAVE YOU ALONE!

They have their price. Pay it. It will be cheaper than deploying and maintaining the equivalent of a Corps in South Asia.

Option 4: TAKE SUPPLY OPS AWAY FROM PRIVATE CONTRACTING!

Same idea as the Battle of the Atlantic here, you assume the battle will be fought over the stuff carrying the supplies, and plan accordingly. You don't even bother to control the countryside, your convoys are big and bad, and completely military. Of course,this means training troops up on Transport Corps jobs, or maybe coverting combat arms, and combat arms would DIE before they go Transport, and then what do you with all these professional military transport guys when the war is over? Make them members of the Teamsters' Union? Hmm...maybe also not such a hot option.

Option 5: DEPOSE THE CORRUPT KARZAI GOVERNMENT!

You know, kick out the present leadership, proper military occupation, and give Afghanistan the best adminstration it's ever had.

Replace the corrupt locals with thousands of honest American contractors backed with plenty of cash...wait a minute...maybe I should rethink that one.

Option 5: More of the same, just with some more troops for a while.

Add troops, patrol some more, spend some more on civil developement in the boonies, allow Special Ops more freedom to arrest and hand over for interrogation/torture designated bad guys, while hoping that you can hunt down bad guys faster than the bad guys can raise a jihad against you, and unfortunately arrests leading to rendition do not exactly endear the population to you.

This is the option the US will select. I am not sure of its chances of success, but certainly, it contains Strykers.

I know it is kind of a cop out to reduce the discussion of Strykers to inertia, i.e., they're in country so they'll stay in country, so discussing whether that's a good idea is too late. But basically the entire war strategy is driven by inertia, and war strategy gives you everything, including your combat vehicle mix.

[MikeyD]

Saying "we should have Abrams in theater" not only does zero for mounted infantry, but...

I read somewhere (here?) that Leo2 in Afghanistan with the Canadians has worked worders reducing their infantry casualty rate. Don't know about the warfighting effect but the sheer intimidation effect must be significant. I wonder how agressively Stryker Brigade is employing its MGS. Not exactly IED-proof but has considerably more intimidation value than those schoolbusses in birdcages.

Ah, about "Build decent roads". I heard an Afghani talk about their former Soviet occupiers. Sure they were obliged on nationalistic grounds to oust them but there's some remaining underlying affection for the Russians. Because they were the only occupiers who bothered to build roads, schools, and landing fields. Feeling between former opponents can be very mixed sometimes. Look at the relationship between Vietnam and the aging vets. The Republic of Vietman was rooting for McCain!

[akd]

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

This is from that attack (Nov. 5):

Graham Smith/NPR

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120350672

Would a Bradley have faired that much better?

There is also an interesting discussion at ar15.com on this topic:

http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=951539&page=1

This bit from a Stryker soldier was interesting: "All those RKG-3 grenades that are being used against MRAPs don't get thrown at Strykers because there's a rifle pointed in each direction."

[YankeeDog]

This is from that attack (Nov. 5):

Would a Bradley have faired that much better?

I think it's pretty clear that an IED of that would write-off of any vehicle on the US inventory on a direct hit. The important follow-up question, though, is whether there likely would have been fewer and/or lighter casualties in a Bradley. I don't know the answer -- heavier does not necessarily mean better underbelly protection. But losing IFVs is not as big a deal to the US as is losing soldiers.

And it's also worth remembering that this IED appears to have been considerably above average. The NYT article I linked to above regarding the discovery of a 1,000,000 lb. cache of Ammonium Nitrate in Afghanistan states that the average size of an ANFO IED in Afghanistan is ~60lb. That's a big bang, but I don't think it would be anywhere near that big -- ANFO has a substantially lower yield than military-grade HE.

This bit from a Stryker soldier was interesting: "All those RKG-3 grenades that are being used against MRAPs don't get thrown at Strykers because there's a rifle pointed in each direction."

I've heard lots of criticisms of the MRAP similar to this -- specifically, that that it's a difficult vehicle to fight from. Hard to get out of quickly in a combat situation, no practical "airguard" positions to provide 360 security, etc.

[MikeyD]

The obvious advantage of tracked vs IEDs is its less obliged to follow the road network. But then again we're talking about Afghanistan. Mountain face on one side, sheer cliff on the other an a narrow road in between. Still, in that particular photo, it conveys the (perhaps mistaken) impression that a route line 20m offset from the road itself might'vee been doable.

[Dietrich]

The obvious advantage of tracked vs IEDs is its less obliged to follow the road network. But then again we're talking about Afghanistan. Mountain face on one side, sheer cliff on the other an a narrow road in between.

Or a field of ripe-for-harvesting crops on one side, another field of ripe-for-harvesting crops on another. :-/