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Downsizing and ruggedizing an anti-radiation seeker package into a guided artillery shell is. . . asking a lot. I am rather skeptical of this vis-a-vis HARM missiles.

To be fair, the Bradley Stinger Fighting Vehicle Enhanced program which produced the M6 Linebacker was only ever meant as an stopgap SHORAD capability. The program itself is considered a pretty successful example of bypassing the normal equipment acquisition procedures to meet an urgent field need.

It should be noted that the "bombers always get through" as a meaningful point referred primarily to nuclear bombers, and was pretty much a matter of comparing the effectiveness of WWII era fighter interception + flak to the new reality that one bomber getting through meant you lost an entire...

Yes, but I'm saying that a "manageable risk" in 1991 is "likely suicide" in 2023.

Case in point: during the '91 Gulf War, the A-10s were the *only* Coalition air taking damage from Iraqi AA guns and MANPADs. . . because they were the only Coalition air that actually entered the low-altitude bracket at all. All other air support remained in the medium-altitude bracket; the...

The Su-25s have taken heavy losses on both sides, and the fact that Russia's still able to use them has been pointed at as a sign that Ukraine has critically low supplies of AA weapons.

It does have to *survive* getting to the CAS battlefield in an increasingly dangerous air defense environment. The A-10s kicked ass in the Gulf War, but they also took substantial hits. And frankly, anything that took substantial hits against 1980s technology and hasn't been dramatically...

The A-10 is old. It's literally a half century since it first flew, and it never got the fire-and-forget smart missiles that were supposed to be made for it, followed by being denied the Night/Adverse Weather upgrade, followed by the Air Force minimizing and underfunding every single capability...

The ruling when General Dynamics appealed was pretty much that the Army was not required to level the playing field from the advantages BAE possessed as owner of the M113 and Bradley designs. The appeal also pointed out that technically the Army wasn't directly allowing Bradleys to be...

They're still a "American by technicality" department of a notoriously corrupt and incompetent British company. It's completely unacceptable -- they should never have been allowed to buy out United Defense in the first place.

Technically true, but a complete subversion of the intent of that law. It needs to be made stricter -- I'm much more pro-globalism than the majority on this forum, but in matters of natural security I am all for a near-absolute exception. The United States should never be dependent on its...

Having it declared proprietary corporate information means that General Dynamics is not allowed to use that information *even* if it is in fact known. It's a really sneaky way of basically throwing the competition for the Army's favored option, something highlighted by the fact that BAE was...

I would point out that the advantage of tracked versus wheeled platforms is thin enough that the Army did not actually specify that the AMPV needed to be tracked, and General Dynamics seriously considered that it could satisfy the AMPV program requirements with a heavier variant of the Stryker...

That is a relatively limited use specialist design, and is *literally* a minor spinoff of exactly what I already said, "tracks for heavy IFVs". Wheeled platforms are actually more survivable than tracked equivalents against mine and IED threats and have substantially superior mobility not only...

Every modern military predominantly uses wheeled platforms for the APC role these days. It's tracks for full-fledged tanks and heavy IFVs, wheels for almost everything else, with light tracked vehicles pretty much being a leftover. Except, again, for Sparks' obsession.

By “lots and lots of countries”, you again mean second and third rate militaries that use them because they can’t afford modern equipment. Wheeled APCs are not “cheaper” than M113s in the mind of anyone except Mike Sparks and his band of delusional Gavin-fanbois. They are actually widely...

As I said, the BMP-1 was a revolutionary design when it entered service in 1966; it was the first actual IFV, and in response the Bradley program was rather radically overhauled from being a new APC that would have basically been an evolutionary upgrade of the M113, to a completely different...

"It used to be adequate" does not make it adequate today, just as propeller powered biplanes that flew at 100 MPH were once also adequate. The M113 was adequately mobile for the old style of mechanized warfare that was based on WWII combat experience plus the limited technological evolution of...

The M113 lacks the mobility necessary to keep up with Abrams and Bradley based forces, and also has no NBC protection, inferior armor protection, minimal armament, and finally is bereft of modern communications and battlefield awareness features. The M113's sole advantages are that it's a cheap...

Yes, the problem is that the "they" you're seeing these claims from are rabid fanboys who assume that every impressive-sounding foreign threat will work as a perfect silver bullet that is magically guaranteed to completely live up to all hype, while flatly ignoring all relevant limitations...