This is mikes latest article.
Have fun tearing it apart... i lack the energy at the moment.
LOL
If TF Smith had Stryker trucks? Outcome would have
been same.
Please take a few moments to read the account below of
TF Smith and examine the map showing where they were
positioned to block the road and consider the terrain
where it was go and no-go for tracked and wheeled
vehicles.
www.korteng.com/Appleman/Chapter6.htm
Notice TF SMITH HAD WHEELED TRUCKS.
They were parked behind their defensive positions on
the road to their rear.
I doubt if even Stryker TOW ATGMs fired from their
rubber-tired mounts would have changed the outcome as
the T34/85s would have point/shot/blasted them on the
road. Ditto that for MGS even if that 105mm gun
variant worked.
Once surrounded and routed the foot troops would be no
better able to withdraw in Strykers along roads than
they were in 1950 in unarmored trucks.
Only TRACKED armored personnel carriers (APCs) that
could have enabled them to move cross country in the
face of intense enemy fire would have helped them
conduct a mobile defense and carried the heavy
firepower that could have been brought to bear from
unexpected locations and move themselves, their
wounded and their supplies. The whole point of the
Army experience after Korea was NOT to move men around
in helicopters so they could afterwards get shot up.
The Korean experience forced the Army to get serious
about tracked APCs beginning with the M75 at war's
end, followed by the M59 and finally the greatest AFV
of all time, ever the M113 at the behest of Gavin that
was amphibious, air-transportable so infantry was not
orphaned after airlanding and could move boldly even
nuclear devastated battlefields. We progressed with
gunshields to fight mounted with the ACAVs, and had
firing ports figured out with a shoot-on-the-move
autocannon with the AIFV when we went overboard with
the 2-man turret Bradley to escort heavy M1 Abrams
tanks. Infantry became second-class citizens and
security guards for tanks (armored infantry) when we
should have simply kept improving our M113 Gavins so
ALL our infantry would have armored mobility even
those that come by aircraft (Army's 4 divisions of
light infantry).
What has happed since this time is nothing less than
tragic.
Instead in 1999, the infantry led by a CSA who wanted
a cash cow from Congress revolted with a regression
into Soviet-style wheeled BTR motorized infantry when
the problem was an oversized turret on the Bradley
cooping the infantry up in back, not tracks. At great
expense, we have bought a handful of thin metal boxes
without turrets on 8 air-filled rubber tires dubbed
"Strykers". We have once again reverted back to the
feel-good, narcissistic foot-infantry-in-trucks
pre-Korean war default mode this time
institutionalized with the Canadian-made, expensive
Stryker trucks begging for a high-tech version of the
TF Smith debacle.
Planet earth has not changed and the battlefield has
gotten MORE not less lethal, making tracked AFVs even
more critical. The best Army vehicular example of the
Stryker silliness that we can somehow pick/choose a
narrow set of situations to use the Stryker infantry
is the WW2 M3 White scout car and tank destroyer
debacles. Mechanized cavalry doctrine tried to have
troops sneak ahead to observe the enemy and report
back in unarmored, rubber tired cars. The German enemy
in North Africa lefts hundreds of burning American
vehicle hulks via artillery and mortar fires not
factored into our pre-war force designs and war games.
Lou Dimarco's excellent mechanized cavalry doctrine
brilliantly details this: www.loudimarco.com
The tank destroyers had the 90mm guns needed to kill
German tanks but our own tanks were denied them (its
not your job to kill tanks!) and Sherman tank losses
were horrific when the TDs could not and were not
where they needed to be on the fluid mobile
battlefields of Europe. Dave Johnson's "Fast Tanks and
Heavy Bombers" and Belton Cooper's "Death Traps"
detail the Sherman medium infantry
exploitation-through-enemy-lines tank disaster.
