How about the LAV
What do we make then, of the USMC LAV? Troop carrier? Wanna-be IFV? Consider the way in which they have been employed the past 20 years.Dumb statement. An Abrams' armor is an OFFENSIVE tool because it provides mobility under fire. Too many folks tend to look at Strykers as tanks already and this sort of PR encourages that line of thought. A Stryker (MGS or otherwise) is a troop carrier. Period.
LAVs, MGS, and Armor
A combination of both and then different as well. As an Army guy, I look at LAVs as fighting vehicles but with a recon role. We (the Army) don't have them; the MGS Stryker is changing that I guess. In regard to LAVs as recon armor, they are exactly like the light tanks (the Stuart for example) that we entered WWII with. In the case of the Stuart, mobility was confused with speed. No tank was/is fast enough to outrun a German 88. The same held true with tank destroyer doctrine; that heavier gunned, but lighter armored (no covered turrets) TDs could move rapidly across the battlefield, mass at the correct place and time, and slaughter massed armor. The reality was they could NOT move because they did not have the necessary armor to move under fire, especially with open turrets.
Other countries have played with this concept, notably the French, the South Africans, and the Soviets. The French Panhard series is seen all over Francophone Africa. They did well against the Libyans in the 1980s as the latter's armor (T55s and T62s I recall) was slower and the French literrally drove circles around them. The French used their light armor as the western screen for the US/Coalition assault in Desert Storm. That said, Panhards in the former Rwandan army were meat on the table for the rebel RPA, who had no armor and generally light AT systems (RPGS and some RRs).
But getting back to MGS Stryker and LAVs. The MGS is a support vehicle for a Stryker unit giving it more firepower in certain roles. LAVs fight as LAV battalions do they not? That means they can mass and move rapidly in roles suitable for light armor. Neither system, however, was built to attack and breach a defensive line as 1st ID did in 1991 or to hit Iraqi armor as 2ACR did at 73 Easting (with then Captain H.R. McMasters as the lead troop commander).
Best
Tom
Yes, yes, and yes.
Tom,LAVs fight as LAV battalions do they not? That means they can mass and move rapidly in roles suitable for light armor. Neither system, however, was built to attack and breach a defensive line as 1st ID did in 1991 or to hit Iraqi armor as 2ACR did at 73 Easting (with then Captain H.R. McMasters as the lead troop commander).
Yes, the battalion is the primary tactical formation for ops. We in the USMC LAR community adhere to a hodgepodge of cav/recce and in-house doctrine, but (and I say this hesitantly) I think that as a community, we also believe that we would fight against anything in order to gain the information.
It's funny that you mention the 73 Easting and 1st ID's breach. I was assigned to be the breach force commander for the breach, marking, and improvements of lanes astride Hwy 80 into Safwan. Although 3d LAR was a supporting effort and I totally expect a DAG's worth of artillery to come raining down on us in the process, my company secured five breach lanes that were cut with, would you believe it, a commercial Caterpillar dozer.There wasn't much reconnaissance involved, just a plan for plain smashmouth tactics. Maybe it's the 25mm that provides the confidence to accomplish any task.
What's even more interesting is the background of Task Force Tripoli. LAR Bns were not employed in the Diyala crossing and Baghdad push in a very significant way, and most LAR guys believed because it simply wasn't our true role. Then came the tasker to ATK to SZ Tikrit. Three LAR Bns with an attached infantry force (can't remember if it was a Co or Bn(-)). Now that was interesting to say the least...We didn't face much resistance, and I shudder to think what would have happened if all the fighting positions, RPG cache sites, and Roland launchers had been manned. We still worked the planning process and looked at combat power, then launched forward.
I think a historian would have the guts of a good book if he were to look at all of the TF's actions as Phase III ops wound down.
That dozer operator was either very nervous or nerveless. Light armor does great things when used correctly and I suspect the same will hold true with MGS and Stryker. Too often, units get misused because their role is not understood or the fickle finger of fate means they are available when a more suitable unit is not. That is of course not just limited to light armor; it is a recurrent problem in all specialty units, especially SOF.
A long time ago (in a galaxy nearby) I was a young 1LT S2 and just retired BG Jim Warner was the 1LT S3Air in 2-505. Jim and I were RANGER buddies and had ended up in the same battalion. Anyway we were the chief planners for the Airborne Anti-Armor Defense (AAAD); every battalion got a 10km by 10km square to establish an attrition-based anti armor defense. Jim and I did the grunt work in picking out kill zones and such. Our problem was our battalion commander; he saw TOW jeeps (not HMMWVs but M151A2s) as mobile gun platforms--just as they were when we had 106 RRs on the things. He insisted that such gun jeeps could survive a fight inside 500 meters with a T62 and forced us to plot kill zones that way. Naturally our TOW platoon leaders thought we were crazy until they learned the real score and just adjusted their kill zones accordingly. Still a TOW vehicle did look sort of like a 106 just like a LAV sorta looks like a tank...
