Army considers variants of Stryker, Abrams

Missed this while on the road last week:

Meanwhile, the Army has built a prototype of a new Stryker maintenance vehicle variant built with a trailer and crane to recover battle-damaged vehicles in combat, said U.S. Army Col. Christopher Lockhart, TRADOC Capabilities Manager, Stryker.

“It would recover destroyed Strykers, even catastrophically destroyed Strykers with all the tires blown off. It works in conjunction with a trailer. It will be a new variant if we chose to go that way,” said Lockhart.

In addition, the Army has outfitted several Stryker vehicles with an armor kit along the lower sides of the vehicles designed to stop deadly shaped charges such as explosively formed penetrates.

“The Stryker modernization program will allow you to put more weight on the system. There is a hull protection kit, an armor package, that is being put on selective Strykers right now. It is on the lower part of the side. EFPs impact around the tire area,” said Lockhart.

The Army plans also call for full funding of the NBC (nuclear, chemical, biological) reconnaissance Stryker variant.

“We want more of the NBC recon vehicles to replace Fox vehicles that are out there. We had to address all of the manned-ground vehicles [FCS] issues in our planning. Once we did that there was a little bit of RDT & E [research, development, test and evaluation] money for the entire Stryker family. From an engineering perspective we will continue to modernize the Stryker family. They will continue to be reset and be operationally capable because they are in the hands of soldiers being used,” said Thompson.

The maintenance variant might be nice, but I was hoping for a 25mm or 30mm gun version.

Also, don’t forget the 155mm howitzer prototype Stryker.

Just because.

Another below:
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Defense Tech has some more feedback on the Stryker Mobile Gun System, this time a bit more favorable.

Honestly, most of the criticism I’ve heard or read about doesn’t seem too far out of the ordinary for a new vehicle. And, as the troops in Iraq were calling for this vehicle for years, “rushing” (if you ignore how far behind schedule it was to being with) a not-totally-finished platform into service wasn’t necessarily the wrong thing to do, if that is what happened.

Besides, with the MGS taking the heat, the rest of the Strykers suddenly have become the standards to meet. And only just recently they were pieces of crap. Of course, the previous standard, the M2 Bradley, was also a piece of crap when introduced.

MGS Brings the Heat by Matthew Cox.

Possibly in response to some criticisms published last week? One thing I’ve noticed is that the MGS vehicles almost never show up in official photos. I don’t know if that means anything, but I’ve been watching for them and haven’t seen many.

An important makeover

Contractors working for General Dynamics Land Systems Inc. are putting in 10-hour days at Fort Lewis to get the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division’s recently returned fleet ready for duty again. The 270 or so armored vehicles arrived at the Port of Olympia in November after 15 months of hard duty in Iraq.

The reset process began earlier this month and typically takes about seven days per vehicle…Nineteen of the brigade’s hardest hit Strykers were sent to the General Dynamics plant in Anniston, Ala., for structural repairs. Another 20 destroyed in Iraq are being replaced with new trucks, officials said.

The brigade needs to be on stand-by by June 1st.

Battle for Olympia Rages On

Unbiased commentary:

I have been in Olympia for a long time. All that happened last night was that people who have lived here for years got tired of being attacked. There was no outside group. Everyone running out there last night were Olympians in revolt. The cops got hit with countless rocks. The reason things are different is because everyone is sick to death of the murder and destruction all around them.

I’m unconvinced. I think they’re just a bunch of morons.

Supporting evidence:

Authored by: scooter on Wednesday, November 14 2007 @ 02:22 PM PST
more people, this needs more people! it’s amazing what you can do with just 150 though. have the port workers taken a position yet?

Authored by: quexalcote on Wednesday, November 14 2007 @ 06:11 PM PST
There needs to be more people, and people with gas masks, body armor, and weapons. The war did not, in fact, stop there.

Authored by: notafed on Wednesday, November 14 2007 @ 09:30 PM PST
I agree, anarchists need to come to these actions prepared for a fight.

Yep. Sounds just like regular old citizens taking a stand against injustice.

Earlier this year I covered a bit of the protesting in Tacoma over the deployment of a Stryker brigade. Surprise, surprise! The protesters are back, this time protesting the return of a Stryker brigade.

Anti-war demonstrators protesting military at Olympia port

The “Port Militarization Resistance” group opposes what it calls Olympia’s complicity in the Iraq war.

A Navy cargo ship docked at Olympia yesterday carrying equipment used by the Fort Lewis Third Stryker brigade during its 15 months in Iraq. The protesters say the equipment will be refitted and repaired for further combat.

