If you've worked on armored fighting vehicles before and would like to be interviewed, send an email (with credentials) to spookstoninterviews@gmail.com I hope I can make more videos like this in the future
I'm gonna see if I can convince my dad to do this. He was a driver/gunner for Bradley and Abrams in the National Guard in the 90's. A fun thing he told me as an example is that the reason the Bradley has to pack up the TOW when moving is that the stabilizer wasn't sufficient to keep up with the less than stellar suspension on the Bradley and the weight of the launcher, so if you left it out it would literally shear off of the turret. Thanks Pentagon.
the MGS as a concept is brilliant; a rapid response fire support vehicle that can advance with armour and isn't as vulnerable as a helicopter. Shame it got bogged down with issues.
Indeed. But it isn't that unique. Other countries seem to have made it work out, from the French AMX-10RC to the South African Rooikat. Works well for remote areas you don't have a pipeline in, as wheeled vehicles are less logistically burdensome... Even Japan is trying them out.
Once when I was at an airport, I was there with an Army Colonel who had flown out to investigate a crash where a crew had managed to roll a Stryker. This was about, oh, 6 years ago? 8? Was an interesting conversation.
My buddy in the Marines told me that while he was in canada doing joint training exercises somebody had an LAV roll on them from above because the loose ground gave way because it was very soft from rain. They only identified the dude by a patch on his gear, got smeared 😬
We rolled one at fort hood and it ended up side ways in a low water crossing, the red hydraulic fluid was hovering all around the ICV. Every one was freaking out like it was blood, when we opened up the back everyone was strapped in and just annoyed at the driver. Only some minor bruises were sustained, well and alot of screaming at the driver lol.
My dad told me about a time in iraq where he was in a Stryker convoy. The base commander at the time decided to have one unit to roll out 24/7 continuously to engage threats. So in broad daylight, the lead Stryker rolled over ahead of my dad’s rolled over into a ditch. The Stryker commander fell asleep guiding the vehicle and the driver didn’t see the ditch. The commander died, head severed, several of the crew were injuried with broken limps or bruises. The driver was also killed.
I was an infantryman in a Stryker MGS platoon in 2012 to 2014 and I only drove the MGS a handful of times. I was primarily a Stryker ICV crewman and man did I love it! Our 19K guys hated it. But it beat walking and it gave me a warm dry place to sleep and while it was cramped, it was fast and we beat the crap out of those trucks in training and it paid off in Afghanistan. We knew what our vehicles were capable of and we used them to great effect supporting our dismounted infantry. We even hit an IED and the vehicle protected the guys fine. I was impressed by its speed, maneuverability, and the firepower (.50 or mk19) that we gave the infantry. Plus it had thermal and laser range finders so we had that capability too. It was too loud at night to sneak up on everyone but during the day, that wasn’t a problem. We could respond to anything in our AO fast
I was on a 19K on the MGS from 11-14 with 1-25SBCT. Afghanistan 11-12. I didn't mind the MGS. I fell into the role of infantry support rather easily. I'd been on the Abrams before, so knew how to use each ammo type. But also learned a lot about my role in a SBCT. My favorite part of it was being so aggressive that the taliban fighters would basically end an engagement if we responded to a TIC. We monitored nets across the river and would call and ask if they wanted help and roll out for fun just to mess with the taliban. My crew had a reputation for being QRF and typically we would come out hot and heavy, just us. But that reputation was earned. Being so aggressive early on, and with the sorts of missions we had done, as well as doing show of force ops, we planted fear. The taliban fighters didn't want to face us. They didn't want to deal with the overwhelming firepower of a 105mm cannon in the hands of a crew that told it's command when it was firing and not asking permission and waiting. Our CO had the authorization and trusted us with making the right call, that we were letting rounds off faster than they'd ever seen or known about. As a platoon of 2 MGSs, each MGS only ever fired one round in anger. That's all we needed to do to get our point across. They learned the destructive force we could bring and how we could sneak into a fight via alternate routes that we not only knew, but weren't scared to collapse walls and cross fields to do. Sure, the MGS had its issues, but the mobility and easy of employment where we could easily flank or basically poke over a wall or berm and only show the turret was invaluable. I could say so much more but I'm not sure if those things are declassified yet, so you'll have to just trust me when I say it really wasn't as bad as some make it sound. When it wasn't having issues, it was a fantastic vehicle. When it was having issues, if they were minor, it was still a good vehicle. If it had major issues, it was insufferable, as is any other vehicle in the military.
Its turret was once considered by Taiwan for mounting onto the 1st generation Clouded Leopard AFV chassis to produce a mobile gun. It would appear now though that Taiwan has chosen an indigenously-developed manned turret on the Clouded Leopard M2 chassis over that proposal.
Different needs. Taiwan has real problems with that development as well. A big part of it is that they were aiming to repurpose the large stockpile of existing 105mm guns from their modernized M60 tanks which will be replaced by M1AT when they arrive.
@@attilathenun The problems are centered around the gun. Taiwan originally attempted to acquire the M68A2 but is now apparently forced to develop a low-recoil, higher-pressure version of the M68 copy. Unconfirmed media reports indicated that Taiwan might have been trying to low-ball the American arsenal on the technology transfer (without going into a rant on the political and fiscal ideology of the current Taiwanese government, I'll just say that I wouldn't be surprised if this is true). Also there are still doubts on the exact role of the mobile gun (assault gun for the infantry branch or tank destroyer for the armor branch).
I was the driver of a Stryker MGS when I was with 2-1 Cav, E Troop in 2016-17. It's a good vehicle if you know what you're getting yourself into. Maintenance was easy but sadly a constant problem. You'd basically get your MGS up but the rest of the platoon(which is made up of 4 vehicles) would be deadline on 2 or 3 vehicles. Luckily, I was always either the platoon sergeant's driver or the Lt's. So I was mainly in the one that didn't shut off once we fired. It was at the point where at gunnery, we shared 1 or 2 MGS strykers throughout the whole of gunnery. If we were lucky, we'd have 3 to 4 MGS ready to conduct gunnery. Training at NTC was sort of easy since most if not all the MGS were able to function just fine with the MILES gear. The only problem I ever ran across constantly was being the shortest guy in the unit. For context, I'm 5' 2" and was 140lbs at the time. They used me everytime to go into the back of the MGS and plug and unplug cables for maintenance and electrical stuff. Because most of the unit was either scouts or infantry where just about everyone stood at 5' 8" to 6' 2". Most of the tankers and I were around 5' 2" to 5' 4" but most of them were jacked. Like nothing but muscle. So skinny 19 year old me would be always helping the other MGS platoons. Then again, the maintenance was easy. Identify faults and deadlines on the 59-88 and you're done. Now it's up to whoever to make sure we get the part and we'll help the mechanics install it. I can go on and on about my time with the MGS. Honestly, I kinda miss working on the MGS over the Abrams. Ultimately, I will love the Abrams more since I am a tanker at heart and a damn good loader at that.
Lugging 125mm HE or Apfsds is no joke. As a short guy myself, tanks would no doubt be cramped-I can't imagine the average guy over 5" 10' getting into any sort of mechanised vehicle and being comfortable
Really funny to notice the parallels between the MGS and the StuG (designed as Infantry Support Gun, misused as Tank Destroyer), except the StuG eventually got put into the TD role out of necessity
As the war worsened the Germans were really forced to do awkward things. StuGs and Tank Destroyers taking the place of regular panzers for panzer formations and leading attacks. I remember seeing something that, "We're out of armor, so the half tracks with some 75mm guns will substitute as armor for our next attack."
Should read the US Tank Destroyer doctrine from back then too. Seems really similar fast mobile fire support for striking enemy forts and armor then fall back for repositioning. Yet they started to fight like tanks then it cause a lot of issues and unit lost. Then the attack helicopter and afvs was suppost to replace them. Yet some reason they always seem to need a light tank or a big gun on a light mobile unit for "fire support" against forts and armor in Calvary or infantry units cause helicopters aren't mobile and limited and afv/ifv kind of lack the fire power with rockets and autocannons to successfully attack hard target and be mobile.
The Sturmgeschütz wasn’t „misused“ as a tank destroyer. The German army was forced to use the Sturmgeschütz platform to arm high velocity guns on it for reinforcing their anti tank capabilities. And in that role it performed very good, later in the war they designed an own vehicle for infantry support the Sturmhaubitze (StuH) as the StuG was fully in the TD role.
This is one to watch through again, and then probably after. Interesting how he draws the difference between the module in effect and vehicle. Also interesting, to hear the availability rates. Much to dissect from this one. Many thanks.
