But..... It was M113 that has proved to be more vulnerable to land mines, IEDs and other explosive devices than the Stryker. There was reports that at least one Stryker ICV was hit by a big bomb. The vehicle was totalled, but the crew all survived with minor injuries. The other report says that a Stryker has 4 wheels blown out and still was able to return to base on its own. Can't say the same thing with M113. It's easier to design a mine-proof AFV from ground up than modifying a 1950s design.

 

It's 2007 already and Stryker has proved to be a good idea. The petition was made when the US Army declared victory to GDLS team in 2001. It's kind of old.

In Vietnam the men assigned to M113's would commonly ride on top of the APC rather than in it when traveling through jungle BECAUSE of landmines.  It also is not able to withstand RPG fire (or even HMG fire if I recall correctly).  If the men on the ground thought it was safer outside of the vehicle, I would think it would not be a good idea to deploy it where the primary threat to vehicles is from mines/IEDS or RPG's. 

AFAIK,  no soldier has called the M113 anything but an M113 (well, maybe some unprintable ones, but those wouldn't have been platform-specific.) It's a chairbourne affectation.

Heorot,

Yes, I believe the poster is Mr. Sparks but that's not the point to me.

...sad thing is, if so (ol' Sparky),

you'd think that he could at least have spelled  dynamic  correctly (as well as numerous other words in several of these ravings posted up this morning), for someone whom supposedly was an officer in at least the US Army Reserve at some point!

 

Then again, the running joke used to be, the only real difference between a 2nd Lt and a PV2 was that, at least the private had been promoted!

Just because someone has 60-odd college credits to become an officer, that doesn't necessarily equate to applied intelligence and sound judgment (nor does it imply tactical or grammatic proficiency for that matter, either!).

 

My guess is, another high school age troll who read some sh*t somewhere, and jumped on the bandwagon.

(then again, can't say much for myself when I started off here a few years ago!)

We'll see how serious he/she/it is in backing up those claims, by how soon they're back to follow thru on their accusations and such, or if they were just passing thru and stirring up sh*t for the attention.

 

We been down this road time and time again: both systems have proven their strengths and weaknesses.

Both have pros and cons.

The M113's greatest success is, most likely, principally due to US Gov't Foreign Military Aid packages offering the things up so cheaply like M&M's to everyone we could dump them on. Now everybody's got them, or something similar (FV432), and are hacking them apart and kit-bashing all kinds of extra goodies (even to the point they're now calling them indigenous programs!)  into them to prove they're still useful (or maybe just prove that said operators don't have the $cratch to shell out for new AFVs...).

 

Let's face it: FCS is just a souped-up, 21st century Ultra Mecha Zord Gavin dressed to the nines with all kinds of techno goodies and serious weight issues consequently.

 

Hey Folks,

 

I would use the MGS as a light anti-armor system for the airborne!

 

also the M-113 will be around for awhile in all likelihood because of how many have survived

 

Sincerely,

 

Keith 

link

Hey Yelli,

 

I would buy some Turkish M-48 and do an in house upgrade. You would be surprised what you can do with them if you use modern FCS tech

 

Sincerely,

 

Keith

We do have a lot of Patton tanks. All of our Patton tanks are upgraded with M68 105mm gun, thermal imaging system and ballistic computer etc. 105mm CM32 (8x8) is still developing, but it's going well.

If memory serves me correct, Russian BMD falls to the same category. Those under-10 tonne vehicles are not well protected.

I don't knock the M113 myself.

Lord only knows how many I've been in doing maintenance (for a time, on the Emerson TUA TOW Under Armor ITV system).

 

Having been in the inventory of so many militaries for so long, it's become second nature to countless soldiers who operate and maintain it.

It's a simple design that doesn't require multi-million-dollar equipment shops to make sure it's working properly.

It's upgradeable and modifiable more than just about any other AFV.

And it still has a lot of useful life left in many of the chassis scattered around the world.

 

Even here in Pennsylvania, a once-full AFV park at the Ft Indiantown Gap Nat'l Guard Training Site has been slowly emptied of most of its M113s (still serviceable ones, with the bottom-of-the-barrel hulks most likely going to firing ranges),

they're being refurb'ed, given a fresh coat of tan paint, and a majority of them are headed across the pond to the Great Sandbox (either for US Army use, or for the struggling new Iraqi Army).

 

Expect the M113 to be one of those AFVs that, perhaps second place only to some still-serviceable Sherman chassis in Central and South America, will be among the first AFVs to reach a century birthday mark.

That in itself is a testimony to its success, even it doesn't measure up compared to other first rate platforms today.