Quote Originally Posted by Compost View Post
It is easy although somewhat tedious to examine each of the distinctive types of combat unit that currently do or might employ the AIFV. There are effectively three such types: armoured cavalry, armoured infantry, and the tank-infantry union as in the HBCT. The only one that survives even superficial examination is armoured cavalry that includes an infantry component for expedient scouting, harassing and ambush. For armoured infantry and also tank/infantry units it can be promptly seen that in manoeuvre, assault and defence the AIFV is grossly inferior and wasteful when compared to similar weighted but specialised gun and cannon equipped vehicles (tanks or limited-traverse weapon carriers) and a better protected though lesser armed medium or heavyweight APC.
I'm not getting your point. Why does the armored cavalry survive examination, but the combined arms battalion (HBCT)? Is it because the AIFV is only good for scouting?

I also found his article interesting and based on his view one could create combined arms battalions of Stryker ICVs and M1 tanks. Of course the most glaring drawback is mobility - Stryker can not go where a tank can, but does it need to?