Yo, could you maybe do a video on the XM-803 or the MBT-70? I would greatly appreciate it since those vehicles are some of my favourite tanks in the game
I was a gunner on an MGS in Afghanistan, and my time on it was awful. It had major issues with it's computer, and took a month for it to be fixed, with brand new parts coming in already broken. It also didn't have good armor, and ours didn't have a double V hull because we were told that the transmission couldn't handle both the V hull and a turret.
@@italianspaghett4359 It really highlights the importance of experience in these things. You learn stuff mostly from experience. US commanders got a lot of experience from Afghanistan and Iraq, and have firsthand experiences and extensive data on what works, and what doesnt. Organizational theory is rarely universal, and you really do need to understand an organization inside and out, to be able to implement actual organization theory. If Belgium engaged its army as frequently as the US, France, or Britain does, you probably wont see very many incompetent people in the MOD. Atleast that's my take on it. Im just listening to this convo about this shit, and it honestly strikes me as so trivial/arbitrary. Its just a bigass vehicle with a bigass gun on it. How much complex does managing this shit actually get yk. All this complexity is clearly worth it though, seeing how bro was talking about how big of a difference it makes. This shit is beyond me honestly. You really do need that experience put in, cus there's no real explanation for this stuff that explains it better than real world experience i guess.
@ItalianSpaghett4 In fairness Belgium is quite far from the nato front line so maybe having quicker vehicles so they can get to Poland in time makes sense.
I was an ATGM crewman and we worked alongside the MGS constantly. A lot of the issues came from the wiring harnesses, suspension, and the gun as a whole. Other issues stemmed from lack of crew experience using 19D cavalry scouts to crew a vehicle with basically the same systems as a tank, I saw troop E type Silhouettes get boinked by a 105 SABOT on a few ocassions during MGS Gunnery. I also saw only 1 of 12 vehicles shooting due to maintenance problems on more than one occasion.
Would be cool to see what you have to say about some weirder or more obscure tanks, like that one Norwegian Chaffee upgrade, or the Danish M41DK, or even the M41D (which I know you've spoken about in the context of War Thunder, but a crew interview around it would be really interesting to see). Amazing video as usual, by the way. I always find myself looking forward to your next upload.
I wish they would add a Danish+Norwegian subtree (or just a few vehicles) to Germany or Sweden, but that will probably only happen once the Leopard 2A7 documents get unclassified.
Interesting to hear. I was additional OPFOR at NTC as a Marine, and the Stryker brigade there did a really good job deploying their MGS as an assault gun, using hot and cold positions. It’s a good concept, just seems the equipment and training just needed to be streamlined
The electronics being a problem is particularly interesting to me, especially the mention of wiring harnesses being an issue. I kinda wonder how they were set up; proper wire bundling and preventing chafing are huge in avionics and I wonder how much of that would carry over to ground vehicles.
I was thinking this too. I have a 19K friend who explained it to me: anything maintenance-wise is generally lower quality for ground based vehicles. I will get punished if I do maintenance out of regs but if a tanker needs to repair a wire or mechanical part, he just sorta hits it or tapes it until it's good.
inside the military there is a common phrase mentioning that everything we have is made by the lowest bidder, sadly many company's compete on who can be awarded the contract and this in turn makes low budget parts and etc, almost every equipment in the military has a very capable powerplant but all the other supporting parts a very low quality and not durable. can't count the times I've seen bearings fail and catching fire on a tire, or electrical nightmares, ecu's failing all the time. This is something that plagues the military
Интересное видео. Хорошо что нашли по настоящему опытного танкиста, а то в подобные видео иногда берут людей которые особо ничего не знают про технику на которой служили и могут только выполнять свою первоочередную функцию.
Speaking from experience on the side of the OPFOR at NTC: all Stryker platforms were incredibly easy to “kill” 😆 and yes they were almost exclusively used like tanks out there in the desert
@@DecidedlyNinja Typically each vehicle had a yellow light on top of it that would flash if the vehicle was “destroyed”. Also if I remember correctly, each vehicle fit in a certain category on the software system (ex: MBT, helicopter, light vehicle, etc…) and depending on what type of vehicle you were in, it would automatically determine if certain simulated rounds would “kill” the vehicle.
You can yell at guys endlessly but a 105mm gun is always going to be pushed into that role. Which is why they just need to go away, new gun or not. The newer Bushmaster chain guns and AT weapons are more than enough. And this is also at a time when they are dramatically increasing the amount multi purpose recoilless rifles in particular. And what about the small drone threat now? That's shit is terrifying. You can largely reduce a fighting position using a $1500 commercial drones and some repurposed 40mm grenades and the US is building a light tank for that purpose almost exclusively?! Figure out how to get as many infantry into the back of the new IFV with a 40 or 50mm bushmaster and a couple javelins or TOWs on top and call it a day. Build 5000+ of the things. Skip the light tank and whatever other nonsense they can dream up to toss our money at like drunken sailors.
@@RJT80 Perhaps…. I was only at the operator level and didn’t really witness the overall strategies that went into developing combined arms units, but personally I’d take a conventional tank cannon over a chain gun/missile combo any day of the week. It’s just a whole lot more versatile and livable with about the same effectiveness.
I was one of the first of 9 MGS platoon Sergeants to take the MGS to combat in 2007. I fired more rounds than another vehicle. I thought it was perfect for urban operations in support of infantry. It provided protection, security and breaching capability at a moments notice. When it 1st came out it had some issues but easily resolved with a little bit of maintenance.
I would like to thank you Spookston for this crew interview. Even though I'm an average guy typing a comment beneath a video I enjoy, my appreciation and respect cannot be put into words. The amount of time dedicated to a small thing, to us as viewers, like organizing a crew interview for people such as myself and others to watch is underestimated.
The MGS would be interesting to come back to now. As i hear more and more Army commanders talk about the Urban fight and puzzle, the biggest thing i always hear is how they nearly quadruple the amount of direct fire weapons ammunition that they expend, and that the indirect assets that are typically seen become less effective. The MAAWS and other "assault gun" systems meant to cripple buildings and remove other structures were key pieces in a lot of the urban exercises, so a return of the MGS may be considered to fulfill a purpose as an assault gun in the Urban fight.
Spookston, I was in a SBCT and went to AFG in 13. We didn't take our MSG with us and we didn't even have any in our battalion motorpool overseas. As far as strykers go in AFG the ICV was the workhorse. There were a few of the Recon variants, but not many. We did have the MCV (mortar variant) that thing was amazing as well.
It'd be awesome if you could do more interviews! It's really cool to hear from real crewmen what these vehicles were like. The fact we (as enthusiasts and observers) only note the MGS for its mechanical problems whereas this guy was saying the base of the model was fine, it was the turret, gun, and autoloader that were the issues was super interesting.
I remember being Mechanized infantry when my unit got the new Strykers. I liked the vehicle overall for the task we were using them for, basically taxis. But the lack of anything heavier than a Mark 19 or Deuce Ma made it so we usually moved on foot.
As a 91S Stryker systems maintainer I’m glad the mgs got retired they served a purpose but we’re often misused and with the issues that plagued the weapons system it became very obvious that the solution to heavy infantry support is not just slap a tank gun on top of the truck and pray for the best
I remember when we got our Stryker MGSs in 2009 to our infantry company. I was good friends with the tanker platoon and they parked their vics next to my platoon's ICVs. Being the platoon radio guy they'd ask me to wriggle into the space between the autoloader and equipment racks to mount their radios. Biggest pain in the ass. Everyone thought it was the coolest thing in the motorpool but it was broken most of the time. Even when we deployed to Iraq it barely got used. We gave them one of our dismount squads for patrols and if I remember right it was only loaded with 2 HE and 1 canister. We gave all of vics to the 25th out of Hawaii at the end of our tour and I dont remember if we got an MGS from the Hawaiians in the trade.
hey spookston, i know you and oddbawz did a video recently but whenever you get the chance you should squad up again but this time in the xm803. keep up the good work :)
Honestly I love this videos where we get to hear the information from someone in the field. I know it doesn't quite fit into the scope of WT, but I think it would be really interesting to also hear from infantrymen who were supported by vehicles that we could find in WT, to hear their stories, perspective, and thoughts, from a side that's not explored in WT, but relevant to their employment. I know in a warzone that necessity is the mother of invention, and we'd probably hear stories about vehicles going outside their designated roles or doctrine, but I still think nonetheless, it would be interesting to hear in the format you provide.
Was very enlightening to hear, especially when every armchair military arms expert touts the stryker's 'mechanical issues' as if the whole vehicle was a complete mess, it's nice to get a firsthand official 'report' that sets it straight.
