The Army's wheeled armored car Brigade is ill-conceived because senior leaders have not researched the issue and found out the truth by either bad or non-existent staff work. The "transformation" is a top-down effort where even though General Shinseki SAYS he wants to hear the facts, it appears he has made his mind up regardless in favor of wheels, resulting in an ever-increasing series of cover-ups when the wheels fail to perform better than tracks. The Army invited contractors to show their vehicles earlier this year at Fort Knox, and the tracks did better, so they refuse to release the results. The Army realizes their favored LAV-III armored car is too high a silhouette to fit easily into a C-130 with a 105mm gun, so they lower the "goal post" of the Mobile Gun System requirements to T-62 tanks ina world full of more lethal T-72s so a tiny 25mm gun can on PAPER suffice so the LAV-III with a 25mm gun can fit into a C-130.
When experts study the logistical factors between M113-type tracked vehicles and wheeled armored cars, they find they both cost the same to maintain and have the same fuel consumption figures. Then the Army says its ambivalent about whether tracks or wheels are used, when you know the truth is the light tracked vehicles out-perform the wheels they favor, so they hope by creating an illusion of equality they will be able to still make their choice a wheeled armored car because no one wants to tell the emperor he is naked. As the Brigade at Fort Lewis trains on borrowed armored cars, officials keep comparing their heavy axle wheels to the ULTRA HEAVY 33-ton M2 and 70-ton M1 tracked vehicles they used to have to broad brush all tracks into the "heavy" stereotype. The M113s that one unit will get to train on will be OLD MODEL M113A2s and not the up-engined M113A3s so that way troops hopefully will not figure out that tracked vehicles of the same weight class as the armored cars they are driving and rolling over in are more weight/space efficient, make a smaller target with a lower center of gravity so they don't tip over, and outperform the wheels with better cross country performance and don't get stuck or need to be driven gingerly in mortal fear they will chose to go where the vehicle can't.
When Congress realizes that the Army ALREADY HAS THE "MEDIUM" WEIGHT VEHICLES IT NEEDS: THE M113 FAMILY which can be upgraded at a fraction of the cost of wheeled armored cars, AND OUT-PERFORMS the armored cars, they order the Army to prove that the new bought equipment is better (its not). So the Army tries to soften the language of the bill so it can stack the tests (cheat) by using an inferior vehicle like an old, beaten up M113A1 or M113A2 instead of the up-engined M113A3 actually in Army use, and to write the criteria to help the armored car "win" by making marginal things it might do slightly better the "mountains" when they are really "mole hills". Never mind that a M113A3 or stretched variant M113A4 MTVL with band tracks can do EVERYTHING the Army needs done better than a LAV-III that can't even go cross country except in firm soil desert areas.
Band tracks mean NO metal parts ever touch asphalt roads to "harm them" and no trucks are needed to move them around the area to save on track wear. M113A3s/4s with band tracks are as quiet as wheeled trucks, without the vibration and other complaints some foist on tracks to try to justify a tactically unsound wheeled armored death trap we are trying to put our men into. The Germans already use band tracks on Wiesels, the Swedish the BV-206, and get this---SO DOES THE U.S. ARMY ON ITS SUSV versions of the BV-206 in Alaska! Army leadership is ignorant of its own vehicle capabilities!
The concept of an Army-sized to fly by USAF aircraft is a good one, IF we use 11-ton M113-type TRACKED vehicles that can go cross country to avoid ambushes, rumble over obstacles and debris, and by its greater compactness, weight/size efficiency over armored cars can have 21st century applique armor fitted so they have roughly the same protection levels as a Bradley Fighting Vehicle which using older 1980s technology is 3 times heavier at 33 tons! The situation gets even better...if the Army uses the M113A3 with band tracks for most of its IBCT functions, and the German Wiesel for RSTA reconnaissance, they can be FLOWN BY ARMY HELICOPTERS over battlefield mines, obstacles, ambushes just like the British did with their 8-ton Scimitar light tanks to get into Kosovo using CH-47 Chinook helicopters in 1999. Later that year, the Australians flew their M113A1s into East Timor by C-130s to stop the fighting, and here in the U.S. we still tinker with fatally-flawed armored cars too heavy to fly by helicopters, too large to fit inside C-130s with an adequate turret cannon, because Army leadership will not listen or act on the truth of the situation.
Now that we are in the last days of a Presidential campaign, the Army postponed declaring the "winner" of the IAV vehicle selection because we suspect so candidate George W. Bush will not have a campaign issue proof that the Clinton/Gore administration is creating impotent peacekeeping units on flimsy SUV-type tire wheels. None of this has to be. We have written a book, "Air-Mech-Strike: 3-Dimensional Phalanx: full spectrum maneuver warfare to dominate the 21st century" to try to get the word out to decision makers that if the right vehicles are used, the ENTIRE Army can be lightened up without losing heavy armor protection/firepower, the 3-D maneuver parts can fly by Army helicopters, USAF C-130s and commercial cargo 747 airliners. The heavier 2-D parts can fly by USAF C-17/C-5s and by new wing-In-Ground effect seaplanes that can carry 100 Soldiers and 100 tanks at a time but do not leave wakes in the water and easily targeted from a distance and space satellites to be attacked (USS Cole). The strategic mobility problems of America's Army can be solved is we use the right formula that does not place our men at risk in vulnerable, road bound armored cars.
Mike Sparks dynmicpara@aol.com