And neither will the Stryker's myriad of
variants---the Stryker truck is also born of phony war
games, this time high-tech at the Fort Irwin,
California National Training Center (NTC) that do not
accurately factor in mortar/artillery fire shredding
and igniting rubber tires. Wheeled vehicles do not
even have MILES laser tag receptors for simulated
bullets to deflate them--we live in a fantasy world
like the 1930s where rubber tired trucks get a free
ride on the firm-soil southern California desert
because we want them. Knuckling under to ecologist
pressures to not leave/roads and trails on restricted
and cluttered with civilian buildings Army posts where
our Soldiers spend most of their time, the
Stryker/Humvee truck mentality "stays in its lane" so
everything stays tidy. And do not even think about
SWIMMING vehicles; this is dangerous and the
Stryker/Humvee trucks can't swim anyway. M113 Gavins
can swim but who says our Army wants to get ready now
for wars that are not tidy where the unexpected path
and bold maneuver across lakes and rivers surprise
enemies and avoid roadside bombs? The real enemy here
is the ITAM eco-nazi who will have your head and your
career if you run over a tree with your track.
Some Stryker truck spokesmen have tried to dishonestly
justify Strykers as progress because its either
"Wheels or Walk". To those in the stone age of
military mobility (they were lightfighter who walked
previously), the "wheel" looks like "science fiction".
These Stryker proponents are dangerously wrong---its
Aircraft, Tracks, Wheels or Walk?---and many
combinations thereof. If we do this right we use
tracks that can fly by aircraft, swim and go-cross
country even in the face of enemy fires. Anything less
and we put ourselves at risk of suffering another Task
Force Smith.
Mike Sparks
P.S. when TF Smith flew in by C-54s they COULD HAVE
HAD light tracked APCs:
here is a photo showing a M22 Locust light tank
underslung a C-54 transport plane which had tricycle
landing gear...
www.combatreform.com/m22underslungc54.jpg
Maybe we shouldn't have been so quick to dismiss C-54s
carrying light tanks, huh?
Imagine if after WW2 we didn't go back to sleep and
neglect ground warfare as General Gavin fought hard to
warn us not to do...M22 Locusts had been fitted with
106mm recoilless rifles and flown in by C-54s, others
Bren gun style open-topped troop carriers....maybe we
could have stopped the T34/85 medium tanks? At the
very least we could have withdrew in good
order...under some armor protection with some
tracked mobility to pull out our wounded...when foot
infantry is wounded it cannot walk anymore...if
swarmed by enemy infantry you cannot afford to try to
break out barreling down roads in rubber-tired
trucks...
Have fun tearing it apart... i lack the energy at the moment.
LOL
If TF Smith had Stryker trucks? Outcome would have
been same.
Please take a few moments to read the account below of
TF Smith and examine the map showing where they were
positioned to block the road and consider the terrain
where it was go and no-go for tracked and wheeled
vehicles.
www.korteng.com/Appleman/Chapter6.htm
Notice TF SMITH HAD WHEELED TRUCKS.
They were parked behind their defensive positions on
the road to their rear.
I doubt if even Stryker TOW ATGMs fired from their
rubber-tired mounts would have changed the outcome as
the T34/85s would have point/shot/blasted them on the
road. Ditto that for MGS even if that 105mm gun
variant worked.
Once surrounded and routed the foot troops would be no
better able to withdraw in Strykers along roads than
they were in 1950 in unarmored trucks.
Only TRACKED armored personnel carriers (APCs) that
could have enabled them to move cross country in the
face of intense enemy fire would have helped them
conduct a mobile defense and carried the heavy
firepower that could have been brought to bear from
unexpected locations and move themselves, their
wounded and their supplies. The whole point of the
Army experience after Korea was NOT to move men around
in helicopters so they could afterwards get shot up.
The Korean experience forced the Army to get serious
about tracked APCs beginning with the M75 at war's
end, followed by the M59 and finally the greatest AFV
of all time, ever the M113 at the behest of Gavin that
was amphibious, air-transportable so infantry was not
orphaned after airlanding and could move boldly even
nuclear devastated battlefields. We progressed with
gunshields to fight mounted with the ACAVs, and had
firing ports figured out with a shoot-on-the-move
autocannon with the AIFV when we went overboard with
the 2-man turret Bradley to escort heavy M1 Abrams
tanks. Infantry became second-class citizens and
security guards for tanks (armored infantry) when we
should have simply kept improving our M113 Gavins so
ALL our infantry would have armored mobility even
those that come by aircraft (Army's 4 divisions of
light infantry).
What has happed since this time is nothing less than
tragic.
