The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) has been a defender of the A-10 "Warthog" close-air-support aorcraft (as is Winds of Change.NET), and a vocal critic of many American weapons programs, from the MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor, to the C-130J Hercules transport aircraft, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the F/A-22 Raptor superfighter, and the M1126 Stryker Infantry Carrier Vehicle currently deployed in northern Iraq.
Recently, however, two POGO staffers spent a day at Fort Lewis, WA with Stryker Armored Vehicle Brigade soldiers and officers. They wanted to gain insight into two recent reports by the Army's Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL) that raised significant issues with the Stryker program. To their surprise, they found widespread approval among ground troops and officers using the vehicle, to the point where they're now re-thinking their criticism and looking for answers. Kudos to POGO for having that honesty; the "digital ghosts" of the Stryker Brigades have demonstrated some real operational advantages.
Interestingly, Vasiliy Fofanov's US Armor in Operation "Iraqi Freedom" analysis in Moscow Defense Brief #1 offers a corroborating view; it was harder on the M1 Abrams and M2 Bradley's performance, and relatively positive about the Stryker.
Vasiliy Fofanov's US Armor in Operation "Iraqi Freedom" is an excellent analysis. Fovanov's very critical remarks belie careful analysis of the incidents when things went wrong for Abrams, Bradleys, or Strykers, and reasonable answers as to "why." I'll be passing this along to my nephew in armored cav.
This is good news. I always suspected POGO had an agenda and stuck to it. Glad to see someone admit their wrong in this world.
It is my observation of Vasiliy Fofanov postings over on Tankers.net that he tends to be very pro-Russian and anti-American and he will never fail to take an opportunity to knock American AFV designs.
He also makes a big thing of the newest ex-Soviet RPG-29 design being capable of penetrating earlier marks of the Abrams from the front.
I find his contention of the rocket hit on that Abrams came from a RPG-7 with a standard warhead to be laughable.
The standard PG-7 warhead found in Iraq is about 10-15 years past its shelf life and something between 25% and a third of them fail to detonate when fired properly. Those that do detonate are very irregular in performance. Many of the US Army trucks coming back from Iraq for rebuild have holes in them from undetonated PG-7 grenades passing through them.
The strike pictures on the Abrams in question that Strategypage.com showed were consistent with a late Cold War model shaped charge with either a trumpet or a double conical shaped warhead. Those warhead designs produce extended particle stream penetrating explosions. Most light or disposible infantry anti-tank weapons made with this technology have been built after the 1991 Gulf War.
It may well be that an RPG-7 was used to fire the grenade that hit that Abrams -- more likely the grenade was launched from an RPG-16 -- but the grenade that hit that Abrams was something special.
Stryker is not a good vehicle. Why?
Because it's already at the weight limit of it's suspension due to the add-on slat armor required for
combat duty in Iraq.
The Stryker has an operational readiness rate in the mid-90s despite the intense environment of Iraq (heat, IEDs, RPGs). It is handling the additional weight of the slat armor very well, as the OR rate indicates.
Only because the Army had special contractor teams flown in to keep the OR rate up in the mid 90s, and has been flying in large amounts of spare tires and suspension parts; which are getting chewed up by the severely overweight vehicle.
No, no special contractor teams flown in; just the habitual contractors that each unit has as per the IBCT O&O. My battalion had 3-4 contractors supplementing the combat repair team (CRT) assigned to the battalion from the brigade support battalion (BSB) - these were the exact same contractors, no more, no less, than were assigned in garrison to the battalion. As far as spare tires, the rate was 11 per day as of last October, or if you averaged that out across the fleet, that's a set of new shoes for each Stryker every 200 days, which is more time than we're getting out of our tracks in Iraq. As far as suspension parts, my company had very few issues and I don't recall having any deadlined vehicles for suspension parts. As a comparison, the mail we got on a daily basis easily took up more room than tires and suspensions repair parts that the company required.
Only because the Army had special contractor teams flown in to keep the OR rate up in the mid 90s, and has been flying in large amounts of spare tires and suspension parts; which are getting chewed up by the severely overweight vehicle.
That would make the Stryker little different from most other advanced platforms and remarkably common sense as the vehicle is still relatively new, with few senior maintenance NCOs with ten-twenty years experience to rewire the alternator through the interior lights when in a bind with bubble gum and balling wire. We still have tech reps for most aviation assets even on legacy birds like the Hueys and Sea Knights...
And thank you for noticing the excellence of the American logistical system.