As is often the case, you get your facts wrong due to your sloppy use of language.  The Marines have used wheeled armored vehicles for years, as you indicate in your piece.  Nevertheless, you claim earlier in the piece that "American troops" have not used them in large numbers since WWII.  What you meant was that the Army has not done so, so why not make the effort to say so.  This criticism may sound petty until one considers how frequently, as pointed out by others, you get basic facts wrong.  I recall a recent piece dealing with ram jets in which you claimed the US has not used them in large numbers.  This was patently wrong, as readers quickly pointed out, because the AF used them in the BOMARC and the Navy in the Talos.  These errors are not only slopppy but they unnecessarily reduce your credibility, which is too bad because generally you stuff is pretty good. 

 

Re the Stryker, I wish your piece had dealt in some detail with attempts to reduce its vulnerability to under-road bombs.  The Struykers as originally delivered did not have the V-shaped hull bottom needed for protect against these devices.  I have read somewhere something to the effect that this feature has been or will be added to Strykers.  Does anyone know?

 

J3

 

J3

Re the Stryker, I wish your piece had dealt in some detail with attempts to reduce its vulnerability to under-road bombs.  The Struykers as originally delivered did not have the V-shaped hull bottom needed for protect against these devices.  I have read somewhere something to the effect that this feature has been or will be added to Strykers.  Does anyone know?

From what I've been told, that's nothing more than wishful thinking. It would obviously require a serious redesign and would significantly reduce internal spaces--this can be alleviated somewhat by raising the hull and making it taller, but this would interfere with the Stryker's already limited airlift capacity, not to mention making it a larger target and increasing the possibility of a rollover. As the Army is investing another $700 million in more, unmodified Strykers, it appears that adding superior IED/mine protection--or at least a v-shaped hull--is not in the cards any time soon.

 

A relative who served in a Stryker brigade said the general feeling filtering down from the brass was that one had better talk up the good points of the Stryker and minimize the negatives, or else. Or else what, I'm not sure--he's a civilian now and can't be transferred to, I dunno, Antarctica for voicing his opinion. In any case, he thought the Stryker was a great vehicle, as long as you didn't go to war in one (or off road, for that matter--I remember the Stryker being tested here in the swampy marshlands of southern Louisiana back in the 90's with predictable results).

 

In any case, all things considered, I'm not overly impressed with it. 

I'd like to know what the source is where whoever wrote this article got the "suggestion" that Strykers, at least pertaining to this above-mentioned contract,
only cost an average $974,000 each.

 

As we can see at this article here,

(and no offense to you, longrifle, you only posted it up)

it's suggested that 981 Strykers will cost ~$11B (procured at $1.8B/yr for ~6 years, 2010-2015).

I tried doing the math on that one in my following rantful (as always) post,

only to come up with ~$11.213M per vehicle, which is way more than the $974,000 mentioned here (enough for more than 11 vehicles, actually)!

 

So either someone totally F'ed up on a couple decimal places somewhere,

or someone is way ripping the US Govt off on prices for spares and support,

or more than likely, earmarked pork out the wazoo...

 

 Current US Govt-approved cleared-for-public-release data (how much it costs the Army to acquire one, just search thru the GAO's website long enough and it can be found) lists it as more than twice the "suggested" $974,000 mentioned here,

but no where near close to the $11.213M that this other math suggests.

 

So are we to believe then that spares and support contracts (for equipment that, mostly, is still under warranty!) actually run the per unit price up by almost 500% ???

General Dynamics Awarded Contract for Stryker Mobile Gun Systems

 

(Source: General Dynamics Land Systems; issued August 20, 2008)

 

STERLING HEIGHTS, Mich. --- The U.S. Army TACOM Lifecycle Management Command has awarded General Dynamics Land Systems, a business unit of General Dynamics, a contract for the production of 62 Stryker Mobile Gun System (MGS) variant vehicles. The contract has a total potential value of $326.5 million including initial funding of $145 million.

Work will be performed in Anniston, Ala.; Sterling Heights, Mich.; Lima, Ohio; Scranton, Pa.; Tallahassee, Fla., and London, Ontario, Canada, and is expected to be completed by February 2010.

The Stryker MGS variant is a direct-fire infantry assault platform with a 105mm cannon mounted in a low-profile, fully stabilized, "shoot-on-the-move" turret and integrated into the Stryker chassis. It carries 18 rounds of NATO-standard 105mm main gun ammunition; 400 rounds of .50 caliber ammunition; and 3,400 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition. It destroys vehicles, equipment and hardened positions with its bunker and wall-breaching capability.

Stryker is a family of eight-wheel-drive combat vehicles that can travel at speeds up to 62 mph on highways, with a range of 312 miles. It operates with the latest C4ISR equipment as well as detectors for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. In addition to the MGS, Stryker vehicle configurations include: the nuclear, biological and chemical detection vehicle; anti-tank guided missile and medical evacuation vehicles; and carriers for mortars, engineer squads, command groups, and fire-support teams. The MGS has more than 70 percent common components with the rest of the 310 Strykers that comprise a brigade combat team, which eases the unit's training and logistics burden.

Since being deployed to combat in 2007, the MGS vehicles have logged 79,000 miles, fired 600 main gun rounds, thousands of coax rounds and survived numerous insurgent attacks and improvised explosive device (IED) detonations.

The Army has seven Stryker Brigade Combat Teams. Stryker is the Army's highest-priority production combat vehicle program and the centerpiece of the ongoing Army Transformation. Significantly lighter and more transportable than existing tanks and armored vehicles, Stryker fulfills an immediate requirement to equip a strategically deployable (C-17/C-5) and operationally deployable (C-130) brigade capable of rapid movement anywhere on the globe in a combat-ready configuration. Stryker Brigade Combat Teams have operated with "historically high" mission availability rates in Iraq since October 2003, demonstrating the value of a force that can move rapidly as a cohesive and networked combined-arms combat team.

General Dynamics, headquartered in Falls Church, Va., employs approximately 84,600 people worldwide and anticipates 2008 revenues of approximately $29.5 billion. The company is a market leader in business aviation; land and expeditionary combat systems, armaments and munitions; shipbuilding and marine systems; and information systems and technologies.

-ends-
-----------

 

 

OK, math time again:

62 vehicles at a potential value of $326.5 million,

that comes down to a potential price of ~$5.266M per vehicle.

Even with support, spares, etc, that's still more than twice the per-vehicle list price the Government is supposed to be paying for them.

 

Where is all this extra money going? 

 

No, I'm not shouting conspiracy.

I'm just one more taxpayer who wants to understand the math of it all (then let the chips fall where they may).

They want to make this information public knowledge, then let's next see them (contractors and Government) explain from one contract to another why the prices for vehicles, spare parts, and support don't seem to match up to other contracts.

 

For a fleet of vehicles that are supposed to share so much commonality (>70% in the case of the MGS), surely they don't think they can pull one over on us that one type of Stryker costs half a dozen times as much or whatever as another type...?

The whole point of commonality is to reduce across-the-fleet costs, not complicate them further.

(But if this is the case, then god forbid what we're gonna see if/when the FCS program enters full swing!)