Instead in 1999, the infantry led by a CSA who wanted
a cash cow from Congress revolted with a regression
into Soviet-style wheeled BTR motorized infantry when
the problem was an oversized turret on the Bradley
cooping the infantry up in back, not tracks. At great
expense, we have bought a handful of thin metal boxes
without turrets on 8 air-filled rubber tires dubbed
"Strykers". We have once again reverted back to the
feel-good, narcissistic foot-infantry-in-trucks
pre-Korean war default mode this time
institutionalized with the Canadian-made, expensive
Stryker trucks begging for a high-tech version of the
TF Smith debacle.
Planet earth has not changed and the battlefield has
gotten MORE not less lethal, making tracked AFVs even
more critical. The best Army vehicular example of the
Stryker silliness that we can somehow pick/choose a
narrow set of situations to use the Stryker infantry
is the WW2 M3 White scout car and tank destroyer
debacles. Mechanized cavalry doctrine tried to have
troops sneak ahead to observe the enemy and report
back in unarmored, rubber tired cars. The German enemy
in North Africa lefts hundreds of burning American
vehicle hulks via artillery and mortar fires not
factored into our pre-war force designs and war games.
Lou Dimarco's excellent mechanized cavalry doctrine
brilliantly details this: www.loudimarco.com
The tank destroyers had the 90mm guns needed to kill
German tanks but our own tanks were denied them (its
not your job to kill tanks!) and Sherman tank losses
were horrific when the TDs could not and were not
where they needed to be on the fluid mobile
battlefields of Europe. Dave Johnson's "Fast Tanks and
Heavy Bombers" and Belton Cooper's "Death Traps"
detail the Sherman medium infantry
exploitation-through-enemy-lines tank disaster.
And neither will the Stryker's myriad of
variants---the Stryker truck is also born of phony war
games, this time high-tech at the Fort Irwin,
California National Training Center (NTC) that do not
accurately factor in mortar/artillery fire shredding
and igniting rubber tires. Wheeled vehicles do not
even have MILES laser tag receptors for simulated
bullets to deflate them--we live in a fantasy world
like the 1930s where rubber tired trucks get a free
ride on the firm-soil southern California desert
because we want them. Knuckling under to ecologist
pressures to not leave/roads and trails on restricted
and cluttered with civilian buildings Army posts where
our Soldiers spend most of their time, the
Stryker/Humvee truck mentality "stays in its lane" so
everything stays tidy. And do not even think about
SWIMMING vehicles; this is dangerous and the
Stryker/Humvee trucks can't swim anyway. M113 Gavins
can swim but who says our Army wants to get ready now
for wars that are not tidy where the unexpected path
and bold maneuver across lakes and rivers surprise
enemies and avoid roadside bombs? The real enemy here
is the ITAM eco-nazi who will have your head and your
career if you run over a tree with your track.
Some Stryker truck spokesmen have tried to dishonestly
justify Strykers as progress because its either
"Wheels or Walk". To those in the stone age of
military mobility (they were lightfighter who walked
previously), the "wheel" looks like "science fiction".
These Stryker proponents are dangerously wrong---its
Aircraft, Tracks, Wheels or Walk?---and many
combinations thereof. If we do this right we use
tracks that can fly by aircraft, swim and go-cross
country even in the face of enemy fires. Anything less
and we put ourselves at risk of suffering another Task
Force Smith.
Mike Sparks
P.S. when TF Smith flew in by C-54s they COULD HAVE
HAD light tracked APCs:
here is a photo showing a M22 Locust light tank
underslung a C-54 transport plane which had tricycle
landing gear...
www.combatreform.com/m22underslungc54.jpg
Maybe we shouldn't have been so quick to dismiss C-54s
carrying light tanks, huh?
Imagine if after WW2 we didn't go back to sleep and
neglect ground warfare as General Gavin fought hard to
warn us not to do...M22 Locusts had been fitted with
106mm recoilless rifles and flown in by C-54s, others
Bren gun style open-topped troop carriers....maybe we
could have stopped the T34/85 medium tanks? At the
very least we could have withdrew in good
order...under some armor protection with some
tracked mobility to pull out our wounded...when foot
infantry is wounded it cannot walk anymore...if
swarmed by enemy infantry you cannot afford to try to
break out barreling down roads in rubber-tired
trucks...
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