Heavyweight Wheeled APCs - This Season’s Must Not Have!

Most armies have some form of wheeled armoured personnel carrier (WAPC) in their inventory. A number of armies are in the process of adopting or have recently adopted new designs.

The most widely used family of WAPCs are the BTR-60, its variants and its descendants. These were designed to be “cheap and cheerful” armoured transports. They are relatively lightweight and simple vehicles. Their internal capacity makes them popular as command vehicles or to mount other specialized equipment. Large and lightly armoured, the eight-wheeled BTRs have often performed poorly when used as assault vehicles. No one claimed that the BTRs were the equal of tracks. If cheaper BTRs were fully the equal of more expensive tracked vehicles, why bother acquiring the latter in the first place?

The BTR-60/70/80 are very different from the new designs of eight or even ten-wheeled WAPCs. The newer WAPCs are neither light nor cheap! The US Army went through a phase of mislabelling the Stryker as an “armoured car” or calling it a “medium vehicle”. With weights exceeding 19 tons, such vehicles can justifiably be designated heavy-WAPCs (H-WAPC).

The controversial process behind the US Army’s adoption of the Stryker has been detailed elsewhere. The service record of the Stryker has been a litany of “too little” or “too much”:

The Stryker is too heavy to be airlifted a useful distance in the C130. It fails to meet the requirement for strategic mobility that was given as the reason for its procurement. The Stryker is also too large for the C130, requiring the neglect of some safety regulations if it is carried.
The Stryker is too lightly armed so can offer very little fire support to its dismounts or other friendly units. The value of improving the Stryker’s armament is debatable since it is also too lightly armoured and unlikely to survive long during an exchange of fire.
The Stryker is several feet taller than many alternative vehicles. This gives roof-mounted weapons a much larger dead-zone within which they cannot engage ground targets. In urban and many other environments enemies will be able to easily operate within minimum range of the Stryker’s weapons. The Stryker lacks firing ports or other means to engage proximal ground threats.
Paradoxically, the poorly armed and armoured Stryker probably appears too aggressive for peacekeeping operations.
The Stryker is too heavy for operation on some road systems, including some in the developed world. On US roads it is legally an Oversized Load. The Stryker’s much touted speed advantage can only be used on good quality terrain.
The Stryker is too big and too unwieldy for operation in many urban areas.
The Stryker is too heavy for off-road operation on some terrain. Despite the claims of its advocates the Stryker’s cross-country agility and speed are inferior to both lighter and heavier tracked vehicles.
In some regions of Afghanistan LMTVs were found to be too large to operate in many off-road areas. “These trucks were unable to safely negotiate moderately difficult terrain, getting stuck easily and posing a roll-over threat with their high center of gravity. These trucks were unable to safely negotiate moderately difficult terrain, getting stuck easily and posing a roll-over threat with their high center of gravity.” (“Infantry” Jan-Feb 2006, p.28) The considerably larger and heavier Stryker would have even greater problems.
The Stryker’s high centre of gravity is recognized as making it more prone to rollovers than most other transport options.
The Stryker is 23 feet long and 9 feet high, making it too big for reconnaissance missions. Its large size, heavy weight and inferior cross-country capability limits a scout commander’s options.

This article gives a good account of the numerous reasons why the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division would not use Strykers in Afghanistan. For a supposed multi-role vehicle there seem to be very few missions the Stryker is actually suited for! It has been suggested that the Stryker is likely to perform better once potential enemies build better road systems!

The shortcomings of the Stryker are widely known. It is therefore hard to fathom why so many other armies seem so eager to replicate Shinseki’s folly. Many of the H-WAPC designs offered are even heavier than the Stryker, exceeding 25 tons. The criticisms of the Stryker listed above are likely to also apply to other models of H-WAPCs.

Unlike the Stryker many of the offered H-WAPCs are amphibious. Staying afloat is only part of the capability, however. An amphibious vehicle will eventually reach a beach or far river bank. Such a vehicle will be of little use if it lacks the cross-country capability to negotiate such an obstacle and leave the water. A 25 ton wheeled vehicle is more likely to have problems with some transitions than lighter and/or tracked vehicles.
H-WAPCs are being offered with a heavier armament than the Stryker Infantry Carrier. Typically we see an autocannon and a mounting for one or more ATGMs. The anti-tank missiles seen seem to be line of sight weapons, suggesting that the H-WAPC will need to expose itself to a potential target to use its weapons. Given that a heavy, wheeled APC can only mount relatively modest levels of armour the practical utility of such direct-fire armaments becomes questionable.

Most readers will be aware that military testing is often a prolonged process. There is a common assumption that if the Army/ Marines/ Special Forces etc use something it must be the best choice for the job. Understandably many will assume such trials are based on science, logic and empirical methodology. Each piece of equipment was selected only after all the available options have been scientifically tested and the best performing is adopted. This is simply not true! That such trails by different agents often produce different solutions to the same requirement is an indication that this assumption is flawed. Although they are often written like scientific documents some trials have been exercises in attempting to find evidence to support a decision already made. Many military items are in fact inferior to equivalent civilian items. Some military men cannot move their imagination beyond trying to fight the last war. Others want to plan for the war they want to fight, not the war they are likely to fight. Most manufacturers create what will sell, not what the fighting man needs. That is an unpleasant but hard to accept fact of life. Military decisions (unfortunately) are not made by science: they are influenced by advertising and fashion just as much as in the rest of the world.

Typically my articles on the Scrapboard offer an alternate idea, a suggestion or recommendation. When it comes to the current fashion for adopting expensive, heavy wheeled APCs, I’ve got nothing. It is a worrying trend that endangers many soldiers. It makes no sense at all!

By the Author of the Scrapboard : Blog of the Books.
	Attack, Avoid, Survive: Essential Principles of Self Defence Available in Handy A5 and US Trade Formats. A5 Edition. US Trade Edition. New Global Edition Epub Global Edition Video Webpage
	Survival Weapons: Optimizing Your Arsenal
	Crash Combat Fourth Edition Epub edition Fourth Edition.
	Anatopismo: An Underrealm Novella
	Hell-Ay: Angel Town

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