by Paul McLeary
U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno brought some real talk to the AUSA convention in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., this morning when discussing ground vehicles. Talking about the Army’s need for a new infantry fighting vehicle, Odierno lambasted the performance of the Bradley in combat, saying that the BAE Systems-manufactured combat truck “hasn’t done very well” in terms of survivability, and that in Iraq “we lost more Bradleys than any other combat platform, and we haven’t used a Bradley in five years.”
When it comes to the General Dynamics-made Stryker, he said that “we have so much weight on the Stryker right now, we can’t get it off the damn roads.”
Sounds all Pentagon Wars and "ubiquitous 2000's Stryker vehicle critics" to me.
Maybe it's an inside joke for people who watched the Stryker critique of 2000-2006: It seems as if regarding Strykers and off-road driving, even "Sparky" was more correct than the then-U.S. Army leadership. That's kind of sad.
A comment on the "Pentagon Wars" Youtube video says
When your design makes Warhammer tanks look simple and practical, you know you fucked up somewhere.That instantaneously forced me to think of THIS.
S Ortmann
edit: Obvious crazy goes on.
edit2: Just in case you didn't believe it's crazy: 63.5 metric tons, 25 mm gun, supposedly 9 dismounts (I don't believe the latter is a practical figure - side and rear overhang look very impractical as well).
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Would it be rude of me to say, "Told you so"?
ReplyDeleteDid you catch this comment in the linked article:
ReplyDelete"Pappy wrote:
Hmmm. Not sure how complaining about Bradley survivablility and saying that it hasn't been used in five years will help sell the vehicle internationally..."
I've known for some time that the Stryker was major "FAIL" (and new it would fail before they even produced it) but it's easier to get a hold of a Nuke than find out the truth about our combat performance of platforms. Pappy understands what it's really all about.
Do you remember the scenario of the wargame used for Strykers? It was an invasion of Azerbaijan from South, a fast push through resistance.
ReplyDeleteI thought that the mobility of the forces involved wasn't overly optimistic(they didn't move faster than in WW2, after all), but I never learned about details regarding the combat actions. Save for a few specialist combat vehicles, the plan was afaik that the infantry dismounts, moves into contact and defeats the enemy with support fires before it mounts again for the next movement. I never understood why this was regarded to be a promising way of executing an operational offensive.