Unfortunately a lot of infantrymen don't play WT I don't think, usually it's mechanics or electricians or crewman. Me, for instance, I was an AH-64D electrical and armament guy and I got plenty of talk about how these birds have saved countless lives from infantry. However, Infantrymen are pretty hard to find after their contract, understandably lol.
I do like the interviews with the users of tanks and planes but also know how hard it is to get them in contact withy you. More of this sprinkled in with your normal content would be nice to see if able. Have an awesome Christmas and new year.
Very interesting stuff. Great to hear from guys who have experience on these platforms and get hard facts on how they operate. Would love to see more in the future!
we had 4 of these in my battalion. only 2/4 was ever serviceable. the crews always hated these and preferred their bradley’s and abrams they were trained on in the first place. these things had a rollover issue too if i remember correctly. the cooling fans were always non functional. i couldn’t stand these either lol. at least i have a cool pic of me and the boys on top of it haha
Biggest problem with the MGS was how few there were for each brigade combat team. 4-8vehicles for 7500+ troops is insane. Basically one platoon for the entire brigade. Strikers are jumped up taxis as it is with an LMTV doing the exact same thing. And about as survivable. Both NTC rotations I witnessed with them they got destroyed so bad they had to stop the exercise and reset it. But that's expected when you take a light infantry unit with "trucks" and fight an armored unit in the desert.
Fantastic video! Definitely, would like to see a video on the B1 Centauro since much of the Army's first experience of the MGS is based on Centauros that the Army leased in the early 2000s
They could have bought Centauro and they wouldn't probably experience problems they have experience on MGS. It was the case of US Military not wanting foreign design getting adapted. They are now learning since they are testing Patria 120mm NEMO mortars for their Strykers, OMFV, AMPV, and potentially CATV as well after their failed 120mm mortar program.
@@mackster85 Stryker MGS can't fit on a C-130 so there's not even a difference. Only the smaller variants of Strykers like Strykers ICV and other variants can fit on a C-130. All of the newer DVH Strykers can't be carried by C-130 either.
Very Good Interview. I taught 19D as a reservist most on M113 including ones brought back from Nam which had "For Training Use Only" burned into the bow armor with an electric welder. We also used M151 for some of the training. I taught on the M901 ITOW also then Hummers. Beside the Breakdown issue I always question the amount of ammo and the resupply of ammo to the MGS when in heavy combat. 18 rounds do not seem to be enough considering the Marines after the Tarawa battle went to cramming as many rounds as they could into their M4A2 Shermans as they ran out of ammo before nightfall the first day.
I was the driver for one of the Captains of a MGS-operating troops who helped write the Army doctrine for this vehicle. The biggest issue with the MGS is that the Army did not fully understand how to utilize it. Many of our training excercises we ended up acting as tanks, which is not the intended purpose per doctrine. It is a rapid response fire support platform. This was an issue for higher ranking officers typically, Brigade Commander and above. The maintenance was not as big an issue in my unit as your guest claims. We rarely dropped below 80% readiness for our total MGS count, which is fairly standard for most vehicles. And one of the biggest setbacks with that was the lack of MGS mechanics. If you want to interview more crew members I can ask around.
"Rapid response fire support platform" I'm getting flashbacks to the Tank Destroyer doctrine American had in WW2. Which, from what I understand, also had "God dammit, stop using it like that!" syndrome.
I found the discussion on the Bradley carrying less then a full platoon interesting, namely because I know there are foreign IFV's that when deployed in standard formation will support a full platoon. Beyond that, I do get a certain cheeky joy in hearing that my Canadian LAV basis is doing pretty much aces, and it's the American modifications that were failing.
The difference being however that mechanized squads in those countries are usually smaller than their US counterparts. In Germany, for instance, a Panzergrenadier squad operating in Marder IFVs has only 6 dismounts, for a total of 18 in a platoon, not counting a platoon leader and potential platoon hq troops or attachments. The Bradley squads remain as the typical 9 man Squad across all infantry types in the Army, but Bradley platoons can only do this by eliminating the Weapons Squad from the Platoon and splitting those three squads in four tracks due to the limited dismount capacity of IFVs in general. Stryker Platoons have no such restrictions, all 9 men can fit in one vehicle, so you can have three nine man rifle squads and one six man Weapons Squad in four Stryker ICVs, for a bayonet strength of 33 men. That's nearly double the number of infantry as that Bundeswehr platoon. Of course, there are benefits and drawbacks: the Stryker ICV is not as good as a mounted fighting platform as a Bradley or a Marder, so they can't go head to head against armor unless they're already in advantageous ground, but in terms of performing infantry tasks like clearing urban terrain a Stryker platoon is much better off.
Ngl I really enjoyed this video and the fact that you got a crew member to explain its actual roll in combat and it’s pros and cons. Would love to see more of these videos as it was very educational
Spookie I fucking love you man, you always bring the good shit to your channel, once I heard in the video MTOE, 19K, powerpack, NTC, OpFor, 19D Cav Scout(which I am) I just started smiling I myself am AD and I been in SBCTs, I don't consider myself to be too into it but however I'm really mechanically inclined so I can say some stuff. I've been involved with the extreme cold weather in Alaska Stryker's and now the CROWSJ and Dragoons in Germany My experience with the regular Stryker's as the MGS were in a different troop: No matter what you do, Stryker's always seem to leak coolant, in the Artic, crew members wouldn't let them warm up first and would just redline the Stryker in -50F temperatures then Pikachu face when the engine block would have cracks As he said, hydraulic, which did not leak as much but would always disappear. The idea 9f CTIS is a good one however all those airlines would leak so after filling them up the sensor would start beeping because it wasn't 100% "full" It was not a vehicle designed for the Artic and it always showed it, you would slid off the road, if it was equipped with an RWS it would freeze, either not moving, not showing feed or both. The ramp would just "free fall" and like 8 or 10 of us would have to gather together to raise it up and manually close it with the ramp wings inside, the DVE could get full of snow leaving the driver seeing out only through the periscopes, if the heaters died that was an automatic deadline because of Alaska's MTOE and they would be out of the game. Due to geographic features we basically were doing Hot Wheel ramps to maneuver, anything bigger than a 40° slope was a no for the Stryker's so we would, One by One, roll down a hill at full speed then redline the truck to get across the training areas As for the Dragoons, I'll be able to give you a good analysis about it sometime soon(really soon actually) next year, can't say when because OPSEC and no, it's nothing involving the current conflict. It's double feed, has a lot of sensors which are nice, brakes are stupid touchy compared to the regular RV, ICV and MCV Stryker's, the gunner uses the same station as for the RWS, I thought it would be more like the Bradley turret, you can work everything on the gun on the inside, but to reload you have to get out and expose yourself Anyways, if you want more I can either ask around or look around but then again, there's more a less a limit because they're considered prototypes still so, yeah Anyways, love your content Spookie Dragoon in geim wen ?
im in a scout unit so im pretty well versed on all of the vehicle platforms. bradly is usually a infantry support vehicle to act as cover for infantry and have a capable gun that could kill targets well. the Humvee tends to be the lighter vehicle for recon purposes and would usually have a TOW mounted on the turret for anti tank capability if needed. and the Stryker is also a light recon vehicle usually would have a M2 mounted on it and a LRAS. and is our primary use of transportation but it sucks ass to drive and maintain. its not good in the environments it was built for and deadlines far too easily. out of all of these vehicles id gladly pick the PUMA any day for recon purposes
Interesting that they mention the "you can't use this as a tank" problem. We had the same problem in WWII with the tank destroyer battalions. They were designed to counter mass armored breakthroughs, but since we were on the offensive almost the entire time they parceled them out to infantry units who used them as tanks, with similar problems.
Malaysia used this concept back in early 90s where we have what's called the armoured fire support vehicle, a 6x6 with 90mm cockerill gun with manual loading, could carry up to 3+8 personnel with amphibious capabilities, it served us well for over 30+ years.
