BTRs APC vs Western 8x8 APC

Soviet/Russian army use them primarelly as armored BUS to bring troops to the battlefield

Older BTRs never had any serious weapon and operated manually

TR1 wrote:No way, Stryker has better base protection then any BTR (bar 90, which has crap mine protection anwyays).

It is a newer and heavier vehicle, no shocker.

Lots of troops had very positive things to say about the Stryker in Iraq, even if it is not an ideal but only temporary solution.

TR1 wrote:I meant the BTR-80s mobility.

TR1 wrote:I have spoken to friends who were deployed overseas, and had experience with the Stryker. Not all of the feedback was entirely positive, but for the most part, it was much better than the rabid Stryker hate online.

If the Stryker sucks, then I wouldn't even want to talk about the BTR-80. Decent mobility, by other standards it is totally archaic otherwise.

Army Stryker Brigade Won’t Take Strykers to Afghanistan

Based out of Washington state, the Army’s the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division is built around its intimidating Stryker armored vehicles. Weighing 19 tons and carrying troops on eight wheels, the Stryker is supposed to represent the Army’s best balance between armor protection and speedy transport. However, that balance is only struck when the vehicle goes to war. And while the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry division will head to Afghanistan in December, its Strykers aren’t invited.

The brigade, naturally, is downplaying the significance of leaving its Strykers back home. Its soldiers will ride in Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles instead. But it’s an embarrassing admission that the Army spent billions purchasing a vehicle that isn’t relevant to a major war. Think of it like the military’s version of Garfield Minus Garfield.

The Stryker Brigade will go Stryker-less for two reasons. First, the Afghan terrain can’t handle a heavy wheeled vehicle that’s about the size of a school bus. You don’t want to take that thing up mountains or roll it through river valleys that lack paved roads. Second, the vehicle is too flimsy to handle homemade bombs. Unlike MRAPs, the flat bottom of a Stryker absorbs the brunt of a bomb impact, rather than deflecting it.

The Stryker did well in Iraq — the brigade deployed three times there — earning the appellation “ghost riders” from President George W. Bush. But Iraq has paved roads, less rugged terrain (on the whole) and different kinds of homebrewed bombs.

In 2009, the flat-bottom Stryker accompanied the 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division to Kandahar. As 37 troops died and 238 were wounded, the brigade’s soldiers began to call the behemoth the “Kevlar Coffin.” The Stryker, retired Lt. Col. David Johnson of the Center for Advanced Defense Studies told Stars & Stripes, “isn’t perfectly suited for the environment in Afghanistan or a low-intensity conflict with IEDs.“


It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Back when the Army had only acquired 800 of 1200 Strykers in 2004, the Government Accountability Office estimated that the vehicle cost $8.7 billion to develop and purchase. A decade ago, the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, hot for Strykers, told Congress the vehicle would be “capable of operating in all types of military operations, from small-scale contingencies to a major theater of war.” Oops.

And look at what its replacement vehicle is: an MRAP. That was a truck the Army was lukewarm on — until former Defense Secretary Robert Gates surged them into production for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Hard questions await the Army about the utility of the lighter, more mobile MRAP after the wars end. But for now, it can operate wherever soldiers do.

The cost of an MRAP? Under $1 million per vehicle. Each Stryker, as of 2004, cost over $4 million.

So what’s a Stryker Brigade without its signature vehicle — the vehicle that it trains around and forms the basis of its tactics? Infantrymen.

“The important part is not about the vehicle for us,” Lt. Col. Wayne Brewster, the brigade’s deputy commander, told reporters. “Even though we’re a Stryker brigade with Stryker vehicles, the strength of the brigade is that we’ve got over 4,000 — it’s an infantry brigade — armed soldiers inside of it.” And those soldiers will be riding in a truck the Army never really wanted, rather than the one it wanted badly.

http://www.wired.com/2011/10/army-strykers-afghanistan/

Regular wrote:Hey hey hey, You are comparing BTR series with Stryker? Sheesh, wait for new Russian APC..
But what I'm talking about, Stryker isn't fresh, basically it is upgraded LAV III. Sure it's better when it comes to armour, mine protection, engine, modularity and weaponry (only in tests and paper)
But at what cost? As You guys mentioned, cost is overbloated. And yes, Europeans are leading when it comes to APCs. No wonder, because it's wheeled fighting vehicle would be more useful than tracked. Patria AMV and German Boxer looks good and it's way more affordable than Stryker. Afaik average price of Patria AMV is 2mil, so it's almost twice cheaper than Stryker. Plus it's amphibious.
Look at it's mobility... I do hope Russian Bumerang will be similar to AMV...
Skip to 4:40

No way, Stryker has better base protection then any BTR

TR1 wrote:How exactly is Bradley the "worst" on the totem pole?

Because the Bradley program stunk so bad and it was so infamous that Hollywood made a movie mocking it:

magnumcromagnon wrote:

TR1 wrote:How exactly is Bradley the "worst" on the totem pole?

Because the Bradley program stunk so bad and it was so infamous that Hollywood made a movie mocking it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pentagon_Wars

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144550/

The BTR vehicles were designed to be cheap... if you want to compare them, then compare them with western troop transport of the time... trucks.

Mine resistence wasn't terrible... quite often BTRs were seen in Afghanistan with 2 or more wheels blown completely off by mines

TR1 wrote:
I could make a dark comedy about Soviet/Russian tank procurement. Easily too.

TR1 wrote:

magnumcromagnon wrote:

TR1 wrote:How exactly is Bradley the "worst" on the totem pole?

Because the Bradley program stunk so bad and it was so infamous that Hollywood made a movie mocking it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pentagon_Wars

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144550/

I could make a dark comedy about Soviet/Russian tank procurement. Easily too.

TR1 wrote:

magnumcromagnon wrote:

TR1 wrote:How exactly is Bradley the "worst" on the totem pole?

Because the Bradley program stunk so bad and it was so infamous that Hollywood made a movie mocking it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pentagon_Wars

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144550/

I could make a dark comedy about Soviet/Russian tank procurement. Easily too.

I don't think it was that cheap Smile It's the matter of war-time production in the first place, not a price. And maintainence, of course

Cheap enough to be an affordable replacement for a troop transport truck, but with features like some protection from small arms fire and fragments, plus fully amphibious, and of course fairly decent support fire power mounted in a turret.

Maintenance was likely a long slow process and its design is seriously compromised by the complicated drive train design with two motors.