The slats are a very characteristic feature. Applaud your quest for realism, can't help as I'm not a Stryker guy, but the overwhelming "reality" of late for those things is that giant cage, with some memories of the ride through the last town dangling off it -- chunks of mud huts and paraphenilia from the market. The rest is decimal dust, buried under a layer of mud hut dust.

I think you'd corner the market if you could crack the slat nut. Understand the plastic issue. Can you get a non-platic guy to come up with another solution, e.g fishing line, small ribbon or metal tape, to put into a plastic mount? Or is that taboo in the plastic world, much like asking for the forces you need seems to be in CentCom.