I crewed in another failed armored vehicle, the M114A1E1. Didn't know it at the time, when we actually got out of the motorpool in Bamberg we didn't have to deal with getting out of rice paddies or road mines. They were underpowered, the usual cause of downtime was that poor 283 trying to push a 7 to 8 ton tracked vehicle around, we usually had 1 or 2 dead out of 9 at any one time. And I always thought replacing the .50 caliber with a 20mm was dumb, combat load was 200 rounds, less than 30 seconds at full auto and the sight system was rudimentary. What we really needed was something to spray enough rounds downrange to distract whatever we had ran into while we got the hell out of there and let the line animals take care of them. I'm guessing someone came up with that idea to use up the surplus 20's because they certainly wouldn't have spent real money for the upgrade. What we did have was a lot of interior room. With a full 3 man crew there was plenty of space for someone to catch a snooze while the other 2 keep things running, or for several of us to hang out inside while we were in the motorpool. We took off the rubber side flaps, which made things easier on the wash rack, since we were not allowed to swim the things anyway, apparently too many sunk in training, I think it was improperly sealed inspection plates on the bottom. For peacetime the jeeps we had with M60's mounted made more sense. I was the the ground troop of an air cav squadron at Ft Knox, we had the gun jeeps plus one with a 106 recoiless and a 5/4 ton pu with an eighty something mm mortar. Like covered in this video we were able to just road march to Ft Bragg for an exercise. I remember that motorcycles were being tested at the time with the riders wearing CVC helmets for communications, always thought that made some sense, never heard how that turned out.
Cool video, I enjoy this format of interviewing crew members and it's interesting to hear what actual servicemembers have to say. I really like your videos, I hope you find making them as fulfilling as I find watching them intriguing.
I used to be a driver of the ICVV Strykers back in CO. Most of the time our Strykers, which were basically new, would not work or be deadlined for a plethora of things. My truck in particular had a wiring harness issue that would basically keep the driver from seeing how much voltage we had sometimes just losing out gauge clusters all together. The engines were hit or miss sometimes, as a driver I had experienced 3 engines fires, and a close call. My outlook on the Stryker is good, but not without it's faults
I was a vehicle crew evaluator for an MGS gunnery once. If I remember right, the troop had 12 MGSs, and only 2 were functional due to various autoloader and fire control issues, so they had to constantly hot seat crews, alternating which one was reloading ammunition and prepping to fire, and which one was on the range shooting. That was even more difficult because the crews routinely had issues with the autoloader and rammer that would frequently require them to leave the range to try and remediate the issue. I think we were there for a week and a half, and if 2 crews shot the table and got qualified, it was a great night. I don't think anybody who even remotely dealt with those things was sad to see them go.
It’s always interesting to hear from people who actually served in the vehicles that we are all very opinionated about shed some light and give facts over opinion. Very cool video, keep up the great work!
Couple additional things here. Having served in all three types of brigades and in a unit that switched completely and rapidly(led to deaths in training) to Stryker’s. The units ran into the issues that are in the light Cav units. There are two ways the Stryker would be used across the brigade before the MGS system arrived. First infantry used strykers gun .50/MK19 as support by fire placing it directly in the fight. Cavalry Scouts did the complete opposite and cleared with dismounts and would never use it as a SBF or engagement vehicle. When the MGS arrived commanders adopted a hunter killer concept to directly use the MGS to kill tanks. They would send Infantry/Cav Stryker to make contact with tank units and maneuver the MGS up to engage tanks. This is the same issue Scouts run into in light infantry units. They have bigger weapons with a small personal count and would have scouts engage and attack vs sending the infantry to leep frog over the scouts due to the simple fact the highest weapon system was a 240 with infantry vs a MK19/.50/tow scouts.
I always enjoy how you give the most unbiased well researched views on these subjects. Keep up the great work and look forward to more of your content next year
This was a fucking EXCELLENT interview! Tech, theory, a credible and experienced source. You can't get better than that unless you have an engineer on board for some design theory
When I was deployed with 4/2 SBCT, our MGS platoon ended up getting split across the three rifle platoons and each rifle platoon gave up an ICV and it’s squad to the MGS platoon. The replenisher did create more than a few odd issues, including an MGS sending canister instead of HEAT on two separate occasions.
What a great video, I love watching the nonchalant gameplay when you review a vehicle. But this is a great switch up, just to add some extra content, keep it up spook, you’re growing quick.
I did xctc with the California national guard at fort hunter liggett as a contractor, the observer controller said the same thing about them trying to use the Stryker as a tank and getting btfo by the opfor.
Loved this video!! Great length, you did great being concise. Many interviews on RUclips go from 40m to 2h in length, which is simply too long for me most times. This was amazing, it was informative and answered the most important questions in a manageable time frame. I'd love even more, even up to 20 mins of this in an ep would be great
Started my time as an Abrams tanker in '91. I don't want to think about the number of times something got loose on a wiring harness and being stuck in "protective mode." (post cross country movement) By 1994 that particular issue went away with replacement parts. I think what wasn't covered is the whole Black Hawk Down engagement. Having only light ground and air assault assets to deal with a rescue mission. I believe different results would of been possible with some type of armored asset on a thunder run. (It was hard to watch our dead and injured being dragged off the battlefield by the enemy.)
This was very interesting! I'm a bit of a sucker for long form content so, I am always left wanting for more with your shorter format. That's not to say I don't appreciate what you do, I actually am really impressed by how much information you can fit into these ~10 min videos. Since this is a new format I'd love to see longer pieces. You could for example spend maybe 10-15 minutes on the history and general concept of a certain platform or vehicle and then another 15-30 minutes on the interview itself. I know you've covered the Stryker on here already but combining the two would make the video sort of a one stop shop to get a decent picture on the platform at hand. No matter how you plan to approach this new format in the future I will be watching with interest.
Really glad you got someone competent. I was a little worried when you said he was an officer lol. I did three years on an MGS and they were good when they were up but, we couldn't get parts and qualified mechanics to work on the damn things. The army has a continual problem where they will buy a piece of equipment and then not support it properly. Regardless, even if they did support it I wouldn't want to go to war in the thing.
so not so much a problem of role and usage, more a question of "how can we keep readiness up to acceptable rates" interesting. If you get to ask MGS crewmen, ask them how they'd improve the MGS, or if they'd replace it with another vehicle entirely. Would be most curious to find out their answers. Also, Merry Xmas and a Happy new Year to you Spookston, and to all you hold dear ^w^
That's the difference between American and other militaries. Americans will admit when something doesn't work well... whereas our troops will just pretend like it's working as intended.
If you've worked on armored fighting vehicles before and would like to be interviewed, send an email (with credentials) to spookstoninterviews@gmail.com
I hope I can make more videos like this in the future
I'm gonna see if I can convince my dad to do this. He was a driver/gunner for Bradley and Abrams in the National Guard in the 90's. A fun thing he told me as an example is that the reason the Bradley has to pack up the TOW when moving is that the stabilizer wasn't sufficient to keep up with the less than stellar suspension on the Bradley and the weight of the launcher, so if you left it out it would literally shear off of the turret. Thanks Pentagon.
Bummer I work on the B-52 too bad that’s not in the game :3
I've have experience working on the LAV 6.0, 3, 2(bison/coyote) as a maintainer, Ill have to look into what I can discuss as I'am still serving
@@WTCheatShaming give it a shot , id love to hear about B-52
Do you count F-16s? Haha i know it’s not an AFV but yeah I’d be down to do that
the MGS as a concept is brilliant; a rapid response fire support vehicle that can advance with armour and isn't as vulnerable as a helicopter. Shame it got bogged down with issues.
Well now We have the MPF and all the new Issues it will come with, hopefully few and far between.
I bet that with some time, it could be fixed.
Indeed. But it isn't that unique.
Other countries seem to have made it work out, from the French AMX-10RC to the South African Rooikat. Works well for remote areas you don't have a pipeline in, as wheeled vehicles are less logistically burdensome... Even Japan is trying them out.
Euros called it Centauro, no auto-loader and works brilliant.
@@HMSConqueror Specifically the Italians
Other European countries have their own versions
Once when I was at an airport, I was there with an Army Colonel who had flown out to investigate a crash where a crew had managed to roll a Stryker. This was about, oh, 6 years ago? 8? Was an interesting conversation.
My buddy in the Marines told me that while he was in canada doing joint training exercises somebody had an LAV roll on them from above because the loose ground gave way because it was very soft from rain. They only identified the dude by a patch on his gear, got smeared 😬
We rolled one at fort hood and it ended up side ways in a low water crossing, the red hydraulic fluid was hovering all around the ICV. Every one was freaking out like it was blood, when we opened up the back everyone was strapped in and just annoyed at the driver. Only some minor bruises were sustained, well and alot of screaming at the driver lol.
@@vannlo355 Damn thats just nasty
I remember seeing you quite often in neebs gaming comment sections
My dad told me about a time in iraq where he was in a Stryker convoy. The base commander at the time decided to have one unit to roll out 24/7 continuously to engage threats. So in broad daylight, the lead Stryker rolled over ahead of my dad’s rolled over into a ditch. The Stryker commander fell asleep guiding the vehicle and the driver didn’t see the ditch. The commander died, head severed, several of the crew were injuried with broken limps or bruises. The driver was also killed.
