From: Steve Grammont (islander@midmaine.com)
Date: Thu Oct 21 2004 - 00:43:07 PDT
Hello Darrell,
> Actually Kyle was in a M-2 Bradley and not a Stryker.
Thanks for the clarification. I was trying to verify the previous
poster's comments since, as far as I know, there have been no combat
deaths in a Stryker thus far. The only deaths I know of were from a non
combat accident shortly after the first brigade was deployed. A Stryker
went too close to the side of an embankment and toppled over when the
embankment collapsed. There were a few deaths (2 I think). Other than
that, I have not heard of any other fatalities.
Unfortunately, soft embankments and poor roads have claimed quite a
number of service member's lives, in all sorts of vehicles, since
operations started. When the Stryker rolled over the anti-Stryker group
said "ha! They roll over easily and are deathtraps". Faulty logic in
the extreme. I have a picture from a friend's Armor Battalion of an
Abrams which literally buried itself up to the turret in soft ground.
Another story he told me was of a dumbass know it all Platoon commander
who wound up launching his Abrams airborne over a cliff during an
exercise (how nobody died he said he will never understand). And there
were pics of a completely turtled Abrams in Iraq that required several
hours of digging and forced air to extricate the crew. Some soldiers
have most likely died in Abrams accidents over the years. Yet I didn't
hear the anti-Stryker people talking about self burring, airborne prone,
flipping over death boxes known as the Abrams :-) Just a reminder to
always question generalizations made over individual incidents,
especially when you can hear an axe grinding.
>As for the Stryker, I recently found an interesting picture in which the
>vehicle has a sort of fence around it.
This is an anti-RPG screen. It is apparently quite effective. Some
Strykers have reported being hit repeatedly without internal damage or
the loss of core operational abilities.
> It also has a remote
>gun but I can't make out what gun it is. It looks like a .50 cal but the
>ammo can looks like it holds larger ammo. I also see plenty of MREs on it.
Yes, it is a .50cal. IIRC it can also optionally mount a M240.
BTW... I am not a Stryker zealot. Just someone who has to sort out fact
from fiction regarding the new Stryker Brigade formations. If anybody
has any first hand familiarity with the Stryker, good bad or otherwise,
I'd be very interested to hear what you have to say.
Steve
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat May 07 2005 - 20:36:52 PDT