[Panther Al]

Um, all of the above?

In my view here is how it breaks down:

The Stryker: taken by itself, its not a horrible vehicle. Its based on a good one, and it addresses one of the biggest faults that I see in the way the army builds units as wide a selection of a hodge podge of vehicles, with the stryker family, you get away from that. The Stryker was supposed to be much cheaper and much more airportable than an IFV. In this, its failed. By the time we finished making "small tweaks" to an already established and proven design it grew costwise to the point where it wasn't all that cheaper than a brad. The original stryker meet the goal of being air transportable - provided the tank was all but empty - but as soon as it was fielded they found that it didn't meet operational standards, so the weight started adding up, and still is. The already approved gen 2 stryker is set to weigh, combat loaded, 25 to 30 tons. Hence, you can't load it on a herc unless you spend a day stripping it of equipment, move it, and spend a day putting it all back in. If we have to use a C17, we might as well use a vehicle that takes advantage of it. Worse however is that all those tweaks made it perhaps the most complex vehicle in army history, which doesn't make it the most reliable machine around.

The Stryker Brigade: A better way to equip, and to form, reserve units I have never seen. Its honestly a decent org for some regular units even with the stryker. Moreover, you are right, its not a bad idea from a cavalry viewpoint. If it wasn't for its fragility. Given say, a common 30 ton tracked chassis supporting all the variants instead of an originally spec 11 tons, I wouldn't bat a eye. But we seem to have decided to re-equip the majority of the army with the things. And as is being discovered in Afghanistan, wheeled vehicles are not doing the job: a job the Stryker was supposed to excel at.

In the whole, a failure, organisational, about even with the Stryker getting high marks for concept and total failure in practice. We could have, and should have, done better.