I was an infantryman in a Stryker MGS platoon in 2012 to 2014 and I only drove the MGS a handful of times. I was primarily a Stryker ICV crewman and man did I love it! Our 19K guys hated it. But it beat walking and it gave me a warm dry place to sleep and while it was cramped, it was fast and we beat the crap out of those trucks in training and it paid off in Afghanistan. We knew what our vehicles were capable of and we used them to great effect supporting our dismounted infantry. We even hit an IED and the vehicle protected the guys fine. I was impressed by its speed, maneuverability, and the firepower (.50 or mk19) that we gave the infantry. Plus it had thermal and laser range finders so we had that capability too. It was too loud at night to sneak up on everyone but during the day, that wasn’t a problem. We could respond to anything in our AO fast
I was on a 19K on the MGS from 11-14 with 1-25SBCT. Afghanistan 11-12. I didn't mind the MGS. I fell into the role of infantry support rather easily. I'd been on the Abrams before, so knew how to use each ammo type. But also learned a lot about my role in a SBCT. My favorite part of it was being so aggressive that the taliban fighters would basically end an engagement if we responded to a TIC. We monitored nets across the river and would call and ask if they wanted help and roll out for fun just to mess with the taliban. My crew had a reputation for being QRF and typically we would come out hot and heavy, just us. But that reputation was earned. Being so aggressive early on, and with the sorts of missions we had done, as well as doing show of force ops, we planted fear. The taliban fighters didn't want to face us. They didn't want to deal with the overwhelming firepower of a 105mm cannon in the hands of a crew that told it's command when it was firing and not asking permission and waiting. Our CO had the authorization and trusted us with making the right call, that we were letting rounds off faster than they'd ever seen or known about. As a platoon of 2 MGSs, each MGS only ever fired one round in anger. That's all we needed to do to get our point across. They learned the destructive force we could bring and how we could sneak into a fight via alternate routes that we not only knew, but weren't scared to collapse walls and cross fields to do. Sure, the MGS had its issues, but the mobility and easy of employment where we could easily flank or basically poke over a wall or berm and only show the turret was invaluable. I could say so much more but I'm not sure if those things are declassified yet, so you'll have to just trust me when I say it really wasn't as bad as some make it sound. When it wasn't having issues, it was a fantastic vehicle. When it was having issues, if they were minor, it was still a good vehicle. If it had major issues, it was insufferable, as is any other vehicle in the military.
Its turret was once considered by Taiwan for mounting onto the 1st generation Clouded Leopard AFV chassis to produce a mobile gun. It would appear now though that Taiwan has chosen an indigenously-developed manned turret on the Clouded Leopard M2 chassis over that proposal.
probably a good idea. ;0
Different needs. Taiwan has real problems with that development as well. A big part of it is that they were aiming to repurpose the large stockpile of existing 105mm guns from their modernized M60 tanks which will be replaced by M1AT when they arrive.
@@attilathenun The problems are centered around the gun. Taiwan originally attempted to acquire the M68A2 but is now apparently forced to develop a low-recoil, higher-pressure version of the M68 copy. Unconfirmed media reports indicated that Taiwan might have been trying to low-ball the American arsenal on the technology transfer (without going into a rant on the political and fiscal ideology of the current Taiwanese government, I'll just say that I wouldn't be surprised if this is true). Also there are still doubts on the exact role of the mobile gun (assault gun for the infantry branch or tank destroyer for the armor branch).
I was the driver of a Stryker MGS when I was with 2-1 Cav, E Troop in 2016-17. It's a good vehicle if you know what you're getting yourself into. Maintenance was easy but sadly a constant problem. You'd basically get your MGS up but the rest of the platoon(which is made up of 4 vehicles) would be deadline on 2 or 3 vehicles. Luckily, I was always either the platoon sergeant's driver or the Lt's. So I was mainly in the one that didn't shut off once we fired. It was at the point where at gunnery, we shared 1 or 2 MGS strykers throughout the whole of gunnery. If we were lucky, we'd have 3 to 4 MGS ready to conduct gunnery. Training at NTC was sort of easy since most if not all the MGS were able to function just fine with the MILES gear. The only problem I ever ran across constantly was being the shortest guy in the unit. For context, I'm 5' 2" and was 140lbs at the time. They used me everytime to go into the back of the MGS and plug and unplug cables for maintenance and electrical stuff. Because most of the unit was either scouts or infantry where just about everyone stood at 5' 8" to 6' 2". Most of the tankers and I were around 5' 2" to 5' 4" but most of them were jacked. Like nothing but muscle. So skinny 19 year old me would be always helping the other MGS platoons. Then again, the maintenance was easy. Identify faults and deadlines on the 59-88 and you're done. Now it's up to whoever to make sure we get the part and we'll help the mechanics install it.
I can go on and on about my time with the MGS. Honestly, I kinda miss working on the MGS over the Abrams. Ultimately, I will love the Abrams more since I am a tanker at heart and a damn good loader at that.
Lugging 125mm HE or Apfsds is no joke. As a short guy myself, tanks would no doubt be cramped-I can't imagine the average guy over 5" 10' getting into any sort of mechanised vehicle and being comfortable
As a Canadian the LAV will always have a place in my heart.
They'll figure out a way to remove the shrapnel some day bud.
@@Flaming1100 bro…
@@Flaming1100 too soon
I'm going through my training to work with the LAV-6, and boy, it is a great vehicle.
Did you serve in them?
Really funny to notice the parallels between the MGS and the StuG (designed as Infantry Support Gun, misused as Tank Destroyer), except the StuG eventually got put into the TD role out of necessity
Mind you the StuH and the StuG both preformed exceptionally well according to German commanders and crews and even allied powers
As the war worsened the Germans were really forced to do awkward things. StuGs and Tank Destroyers taking the place of regular panzers for panzer formations and leading attacks. I remember seeing something that, "We're out of armor, so the half tracks with some 75mm guns will substitute as armor for our next attack."
Should read the US Tank Destroyer doctrine from back then too. Seems really similar fast mobile fire support for striking enemy forts and armor then fall back for repositioning. Yet they started to fight like tanks then it cause a lot of issues and unit lost. Then the attack helicopter and afvs was suppost to replace them. Yet some reason they always seem to need a light tank or a big gun on a light mobile unit for "fire support" against forts and armor in Calvary or infantry units cause helicopters aren't mobile and limited and afv/ifv kind of lack the fire power with rockets and autocannons to successfully attack hard target and be mobile.
Sounds like they need more tanks because “light armored” vehicles don’t last long in combat
The Sturmgeschütz wasn’t „misused“ as a tank destroyer. The German army was forced to use the Sturmgeschütz platform to arm high velocity guns on it for reinforcing their anti tank capabilities. And in that role it performed very good, later in the war they designed an own vehicle for infantry support the Sturmhaubitze (StuH) as the StuG was fully in the TD role.
This is one to watch through again, and then probably after.
Interesting how he draws the difference between the module in effect and vehicle.
Also interesting, to hear the availability rates.
Much to dissect from this one.
Many thanks.
Yo, could you maybe do a video on the XM-803 or the MBT-70? I would greatly appreciate it since those vehicles are some of my favourite tanks in the game
Redux?
I've got the xm803 and I am fairly close to spading it, I have loved it
Personally i love them as well, i just feel now the MBT/KPZ-70 should be 9.0. They got powercreeped to hell and back
You mean all the Proto types
I was a gunner on an MGS in Afghanistan, and my time on it was awful. It had major issues with it's computer, and took a month for it to be fixed, with brand new parts coming in already broken. It also didn't have good armor, and ours didn't have a double V hull because we were told that the transmission couldn't handle both the V hull and a turret.
I still can’t get over the fact that the chief of the Belgian army called the Piranha III df90 a “heavy armored vehicle”
Most competent person in belgian government
@@italianspaghett4359 I didn’t mean the minister of defense, but the chief of the land component
@@yarnickgoovaerts oh. it's far worse then...
@@italianspaghett4359 It really highlights the importance of experience in these things.
You learn stuff mostly from experience.
US commanders got a lot of experience from Afghanistan and Iraq, and have firsthand experiences and extensive data on what works, and what doesnt.
Organizational theory is rarely universal, and you really do need to understand an organization inside and out, to be able to implement actual organization theory.
If Belgium engaged its army as frequently as the US, France, or Britain does, you probably wont see very many incompetent people in the MOD.
Atleast that's my take on it.
Im just listening to this convo about this shit, and it honestly strikes me as so trivial/arbitrary. Its just a bigass vehicle with a bigass gun on it. How much complex does managing this shit actually get yk.
