Stryker vehicle destroyed

[Newsjock]

http://komotv.com/stories/28783.htm

December 13, 2003

By KOMO Staff

TIKRIT, IRAQ - A roadside bomb destroyed a Stryker vehicle with the Fort Lewis Stryker Brigade.

A scout platoon on a reconnaissance mission south of Tikrit ran over what the military calls an improvised explosive device.

The soldiers inside got out safely but the 19 ton vehicle caught fire and burned out of control.

... One soldier in the vehicle was slightly injured, he suffered a small hairline fracture in his leg.

more

[Maple]

1. A bomb

blew up a 19 ton vehicle and set it on fire...and everyone had to run for their lives.

But only one person was actually injured, and that was just a hairline fracture. :eyes:

[UpInArms]

2. I have some beachfront property

to sell in Wyoming.

:wtf:

[reknewcomer]

7. How much do you know about armour , mass and energy?

I have rows of book on the subjects. What about the facts do you doubt and why?

[HereSince1628]

9. rows of books aren't the issue

Clearly one person has questions about the credibility of US reporting. I doubt that a measurement of the linear footage of your library will change that.

Take that for what it is and it is not an attack on the laws of physics

[reknewcomer]

10. the laws of physics are what is being ignored here.

Armour: the transport
Mass: The weight of the transport
Energy: The homemade firecracker

Not enough energy to penetrate the transport. Enough energy to accelerate the transport at a rate to hairline fracture human bone and not much more.
No deaths need apply.

To claim false reporting is ignorance of the physics involved.

[lebkuchen]

15. What does one Stryker vehicle cost, and how many have we lost so far?

I'm always interested in cost comparing, what that money could have been used for stateside, for little things like health (US currently involved in a flu epidemic w/little vaccine to combat it), education (the state of TX is having to fudge on its test scores to look like a legitimate institution of learning), social services (poverty and hunger are on the rise) and so forth.

[Maple]

20. The physics aren't in question

The reporting is.

It's absolutely amazing how in the midst of constant fire fights, crashes, explosions, falls, attacks, mortar fire, and now this...not so much as a grazed knee is usually reported.

The casualties we have heard about are very small in comparison to 40 attacks a day.

Now either Americans are supermen with strange powers...and I'm sure everyone would like to believe that...or something is fishy with the reporting.

Guess which I think it is?

[Old and In the Way]

22. Cost? How's $1.3MM sound?

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=32898

One Stryker would take care of 1000 family's food stamps. But, gee, we need to have state-of-art boondoggle military machines to feed corporate welfare....where are you priorities Lebkutchen?

[imax2268]

25. isn't that the piece of junk...

that the Carlyle group pushed through congress...even though it was found to be not worth the money...?

(on edit:typo)

[DoYouEverWonder]

28. They tip over easily

and they forgot to put armor around its big fat tires. The gun on top can only point in certain directions because of the top heavy probem.

[lebkuchen]

29. Tires? There are ONLY 13 of them on each vehicle.

Imagine getting a flat tire.

On the positive side, at least you always know where to find our guys when their vehicle goes up in flames.

[lebkuchen]

30. It reminds me of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle replacing the M113

Jane's Weapon Systems called the M113 "one of the most successful vehicles ever in the U.S. Army service." So the Pentagon replaced it with the most expensive APC (armored personnel carrier) the world had ever seen. One Bradley cost the same as eight improved versions of the M113, and the M113 carried twice as many soldiers.

Go figure.

[Saintgermane]

26. Concur.

Armored vehicles are specifically designed to protect the occupants. As a soldier with 20 years in uniform (and opposed to the current Iraq war), I find little to doubt with the story.

Depending upon the location, relative to the superstructure of the vehicle, the energy and direction of the explosion, and the location of the soldiers inside the vehicle with respect to the explosion, it is completely feasible that all escaped with only minor injury.

Not every news report is a patent falshood.

SG

[henslee]

3. and just what does a Stryker look like?

http://www.army-technology.com/projects/stryker/stryker1.html

[IndianaGreen]

12. An expensive piece of machinery

which as it turns out, is no more effective than the Bradley.

[reknewcomer]

13. Much more effective than the Bradley

Did you happen to notice that nobody was seriously injured?

[IndianaGreen]

18. Problems with armor found on Stryker combat vehicle (Seattle Times)

Friday, September 05, 2003 - Page updated at 06:58 A.M

Problems with armor found on Stryker combat vehicle

By Ray Rivera and Hal Bernton
Seattle Times staff reporters

Weeks before the Army's Stryker vehicle is scheduled to make its combat debut in Iraq, the Army has discovered manufacturing problems in some of its armor plating that could make it vulnerable to heavy machine-gun fire, according to Army officials familiar with the program.

The extent of the problem is still unknown, but it's serious enough that Army officials have launched a crash program to test the plates at their Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland. They are hopeful it won't delay deployment of troops from Fort Lewis, said two Army officials at the Pentagon, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Small manufacturing deviations are not uncommon, but "because this is armor plating and a survivability issue, it's much more serious," one of the officials said. "This one got farther down the road than we would normally like."

The 19-ton wheeled troop carriers are the cornerstone of the Stryker combat team, the first step in the Army's ambitious, multi-billion-dollar transformation initiative to produce a more nimble, lethal fighting force.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001714917_stryker5m.html

[tkmorris]

21. And here you are again!

Amazing! Fine job Reknew, keep it up. It isn't having any effect but it's a joy to watch you work sir.

