[HenriRow]

Fairly biased. Anyone in the military knows that some training can be shortened significantly without actually losing anything. This is especially true if you make something for a smaller group of soldiers. That first example doesn't really tell anything scary. Not receiving that other training is not necessarily the reason for dying.

I am going to be in the same boat myself really. I'll get to my unit in December and leave soon after.

[AccusaJalsBub]

What's the blast radius from an rpg like?

[mGUuZRyA]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
What's the blast radius from an rpg like? Depends on the model, but it's not the blast per se that killed them, it's the fragmentation of the concrete at that back of the wall. They had to be pretty bunched up.

[JRixlcvF]

The story mixes fundamentally unrelated issues.

Being a replacement is a *****. So is being newly assigned to a unit about to deploy when you've just completed AIT.

There are FNGs coming into brigades all the time - you can't hold up deploying an entire brigade because a few FNGs might not have gotten the full specialized training scheduled for the unit.

It's too bad that he made a mistake/got unlucky and put himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. FNGs do that sometimes. Luckily, there are a lot fewer FNGs in this war in proportion to the total troops deployed, and this crop of FNGs is better trained that the FNGs in prior wars.

That story, though sad for the kid and his family, is irrelevent to the big picture issue of inadequate preparation, facile and naive assumptions about how this war would play out, inadequate force size, etc.

Those are real issues, but a lot more abstract and policy wonkish than a tearjerker about an 18 or 19 year old FNG getting killed.

[Sadsidioribre]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Ahh. Misread the article.

I'm surprised an rpg would fracture a 3 foot thick concrete wall with enough force to kill people at the back of the wall (unless concrete was already damaged)

And yeah, I'd imagine they'd have to be sitting right next to each other for that to happen. A few feet apart, at most.

The concrete damage isn't surprising - unless it's hardened, high density stuff with a lot of rebar in it (like a nuclear plant containment, for example), concrete is practically like butter for the higher grade, modern RPGs.

A thin wall would have been better (depending on what you were trying to protect behind the wall), or sandbags in front of the wall with an airspace, unless you were rignt in the way.

With a wall that thick, the RPG will impart all its energy into the wall, and that's a lot of material that has to go somewhere.

[Maypeevophy]

We need fewer pieces of junk like the Stryker and more infantry divisions.

[Kolovorotkes]

Why not? Someone has to arm them.

[yqpY4iw6]

We need fewer pieces of junk like the Stryker and more infantry divisions. what are some good shielded western APCs ?

[Nundduedola]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Equipping a light infantry division is nowhere's near as lucrative as developing a new piece of **** vehicle system. Devolped? They took a LAV-25, slapped some electronics in it, removed the stablized turret and river-crossing ability, added $500,000 to the per-unit cost, and called it a day. Oh, and created a New MGS when an already devolped alternative was already in the arsenal. And it doesn't do what the contract told it to.

Of course, this article is basically advocating stripping the USN and USAF of even more resources, when the USN is the smallest it's been since before WW2. Not sayign that the Army shouldn't get the money, but during peace time it's the USN that gets the most use.(which explains why the Army got in the rear in the '90s, procurment wise)

[thomaskkk]

Originally posted by Elok


I looked the Stryker up on Wikipedia, but their summary of the controversy gives the impression of overall endorsement by the troops using it. Anyone in uniform who speaks on the record will generally have positive things to say.

Do you have objections to the Stryker itself (e.g. armor flaws), or just of spending money on new toys in general while there's a shortage of equipment for traditional infantry, or what? Both. Air-transportability, cost, potentially higher casualties, the whole wheeled v. tracked issue (which was pretty much settled in WW2, but people like to forget)

[KuevDulin]

We need fewer pieces of junk like the Stryker and more infantry divisions.

You'd be better off spending less on the F-22/F-35/missile defense and having both the Stryker and more infantry divisions...

stripping the USN and USAF of even more resources