All this complexity is clearly worth it though, seeing how bro was talking about how big of a difference it makes.
This shit is beyond me honestly. You really do need that experience put in, cus there's no real explanation for this stuff that explains it better than real world experience i guess.
@ItalianSpaghett4 In fairness Belgium is quite far from the nato front line so maybe having quicker vehicles so they can get to Poland in time makes sense.
Idk but it's pretty cool looking and cool Factor guides half of my decisions
I was an ATGM crewman and we worked alongside the MGS constantly. A lot of the issues came from the wiring harnesses, suspension, and the gun as a whole. Other issues stemmed from lack of crew experience using 19D cavalry scouts to crew a vehicle with basically the same systems as a tank, I saw troop E type Silhouettes get boinked by a 105 SABOT on a few ocassions during MGS Gunnery. I also saw only 1 of 12 vehicles shooting due to maintenance problems on more than one occasion.
Yo were you in 8-1?
Would be cool to see what you have to say about some weirder or more obscure tanks, like that one Norwegian Chaffee upgrade, or the Danish M41DK, or even the M41D (which I know you've spoken about in the context of War Thunder, but a crew interview around it would be really interesting to see).
Amazing video as usual, by the way. I always find myself looking forward to your next upload.
I wish they would add a Danish+Norwegian subtree (or just a few vehicles) to Germany or Sweden, but that will probably only happen once the Leopard 2A7 documents get unclassified.
Interesting to hear. I was additional OPFOR at NTC as a Marine, and the Stryker brigade there did a really good job deploying their MGS as an assault gun, using hot and cold positions.
It’s a good concept, just seems the equipment and training just needed to be streamlined
The electronics being a problem is particularly interesting to me, especially the mention of wiring harnesses being an issue. I kinda wonder how they were set up; proper wire bundling and preventing chafing are huge in avionics and I wonder how much of that would carry over to ground vehicles.
I was thinking this too. I have a 19K friend who explained it to me: anything maintenance-wise is generally lower quality for ground based vehicles. I will get punished if I do maintenance out of regs but if a tanker needs to repair a wire or mechanical part, he just sorta hits it or tapes it until it's good.
Excellent question! Kinda like Challenger exploding because of an fing o-ring. Spend the extra $200 (or whatever) on better wiring.
inside the military there is a common phrase mentioning that everything we have is made by the lowest bidder, sadly many company's compete on who can be awarded the contract and this in turn makes low budget parts and etc, almost every equipment in the military has a very capable powerplant but all the other supporting parts a very low quality and not durable. can't count the times I've seen bearings fail and catching fire on a tire, or electrical nightmares, ecu's failing all the time. This is something that plagues the military
Интересное видео. Хорошо что нашли по настоящему опытного танкиста, а то в подобные видео иногда берут людей которые особо ничего не знают про технику на которой служили и могут только выполнять свою первоочередную функцию.
Speaking from experience on the side of the OPFOR at NTC: all Stryker platforms were incredibly easy to “kill” 😆 and yes they were almost exclusively used like tanks out there in the desert
@@DecidedlyNinja Typically each vehicle had a yellow light on top of it that would flash if the vehicle was “destroyed”.
Also if I remember correctly, each vehicle fit in a certain category on the software system (ex: MBT, helicopter, light vehicle, etc…) and depending on what type of vehicle you were in, it would automatically determine if certain simulated rounds would “kill” the vehicle.
You can yell at guys endlessly but a 105mm gun is always going to be pushed into that role. Which is why they just need to go away, new gun or not. The newer Bushmaster chain guns and AT weapons are more than enough. And this is also at a time when they are dramatically increasing the amount multi purpose recoilless rifles in particular. And what about the small drone threat now? That's shit is terrifying. You can largely reduce a fighting position using a $1500 commercial drones and some repurposed 40mm grenades and the US is building a light tank for that purpose almost exclusively?!
Figure out how to get as many infantry into the back of the new IFV with a 40 or 50mm bushmaster and a couple javelins or TOWs on top and call it a day. Build 5000+ of the things. Skip the light tank and whatever other nonsense they can dream up to toss our money at like drunken sailors.
@@RJT80 Perhaps….
I was only at the operator level and didn’t really witness the overall strategies that went into developing combined arms units, but personally I’d take a conventional tank cannon over a chain gun/missile combo any day of the week. It’s just a whole lot more versatile and livable with about the same effectiveness.
youtube recommendations were quick on this one. 21 seconds ago!
52 sek
I was one of the first of 9 MGS platoon Sergeants to take the MGS to combat in 2007. I fired more rounds than another vehicle. I thought it was perfect for urban operations in support of infantry. It provided protection, security and breaching capability at a moments notice. When it 1st came out it had some issues but easily resolved with a little bit of maintenance.
I would like to thank you Spookston for this crew interview. Even though I'm an average guy typing a comment beneath a video I enjoy, my appreciation and respect cannot be put into words. The amount of time dedicated to a small thing, to us as viewers, like organizing a crew interview for people such as myself and others to watch is underestimated.
Hey, good ole 2nd Criminal Regiment! I definitely pulled out 2 or 3 MGS’s out of mud holes in Poland and Lithuania as a 12N.
The MGS would be interesting to come back to now. As i hear more and more Army commanders talk about the Urban fight and puzzle, the biggest thing i always hear is how they nearly quadruple the amount of direct fire weapons ammunition that they expend, and that the indirect assets that are typically seen become less effective. The MAAWS and other "assault gun" systems meant to cripple buildings and remove other structures were key pieces in a lot of the urban exercises, so a return of the MGS may be considered to fulfill a purpose as an assault gun in the Urban fight.
Having an interview from an actual crew member in this sort of video is amazing, well done!
Definitely would like more of these, it's always interesting to hear someone's personal experiences with a particular weapon system
Spookston, I was in a SBCT and went to AFG in 13. We didn't take our MSG with us and we didn't even have any in our battalion motorpool overseas. As far as strykers go in AFG the ICV was the workhorse. There were a few of the Recon variants, but not many. We did have the MCV (mortar variant) that thing was amazing as well.
Was in the arghandab in 2013 with 1AD
@@IcanDriveIt me too! I was 1-36, I was on AJK and AZZIZULLAH. What about you?
@@nothingnewunderthesun1689 4-17 and I was at cop jannat
Small world!!
It'd be awesome if you could do more interviews! It's really cool to hear from real crewmen what these vehicles were like. The fact we (as enthusiasts and observers) only note the MGS for its mechanical problems whereas this guy was saying the base of the model was fine, it was the turret, gun, and autoloader that were the issues was super interesting.
Know what? Fuck it.
Dragoons in War Thunder.
I have the Spookston stamp of approval, Gaijin.
Start the modeling.
I remember being Mechanized infantry when my unit got the new Strykers. I liked the vehicle overall for the task we were using them for, basically taxis. But the lack of anything heavier than a Mark 19 or Deuce Ma made it so we usually moved on foot.
As a 91S Stryker systems maintainer I’m glad the mgs got retired they served a purpose but we’re often misused and with the issues that plagued the weapons system it became very obvious that the solution to heavy infantry support is not just slap a tank gun on top of the truck and pray for the best
I remember when we got our Stryker MGSs in 2009 to our infantry company. I was good friends with the tanker platoon and they parked their vics next to my platoon's ICVs. Being the platoon radio guy they'd ask me to wriggle into the space between the autoloader and equipment racks to mount their radios. Biggest pain in the ass. Everyone thought it was the coolest thing in the motorpool but it was broken most of the time. Even when we deployed to Iraq it barely got used. We gave them one of our dismount squads for patrols and if I remember right it was only loaded with 2 HE and 1 canister. We gave all of vics to the 25th out of Hawaii at the end of our tour and I dont remember if we got an MGS from the Hawaiians in the trade.
hey spookston, i know you and oddbawz did a video recently but whenever you get the chance you should squad up again but this time in the xm803. keep up the good work :)
Honestly I love this videos where we get to hear the information from someone in the field. I know it doesn't quite fit into the scope of WT, but I think it would be really interesting to also hear from infantrymen who were supported by vehicles that we could find in WT, to hear their stories, perspective, and thoughts, from a side that's not explored in WT, but relevant to their employment. I know in a warzone that necessity is the mother of invention, and we'd probably hear stories about vehicles going outside their designated roles or doctrine, but I still think nonetheless, it would be interesting to hear in the format you provide.
Was very enlightening to hear, especially when every armchair military arms expert touts the stryker's 'mechanical issues' as if the whole vehicle was a complete mess, it's nice to get a firsthand official 'report' that sets it straight.