:beer:

[James T. Kirk]

27. I remember when the Bradley was new.

They said its armor was too thin, that it wouldn't fit on the transport planes and that it was just an expensive boondoggle. I think the mainstream news media say that EVERY new armored vehicle is junk. I find it hard to know what to believe in these "anti-tank" stories.

[BiggJawn]

14. A YUGO with sandbags taped to it?

Isn't that the "Wunderwagon" that they wanted to ship over with a stop-gap "cage" built around it to explode incoming rounds and help the cardboard armour?

I heard the Stryker's primary mission is to make loads of pork for it's builder.

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. Sorry but if, and this is an IF there was only

a hairline fracture then the vehicle did what it was suposed to do...
protect the passengers

Now I am not saying that there may not be some shinnanigans in the reporting or that the Stryker is not a pork, but if only a hair line
fracture resulted, it did its job.

And yes, armor, physics and all that is meant to do what it seems to have done

That said, expensive toy to loose

[Clark4Prez]

4. Wasn't that a Christian hair rock band from the 80s? n/m

[KG]

5. nah, that was Stryper.

they were a hoot.

[billbuckhead]

6. Stryker's starting to sound like the Army's answer to the Osprey

[legin]

23. Commander Ed Stryker from UFO tv series perhaps

<<snip>>

UFO was the first life action TV series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. This series follows the continuing mission of the secret organisation SHADO, lead by Commander Ed Stryker (Ed Bishop - the voice of 'Captain Blue' in 'Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons'), and its mission to defend Earth against invading aliens.

<<snip>>

http://members.tripod.com/chris_bishop_ca/trading_page_ufo.htm
(more of a video selling page than anything else)

[velocity]

8. I wonder how many of these will be destroyed

before the military rethinks these light weight toys.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

11. sounds like the Iraqis have learned how to make the old

155 road mine trap that the VC perfected in VietNam.

Bury a 155 shell with a piece of plywood pierced with a suitable spike and cover it all with dirt.
The weight of a light vehicle will not set it off.
A tank or big truck will.
Boom.
The shell goes right up into the engine, starts a fire and destroys the vehicle. Sometimes the vehicle will flip over.
I guess Strykers are too heavy for that.

[annagull]

19. Saddam studied Vietnam

as are many Iraqi and Arab strategists:

Iraqi strategists, according to one Arab editor, study Vietnam constantly. And they talk of it too. Not only will 100 Bin Ladens be unleashed by this struggle, they say, but “100 Vietnams”.

“Let our cities be our swamps and our buildings our jungles,” Tariq Aziz told the Institute of Strategic Studies before war began. On Friday Iraq’s Information Minister Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf talked of turning Iraq into “another Indochina”. Has Baghdad become a mini Ho Chi Minh trail of hidden tunnels and arsenals?


http://www.aljazeerah.info/News%20archives/2003%20News%20archives/April%202003%20News/6%20op%20eds/A%20Vietnam-Like%20Situation%20Possible,%20James%20Fox%20aljazeerah.info.htm
it may be aljazeerah, but this is what they are saying.

[bemildred]

17. Another point of view on the Stryker:

The Bush administration's military predicament in Iraq has suddenly gotten worse.

JUST A MONTH before the next U.S. Army unit is due to deploy in Iraq to relieve the hard-pressed forces already there, the military is confessing to a potential showstopper. The
deploying unit's new armored vehicles may have faulty armor which would leave them vulnerable to machine-gun fire and to the rocket-propelled grenades that are the Iraq
insurgents' favorite weapon.
The vehicle is the prized new Stryker wheeled troop carrier, advertised as the first fruit of the Army's plan to transform itself into a lighter, go-anywhere-fast force.

Worse still: the Army has known it might have a problem since February, but has kept quiet about it. An Army memo sent yesterday to the head of the Stryker program, and
obtained by NEWSWEEK, reports: "Evidently this issue was first raised in February 2003. Am unsure how this issue escaped public scrutiny for six months." Not even Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was told, NEWSWEEK has learned. "Understand that ARSTAF have been told to treat this issue as if it were 'classified'," says the
memo, which is addressed to Lt. Gen. John Riggs, the head of the Stryker program. At a recent Army meeting to discuss the faulty armor, the main topic on the agenda, according
to a DOD source, was: "How do we tell Secretary Rumsfeld?" Rumsfeld is now in Iraq. According to the memo to Riggs, the Army briefed "selected staffers" on Capitol Hill
yesterday.

Unlike the massively thick steel that tanks are made from, the 19-ton Stryker has a light steel and aluminum structure. But this is clad in 130 ceramic tiles, supposedly tough enough
stop heavy machine-gun fire and deflect the blast of incoming RPGs. More than 600 Strykers have been built by General Dynamics, which has a $4 billion contract to produce 2,100
in all. But the ceramic armor tiles are produced for GD by a German subcontractor. The problem arose when the German firm apparently changed the mix of ingredients in the
tiles. (The firm could not be reached for comment.)

http://forum.a-10.org/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3645&ARCHIVE=

(It's easy to google this stuff up ...)

[aquart]

24. A German subcontractor.

We are at war and vital war materiel is being made OUT OF THE COUNTRY?????????????

By a nation opposed to our decision to invade Iraq?

The arrogant incompetence of the planning for this disaster takes my breath away.