I noted this development recently and said that while it is good, it isn't enough, with Abrams tanks an option to attach to the cavalry regiment for real protected firepower.
And rather than building an air-droppable assault gun for our parachute regiment in Europe, why not add a company or battalion of Abrams to that brigade?
I would like to address one notion in the article about Strykers and by implication our mechanized infantry:
“Dragoon” is an appropriate term for Stryker forces. More mobile and better protected than foot troops, they’re still nowhere near as tough as M1 tank or the M2 Bradley troop carrier. Like the original dragoons in the black powder and musket days, Stryker units are a hybrid that ride to the battle but then dismount to fight on foot in battle. [emphasis added]
That point about the hybrid nature of Stryker infantry is just not true. Nobody fights mounted these days in the Army.
While the early Bradley fighting vehicles copied the Russian BMP infantry fighting vehicle to allow the infantry to shoot out of ports on the Bradley while on the move, that didn't work out in practice. So later Bradley builds did away with the gun ports.
While the Bradley has the firepower (machine gun, 25mm cannon, and anti-tank missile) in its turret to fight while moving with the tanks to support them, the infantry in the back of a Bradley has to dismount as much as infantry in the back of a Stryker in order to fight. So there is no "hybrid" involved anywhere in the infantry community. You dismount to fight whether you are in a Stryker, Bradley, Humvee, JLTV, MRAP, or helicopter.
If you are riding in the back of an open bed unarmored transport you can shoot, but that's not a smart way to fight if you can avoid it.
It's just that the Stryker with a 30mm gun can now fight without dismounting the infantry the way the Bradley can now.
Anyway, the up-gunned Strykers are a good start. Keep going.