Unfortunately a lot of infantrymen don't play WT I don't think, usually it's mechanics or electricians or crewman. Me, for instance, I was an AH-64D electrical and armament guy and I got plenty of talk about how these birds have saved countless lives from infantry. However, Infantrymen are pretty hard to find after their contract, understandably lol.
New video, happy times. I appreciate the time you put into these
I do like the interviews with the users of tanks and planes but also know how hard it is to get them in contact withy you. More of this sprinkled in with your normal content would be nice to see if able.
Have an awesome Christmas and new year.
Excellent vid!! Yes please - more crew interviews! Dude was well spoken, bright, and understandable. Keep that coming Spookston!
Very interesting stuff. Great to hear from guys who have experience on these platforms and get hard facts on how they operate.
Would love to see more in the future!
we had 4 of these in my battalion. only 2/4 was ever serviceable. the crews always hated these and preferred their bradley’s and abrams they were trained on in the first place. these things had a rollover issue too if i remember correctly. the cooling fans were always non functional. i couldn’t stand these either lol. at least i have a cool pic of me and the boys on top of it haha
Biggest problem with the MGS was how few there were for each brigade combat team. 4-8vehicles for 7500+ troops is insane. Basically one platoon for the entire brigade. Strikers are jumped up taxis as it is with an LMTV doing the exact same thing. And about as survivable. Both NTC rotations I witnessed with them they got destroyed so bad they had to stop the exercise and reset it. But that's expected when you take a light infantry unit with "trucks" and fight an armored unit in the desert.
Excellent video! It is always interesting to get a first person perspective on military hardware in use vs in theory.
Fantastic video! Definitely, would like to see a video on the B1 Centauro since much of the Army's first experience of the MGS is based on Centauros that the Army leased in the early 2000s
They could have bought Centauro and they wouldn't probably experience problems they have experience on MGS. It was the case of US Military not wanting foreign design getting adapted. They are now learning since they are testing Patria 120mm NEMO mortars for their Strykers, OMFV, AMPV, and potentially CATV as well after their failed 120mm mortar program.
@@chesterlynch9533Everything had to fit in a C-130
@@mackster85 Stryker MGS can't fit on a C-130 so there's not even a difference. Only the smaller variants of Strykers like Strykers ICV and other variants can fit on a C-130. All of the newer DVH Strykers can't be carried by C-130 either.
Thanks for the vid, always wanted to find out the crew themselves thought of it!
Very Good Interview. I taught 19D as a reservist most on M113 including ones brought back from Nam which had "For Training Use Only" burned into the bow armor with an electric welder. We also used M151 for some of the training. I taught on the M901 ITOW also then Hummers.
Beside the Breakdown issue I always question the amount of ammo and the resupply of ammo to the MGS when in heavy combat. 18 rounds do not seem to be enough considering the Marines after the Tarawa battle went to cramming as many rounds as they could into their M4A2 Shermans as they ran out of ammo before nightfall the first day.
I was the driver for one of the Captains of a MGS-operating troops who helped write the Army doctrine for this vehicle.
The biggest issue with the MGS is that the Army did not fully understand how to utilize it. Many of our training excercises we ended up acting as tanks, which is not the intended purpose per doctrine. It is a rapid response fire support platform. This was an issue for higher ranking officers typically, Brigade Commander and above.
The maintenance was not as big an issue in my unit as your guest claims. We rarely dropped below 80% readiness for our total MGS count, which is fairly standard for most vehicles. And one of the biggest setbacks with that was the lack of MGS mechanics.
If you want to interview more crew members I can ask around.
"Rapid response fire support platform"
I'm getting flashbacks to the Tank Destroyer doctrine American had in WW2. Which, from what I understand, also had "God dammit, stop using it like that!" syndrome.
I found the discussion on the Bradley carrying less then a full platoon interesting, namely because I know there are foreign IFV's that when deployed in standard formation will support a full platoon.
Beyond that, I do get a certain cheeky joy in hearing that my Canadian LAV basis is doing pretty much aces, and it's the American modifications that were failing.
The difference being however that mechanized squads in those countries are usually smaller than their US counterparts. In Germany, for instance, a Panzergrenadier squad operating in Marder IFVs has only 6 dismounts, for a total of 18 in a platoon, not counting a platoon leader and potential platoon hq troops or attachments. The Bradley squads remain as the typical 9 man Squad across all infantry types in the Army, but Bradley platoons can only do this by eliminating the Weapons Squad from the Platoon and splitting those three squads in four tracks due to the limited dismount capacity of IFVs in general. Stryker Platoons have no such restrictions, all 9 men can fit in one vehicle, so you can have three nine man rifle squads and one six man Weapons Squad in four Stryker ICVs, for a bayonet strength of 33 men. That's nearly double the number of infantry as that Bundeswehr platoon. Of course, there are benefits and drawbacks: the Stryker ICV is not as good as a mounted fighting platform as a Bradley or a Marder, so they can't go head to head against armor unless they're already in advantageous ground, but in terms of performing infantry tasks like clearing urban terrain a Stryker platoon is much better off.
Ngl I really enjoyed this video and the fact that you got a crew member to explain its actual roll in combat and it’s pros and cons. Would love to see more of these videos as it was very educational
Almost drove over its own shell lol
Little guy luckily escaped
My uncle was a driver for a Stryker during Iraq. Been meaning to ask him about his experience with that
Spookie I fucking love you man, you always bring the good shit to your channel, once I heard in the video MTOE, 19K, powerpack, NTC, OpFor, 19D Cav Scout(which I am) I just started smiling
I myself am AD and I been in SBCTs, I don't consider myself to be too into it but however I'm really mechanically inclined so I can say some stuff. I've been involved with the extreme cold weather in Alaska Stryker's and now the CROWSJ and Dragoons in Germany
My experience with the regular Stryker's as the MGS were in a different troop:
No matter what you do, Stryker's always seem to leak coolant, in the Artic, crew members wouldn't let them warm up first and would just redline the Stryker in -50F temperatures then Pikachu face when the engine block would have cracks
As he said, hydraulic, which did not leak as much but would always disappear. The idea 9f CTIS is a good one however all those airlines would leak so after filling them up the sensor would start beeping because it wasn't 100% "full"
It was not a vehicle designed for the Artic and it always showed it, you would slid off the road, if it was equipped with an RWS it would freeze, either not moving, not showing feed or both. The ramp would just "free fall" and like 8 or 10 of us would have to gather together to raise it up and manually close it with the ramp wings inside, the DVE could get full of snow leaving the driver seeing out only through the periscopes, if the heaters died that was an automatic deadline because of Alaska's MTOE and they would be out of the game. Due to geographic features we basically were doing Hot Wheel ramps to maneuver, anything bigger than a 40° slope was a no for the Stryker's so we would, One by One, roll down a hill at full speed then redline the truck to get across the training areas
As for the Dragoons, I'll be able to give you a good analysis about it sometime soon(really soon actually) next year, can't say when because OPSEC and no, it's nothing involving the current conflict. It's double feed, has a lot of sensors which are nice, brakes are stupid touchy compared to the regular RV, ICV and MCV Stryker's, the gunner uses the same station as for the RWS, I thought it would be more like the Bradley turret, you can work everything on the gun on the inside, but to reload you have to get out and expose yourself
Anyways, if you want more I can either ask around or look around but then again, there's more a less a limit because they're considered prototypes still so, yeah
Anyways, love your content Spookie
Dragoon in geim wen ?
I’m just happy the war thunder Stryker got the stupid slat armor removed so I can finally use that “rapid redeploy ability” that everyone talks about
All of our Stryker MGS crews were trained Abrams tankers. So I can see why they had the issue thinking let's use it like a tank.
Love that you got someone from my unit to be interviewed for this, I’m in 2CR now and I agree with everything he said
Great method. Loved hearing from personnel
You should do a video on styker vs Humvee vs Bradley like why each exist
Would love to see that. Never could figure out how those fit in doctrinally
I love this sort is subject
im in a scout unit so im pretty well versed on all of the vehicle platforms. bradly is usually a infantry support vehicle to act as cover for infantry and have a capable gun that could kill targets well. the Humvee tends to be the lighter vehicle for recon purposes and would usually have a TOW mounted on the turret for anti tank capability if needed. and the Stryker is also a light recon vehicle usually would have a M2 mounted on it and a LRAS. and is our primary use of transportation but it sucks ass to drive and maintain. its not good in the environments it was built for and deadlines far too easily. out of all of these vehicles id gladly pick the PUMA any day for recon purposes
Interesting that they mention the "you can't use this as a tank" problem. We had the same problem in WWII with the tank destroyer battalions. They were designed to counter mass armored breakthroughs, but since we were on the offensive almost the entire time they parceled them out to infantry units who used them as tanks, with similar problems.