Police push aside protesters as Strykers depart

Protesters became more emboldened as the night progressed, even chasing down the moving convoys so they could stand or sit in the roadway in front of them. Police officers were able to clear the roadways and forced the protesters back to the sidewalks using their batons. At one point, the protesters dumped garbage on the roadway in an unsuccessful bid to stop the convoys.

1 Arrested at Olympia Anti-War Protest

Allie Van Nostran, 18, an Evergreen State College student, said people were shoved back to the sidewalk.

“I was shoved across my collarbone with a billy club,” Van Nostran said.

Police working overtime at Port of Olympia

The Olympia Police Department’s response to protests Tuesday and Wednesday in opposition to the unloading of military cargo used in Iraq has cost the city about $10,000, police said.

It must be great living near these lunatics.

Coverage of the earlier protests in Tacoma, used because of previous protests in Olympia:

Freedom isn’t free…Will that be cash or credit?
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Guard soldiers pass on lessons learned in Iraq

The Pennsylvania National Guard’s 56th Brigade has been alerted that it could be deployed to Iraq in early 2009. The brigade, the only one in the National Guard with Strykers, is still transitioning.

The troops have been training on Strykers for two years, and now it’s time for them to learn what experienced troops in the field have learned.

“We’ll be learning tactics relevant to that environment,” said Lt. Bryan Hanisko, a National Guardsman from Halifax. “This is not a European-type battle.”

And Shylock in Amishland, a member of the brigade comments:

All of us, the entire unit, are taking the training very seriously. Pre-deployment notwithstanding, I don’t fear what will happen in theater with our regular supporting cast. My anxiety stems from the branches we’ll invariably graft in for full-spectrum combat operations.

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Have a number of cool things that I wanted to get posted for today, but a time crunch last night has put me a little behind. If Murdoc could blog full time, we wouldn’t have this problem, would we? Click on some ads or something…

Anyway, one thing I’d like to get some feedback on is a video over at the Danger Room. It reportedly shows an

XM-151 Remote Weapons Station emptying its magazine of .50-caliber bullets — and then turning towards the camera, looking for new targets to nail. I’m told — but cannot confirm — that this footage was shot during a demonstration for VIPs, and that several members of Congress would’ve been in serious jeopardy, had the weapon not run out of ammo.

A couple of things stand out to me. First, the weapons mount certainly doesn’t appear to be a standard RWS. See this post for more on the M151, including pictures and info on the upcoming upgrades.

Secondly, the RWS is remote-controlled, not automated. A human is inside the vehicle, controlling the weapon. Noah at Danger Room confirms that he doesn’t have the full story on this video, but he says that he’s “90%+” sure that this was a demonstration of an automated system. Given the number of advanced weapons always in development (and on display for Congress in hopes of attracting budget dollars), this certainly doesn’t seem out of the realm of the possible.

Finally, the weapon itself doesn’t look like a .50 cal to me, and it certainly isn’t the standard Ma Duce we see on Strykers. It also isn’t a Mk19 40mm grenade launcher. Note the ammunition feed. Yesterday while looking at the video with a buddy, I said it looked and sounded like it could be a 25mm or 30mm chain gun. I googled around a bit, but didn’t find anything. A commenter at Danger Room claims it’s a 30mm off of an Apache attack helicopter. Does anyone have any info on this?

For the record, Murdoc continues to believe that a Stryker armed with a 25mm chain gun could be valuable. Something along the lines of the Canadian or New Zealand LAV IIIs. (Both of those posts are fairly old…in one I wrote that I didn’t expect the 120mm gun-armed Stryker MGS would ever be fielded. I am perfectly happy being wrong about that one.)

UPDATE: Well, shoot. The video no longer appears to be available. [UPDATE Again: It's back.]

Still, if anyone knows anything about the incident let me know.

UPDATE 3: Danger Room updated the post after being contacted by someone who was there. It is a 30mm chain gun. Noah updated the original post so go look for more details.

M151 Remote Weapon System
with M2 .50 cal gun
Click for whole picture

Finally: New Remote Weapon Systems for Stryker

DVIDS:

CAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait — Members of the 2nd (Stryker) Cavalry Regiment recently became the first Army unit to have the new Remote Weapon Systems refitted and mounted on their Stryker vehicles.

The RWS is the Army’s latest advancement in weapon systems. The system has a new laser range finder for its .50-caliber mounted machine gun. Before 2nd SCR Soldiers deployed to Iraq the new systems were mounted on Strykers in Germany and Kuwait.

First, note the regiment’s location.

Secondly, the article actually seems to make the RWS sound like a new invention. It’s not, and all Strykers have always had the M151 RWS (called the ‘Protector’ in the commercial market). The upgrade is actually a new and improved version of the RWS which incorporates, among other things, the Small Tactical Optical Rifle Mounted (STORM) Laser Range Finder:
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