Best
Tomo
I was in the 2ACR shortly after they reformed as light cav (HMMWVs instead of Tanks and Bradlys). It was not a popular concept. Most of the guys in the unit hated it either because they were left over infantry from one of the units that formed the regiment and they distrusted vehicles, or because they were veterans from the regiments experiences in the Gulf War and patrolling the Fulda gap. The rumor was that after Gen. Sulivan retired the regiment would be disbanded or given back their armor. Back then they were trying to write the doctrine and it really seemed that no one had any idea what to do with light cav. They were far to light for the armor guys' tastes and far to big with too few dismounts for the infantry guys. The main focus for us back then was "expand the lodgment". That was where the 82nd would jump in and do an airfield seizure and then we would land on that airfield and roll right off into the fight and expand the area around the airfield. We practiced it a lot. At the time there were also rumors of new weapons systems that we might get. One of those was the Armored Gun System which was a sort of light tank and if I am not mistaken one of the progenitors of the MGS. I bring all this ancient history up because one of the saving graces for the light cav concept was the fact that they could be loaded onto a C130, landed anywhere that a C130 could land and then rolled off the aircraft and straight into the fight. I thought that that was the purpose of the Stryker, upgrade the armor protection and mobility of the HMMWV but maintain its rapid deployability. I was told that the reason that they went with .50 Cals and MK19s instead of retaining the 25MMs was to ensure that they could fit into the C130 and then roll into the fight like the HMMWVs. Then I learned that they in fact cannot just roll off the bird into the fight. Apparently there are a number of things that must done in order to fit it into the bird and the once it rolls off the bird before it can get into the fight. So if I am understanding this correctly then what we have in the Stryker is a vehicle that is neither as heavily armed and armored as the Bradly but not as rapidly deployable as the HMMWV. So my question is what is the point?
SFC W
I agree with your what is the point comment, Strykers are ok for some things but they seem to have a lot of limitations especially when you consider all of the money we put into the program. We could have gotten a lot of the same capabilities at not even half the cost if we had just modernized some of our old M113.Originally Posted by Uboat509
Stu,
The Stryker has a huge logistical advantage over the M113, which is one of the bigger reasons for the LAV platform getting picked. While it may seem like only a marginal change to add the logistics for M113 equipped BCT, that change adds up quite a bit such that the footprint detracts greatly from the deployability as well as makes sustainability of the unit via air suspect at best given the air fleet constraints.
Another huge advantage that has played out in Iraq is the relative stealth of the Stryker vs. a M113 platform as well as the degraded mobility capabilities of the Stryker. If you lose track on a M113 from an IED, you lose mobility. If some tires get blown by an IED, you still can limp out of the kill zone immediately and then take the appropriate remdial action (if it's even necessary) from a safe zone.
Last edited by Shek; 09-22-2006 at 02:54 PM.
I don't think the M113 is some kind of super vehicle, or that it should have been the choice for the IBCT's, but I can't understand why Airborne units don't have some. It's got to be a better weapons platform for the Delta Companies than an uparmored hummer. What else out there can be airdropped that we've got right now?
I am not sure I understand how it has a huge logistical advantage, could you explane more?
My bigest problem with the Stryket is not its preformance just the price that it comes at. I do think it is better than a 113 just not enough better for the price tag.
Stu,
1. M113s would guzzle twice as much gas, and so you'd have to nearly double the number of fuelers. While only a small increase in the number of overall vehicles, on the margin it has a huge impact, as it is already a difficult task to resupply the SBCT under a scenario where there is only an aerial LOC.
2. The Stryker's engine is the same as the engine in the FMTV. Because of this, you have a smaller PLL and ASL (repair parts that are on-hand and hauled around by the unit) requirement than if you had a FMTV/M113 combo. Also, there is more commonality of parts across the Stryker variants than there would have been across the M113/M8 combo. You have the same effect here as with the engine story. In the end, the M113 equipped unit would require more vehicles to carry these additional parts
3. The Stryker has fewer maintenance requirements above and beyond the analysis in #2. So, if you had a M113 equipped IBCT, you'd have to add even more vehicles.
While the above three points aren't exhaustive, because the SBCT is designed to be very lean on logistics without much of a cushion, once you start adding on the margin, it has a huge impact on everything. Not only do you add vehicles, but you add the requirement for more gas to run these vehicles, soldiers to crew the vehicles, food to feed these vehicle crews, ammunition to arm these vehicle crews, etc.
Hopefully, the above gives you an idea on why the Stryker has the logistical advantage. As far as price goes, an extremely valid argument. Having spent my time in Iraq in a Stryker, I am certainly biased in favor of having spent the extra $$. The one thought that I would leave is that the cost advantage of M113 is not as great as some would claim, as you would have to do large upgrades to existing mothballed M113s to get them to the equivalent standard as a Stryker in terms of protection, lethality, commo platforms, etc. That being said, though, the M113 still would have been a cheaper option.
SFC W,
A Stryker unit doesn't have a forced entry mission. It will airland on a secure airfield and then consolidate and organize for the follow-on mission. Bottomline, it was never intended to be a "fight from the ramp" organization. That being said, most of the vehicles in the Stryker organization are ready to fight with their full capability (minus any add-on RPG protection - which was never part of the requirement for airland missions) within two minutes of offloading a C130.
Cheers.
Shek
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