Malaysia used this concept back in early 90s where we have what's called the armoured fire support vehicle, a 6x6 with 90mm cockerill gun with manual loading, could carry up to 3+8 personnel with amphibious capabilities, it served us well for over 30+ years.
I came cause i thought this was a warthunder vid, I stayed for an amazing educational video
I rarely like interview videos. But this one was really good!
Great job Spook!
I crewed in another failed armored vehicle, the M114A1E1. Didn't know it at the time, when we actually got out of the motorpool in Bamberg we didn't have to deal with getting out of rice paddies or road mines. They were underpowered, the usual cause of downtime was that poor 283 trying to push a 7 to 8 ton tracked vehicle around, we usually had 1 or 2 dead out of 9 at any one time. And I always thought replacing the .50 caliber with a 20mm was dumb, combat load was 200 rounds, less than 30 seconds at full auto and the sight system was rudimentary. What we really needed was something to spray enough rounds downrange to distract whatever we had ran into while we got the hell out of there and let the line animals take care of them. I'm guessing someone came up with that idea to use up the surplus 20's because they certainly wouldn't have spent real money for the upgrade.
What we did have was a lot of interior room. With a full 3 man crew there was plenty of space for someone to catch a snooze while the other 2 keep things running, or for several of us to hang out inside while we were in the motorpool. We took off the rubber side flaps, which made things easier on the wash rack, since we were not allowed to swim the things anyway, apparently too many sunk in training, I think it was improperly sealed inspection plates on the bottom.
For peacetime the jeeps we had with M60's mounted made more sense. I was the the ground troop of an air cav squadron at Ft Knox, we had the gun jeeps plus one with a 106 recoiless and a 5/4 ton pu with an eighty something mm mortar. Like covered in this video we were able to just road march to Ft Bragg for an exercise.
I remember that motorcycles were being tested at the time with the riders wearing CVC helmets for communications, always thought that made some sense, never heard how that turned out.
Glad to see my boy Thinky getting some more action on the Channel.
Cool video, I enjoy this format of interviewing crew members and it's interesting to hear what actual servicemembers have to say. I really like your videos, I hope you find making them as fulfilling as I find watching them intriguing.
I used to be a driver of the ICVV Strykers back in CO. Most of the time our Strykers, which were basically new, would not work or be deadlined for a plethora of things.
My truck in particular had a wiring harness issue that would basically keep the driver from seeing how much voltage we had sometimes just losing out gauge clusters all together. The engines were hit or miss sometimes, as a driver I had experienced 3 engines fires, and a close call. My outlook on the Stryker is good, but not without it's faults
I was a vehicle crew evaluator for an MGS gunnery once. If I remember right, the troop had 12 MGSs, and only 2 were functional due to various autoloader and fire control issues, so they had to constantly hot seat crews, alternating which one was reloading ammunition and prepping to fire, and which one was on the range shooting. That was even more difficult because the crews routinely had issues with the autoloader and rammer that would frequently require them to leave the range to try and remediate the issue. I think we were there for a week and a half, and if 2 crews shot the table and got qualified, it was a great night. I don't think anybody who even remotely dealt with those things was sad to see them go.
this was great! if anything I wished the interview was longer
Love this format, and the interviewee did a great job!
"It is not a tank and should not be used as such"
War thunder: imma pretend I didn't hear that
It’s always interesting to hear from people who actually served in the vehicles that we are all very opinionated about shed some light and give facts over opinion. Very cool video, keep up the great work!
@Spookston really liked hearing crew embers opinion well done would be awsome to see more like that in the future
Really great video. Great questions and the guest was really well spoken!
Couple additional things here.
Having served in all three types of brigades and in a unit that switched completely and rapidly(led to deaths in training) to Stryker’s. The units ran into the issues that are in the light Cav units.
There are two ways the Stryker would be used across the brigade before the MGS system arrived.
First infantry used strykers gun .50/MK19 as support by fire placing it directly in the fight.
Cavalry Scouts did the complete opposite and cleared with dismounts and would never use it as a SBF or engagement vehicle.
When the MGS arrived commanders adopted a hunter killer concept to directly use the MGS to kill tanks. They would send Infantry/Cav Stryker to make contact with tank units and maneuver the MGS up to engage tanks.
This is the same issue Scouts run into in light infantry units. They have bigger weapons with a small personal count and would have scouts engage and attack vs sending the infantry to leep frog over the scouts due to the simple fact the highest weapon system was a 240 with infantry vs a MK19/.50/tow scouts.
I always enjoy how you give the most unbiased well researched views on these subjects.
Keep up the great work and look forward to more of your content next year
This was really awesome. Here's hoping you can interview a wide array of crew members.
Awesome video with the interview! If possible you totally should try to interview more crew/personnel! Happy holidays and much love!
This is v cool, no one else in the WT community is doing something like this! Keep it up, Spook!
This was a fucking EXCELLENT interview! Tech, theory, a credible and experienced source. You can't get better than that unless you have an engineer on board for some design theory
When I was deployed with 4/2 SBCT, our MGS platoon ended up getting split across the three rifle platoons and each rifle platoon gave up an ICV and it’s squad to the MGS platoon. The replenisher did create more than a few odd issues, including an MGS sending canister instead of HEAT on two separate occasions.
I would love to see more guests on the channel and keep up the good work. Also play vehicles that don't make you suffer.
I hope this video is popular since for me it war very interesting to hear right from the people who used them.
I'd absolutely love to hear more hands-on experience stories, definitely.
One of my fav videos thank you for putting in work!
What a great video, I love watching the nonchalant gameplay when you review a vehicle. But this is a great switch up, just to add some extra content, keep it up spook, you’re growing quick.
I did xctc with the California national guard at fort hunter liggett as a contractor, the observer controller said the same thing about them trying to use the Stryker as a tank and getting btfo by the opfor.
really love the interview format
Spookston with the absolutely amazing content once again! Thanks a lot!
This was so good ive could have listened to it for another hour.
Loved this video!! Great length, you did great being concise. Many interviews on RUclips go from 40m to 2h in length, which is simply too long for me most times. This was amazing, it was informative and answered the most important questions in a manageable time frame. I'd love even more, even up to 20 mins of this in an ep would be great
Please do more interviews!!! These are so informative!
Eyy your Hal9000 from the cope cage video is back. Love that guy
Started my time as an Abrams tanker in '91. I don't want to think about the number of times something got loose on a wiring harness and being stuck in "protective mode." (post cross country movement) By 1994 that particular issue went away with replacement parts.
I think what wasn't covered is the whole Black Hawk Down engagement. Having only light ground and air assault assets to deal with a rescue mission. I believe different results would of been possible with some type of armored asset on a thunder run. (It was hard to watch our dead and injured being dragged off the battlefield by the enemy.)
I don't know man, that WT footage looks like it's pretty effective 😆 also the C&C Generals music in the background takes ne back to my childhood.
This was very interesting! I'm a bit of a sucker for long form content so, I am always left wanting for more with your shorter format. That's not to say I don't appreciate what you do, I actually am really impressed by how much information you can fit into these ~10 min videos. Since this is a new format I'd love to see longer pieces. You could for example spend maybe 10-15 minutes on the history and general concept of a certain platform or vehicle and then another 15-30 minutes on the interview itself. I know you've covered the Stryker on here already but combining the two would make the video sort of a one stop shop to get a decent picture on the platform at hand. No matter how you plan to approach this new format in the future I will be watching with interest.
Really glad you got someone competent. I was a little worried when you said he was an officer lol. I did three years on an MGS and they were good when they were up but, we couldn't get parts and qualified mechanics to work on the damn things. The army has a continual problem where they will buy a piece of equipment and then not support it properly. Regardless, even if they did support it I wouldn't want to go to war in the thing.
This was great! Please do more interviews!
very good vid my dude
so not so much a problem of role and usage, more a question of "how can we keep readiness up to acceptable rates"
interesting. If you get to ask MGS crewmen, ask them how they'd improve the MGS, or if they'd replace it with another vehicle entirely. Would be most curious to find out their answers.
Also, Merry Xmas and a Happy new Year to you Spookston, and to all you hold dear ^w^
You should do a Video on the Archer
One of the weirfest tanks ive seen
That's the difference between American and other militaries. Americans will admit when something doesn't work well... whereas our troops will just pretend like it's working as intended.
Holy cow, that was so informational!
Great interview. I would like to see more of this.