[Panther Al]

As mentioned earlier, its not the concept of the stryker brigade that I think is a bit silly. It's light, which means in a conventional conflict it has issues. This isn't a bad thing: provided all it is is a few units in a RDF role. When it's the bulk of the army on the other hand, its a different story. Assuming that in a few years that we even have any heavy forces left, it means our army will erode like snow under a fire hose. It is sad that the Iraqi army has more tanks - including well over a hundred brand new M1A1SA's - than it looks like we will in three years at this rate.

But let's look at the concept of a RDF. At heart it is an air transportable unit, high in firepower, meant to be something along the lines of an ablative speedbump, with more staying power than the 82nd airborne. So, it needs armour, it needs firepower, but it needs to be light. Now, off hand the Stryker is all that, and even better -and it is truelly a good thing- all the Strykers have immense parts commonality. They also have to have as light of a logistical tail as possible, as well as the unit on the whole has to have everything it needs, arty, air, intel, engineering, air defense, and MPs.

Sounds a lot like the current organisation of a heavy cavalry regiment, save that while it could be transported by air with some effort, there was plans for this, and that the logistical tail because of the threethousand and one (OK, some exaggeration there) different vehicle types. This, if the Stryker brigade was built on the ACR format would fix that.

But the stryker has flaws, and serious ones in my opinion. For some reason politics got involved and coupled with various pet projects caused it to become immensely complex, with about every bell and whistle they could tuck in. And all that has a weight that could have been used for armour, and reduce the maintenance level (I think in T2K terms it would be at least a 12 if not 16). Not to mention wheels. In a force designed as an offensive, rapid, strike force, this isn't a bad thing. For an RDF designed to hold the line, or to engaged in sustained combat operations it is.

So, what is the right answer?

Stay tuned...