Stryker Crews Find New Vehicles Can Take A Punch

Tacoma News Tribune ^ | 22 Dec 2003 | Michael Gilbert

[centurion316]

Tacoma News Tribune December 22, 2003

Stryker Crews Find New Vehicles Can Take A Punch

By Michael Gilbert, The News Tribune

SAMARRA, Iraq - Like many soldiers in the Stryker brigade, the crew of Charlie 1-4 had their worries about how their vehicle would hold up if it were struck by a roadside bomb.

Count them as big believers in the Stryker after their encounter with an improvised explosive device on a dirt street a week ago.

"If it had been a Humvee, we'd all be dead," said Sgt. 1st Class Mike Farnum, the senior man aboard Charlie 1-4 when it was struck by the IED the afternoon of Dec. 13.

Only the driver, Pfc. Chris Hegyes, 21, was injured, suffering a broken right foot and ankle. The rest of the crew was unharmed.

Their vehicle was destroyed - not by the blast, soldiers said, but by a fire in the engine compartment that spread throughout the vehicle and ignited their ammunition.

A second Stryker was hit by an IED on Saturday en route to a raid in Samarra, not far from the location of the Dec. 13 attack. Soldiers said it knocked off the left front wheel and damaged the hub, but no passengers were hurt and the vehicle continued on under its own power.

An OH-58 Kiowa Warrior helicopter crew spotted a pickup driving away from the scene and radioed its direction of travel to other Strykers in the raiding party.

They maneuvered on the truck, surrounded it and detained five men armed with four AK-47 assault rifles, said the brigade spokesman, Lt. Col. Joseph Piek.

That the Stryker was able to continue after the bombing, and that the others could move quickly to catch the pickup, demonstrated the vehicle's agility and ability to take a punch, Piek said.

"That's very good news for us," he said.

In the Dec. 13 strike, the crew from Crazyhorse Troop of the 1st Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment were at the end of a seven-vehicle convoy. The scouts were showing infantrymen around town in preparation for the brigade's Operation Arrowhead Blizzard, which was to begin in less than 48 hours.

As it turned out, the news the next day that Saddam Hussein had been captured postponed the start of Blizzard by two days.

The convoy had been riding around the city for a few hours when they headed out at 1 p.m. to return to a staging area outside the city.

"We caught some slit-your-throat signs, but that was about it," Farnum said.

They were passing by a dirty two-story brick house - like all the other dirty mud-brick houses in Samarra - when the blast occurred directly under the center front section of the vehicle, crew members said.

"That was the loudest damn explosion I ever heard in my life," said Sgt. Johnathan Vines, 23, who was standing in the rear right-side hatch.

Soldiers said the front of the vehicle lurched upward, then bounced back. Farnum, 37, who was riding across from Vines in the left rear hatch, said a great cloud of dirt and smoke instantly flew up around them.

They didn't know whether it was a bomb or a rocket-propelled grenade, but immediately the soldiers opened fire in all directions. They call it suppressive fire, and it's meant to kill or chase off anyone who might be waiting to follow the first explosion with another attack.

Inside, their medic, Pvt. James Nguyen, a 20-year-old from Seattle, went to work right away on Hegyes. The blast occurred almost directly under the driver, whose compartment is at the left front of the Stryker.

"I kept yelling at him. I thought maybe he was unconscious," Nguyen said. "I heard him making these moaning sounds, and I knew he was hurt."

Hegyes managed to crawl over his driver's seat but then stopped moving in the tight space between his compartment and the rest of the vehicle the soldiers call "the hell hole."

So Nguyen grabbed him and pulled him through.

"Then I put him on the floor and laid on top of him because I thought we were under fire," he said.

Instead, he saw his teammates laying down suppressive fire in all directions.

"Then I took him to the nearest building, found a corner and put him down and told him to stay there. I was pointing my weapon out in the street. I fired three or four times.

"Then Tillotson (Spc. Cody Tillotson, 20) came over and helped me pick him up and take him to another Stryker."

Spc. Clayton Womack said Nguyen began treating Hegyes right away.

"He had his boot off and ankle and foot wrapped in like 30 seconds," Womack said.

Womack said he used the fire extinguisher on the flames that were licking from the engine compartment, but to no avail.

The fire spread and set off secondary explosions when it reached the two antitank rockets, 40 mm grenades, 15-pound shaped charges and other ammunition.

All the crew members' belongings were in there, too - their clothes, their personal photos, all their snacks, a PlayStation, everything.

"We lost all the things that make us comfortable and remind us of home," Farnum said.

Soldiers from their unit and the 296th Brigade Support Battalion rounded up replacement clothes, some poncho liners the soldiers call "woobies," and sleeping bags.

They haven't had a chance to tell their families back home about their ordeal and put in orders for care packages.

Likewise they haven't been able to send best wishes to their driver Hegyes, a Sacramento native who they said served as the crew's deejay, serving up everything from Sinatra to rap.

"He's a good kid, a great soldier," Farnum said. "He was all worried that it was his fault when it happened."

Crew members were cheered, though, by the news that their comrades in the 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment on Saturday bulldozed the house where the IED had been set. After the blast the crew found wires running from the crater to the house and up to the rooftop, Farnum said.

Their only regret was that they weren't there to watch, the soldiers said.

Farnum said the crew did a great job reacting to the explosion, getting everyone out of the vehicle and getting medical care for Hegyes. If there's a next time, he said, they'll be better at catching or killing whoever sets it off.

"Oh, we'll get the guy," Farnum said. "Unless he's a world-class Olympic sprinter, he won't get away the way we've got it set up."

And for the folks at the Stryker factory, he said, "Tell 'em thanks. They did their homework."

[centurion316]

Interesting article on the first combat loss of a Stryker vehicle. My experiences during Vietnam underscored that this was the worst case scenario for a M113. If you struck a mine with the right track, then the force of the explosion was absorbed by the engine compartment and the crew usually received only minor injuries. However, if the vehicle detonated a mine with the left track, then the result was usually a fatality for the driver who sat right next to the left front road wheel. It appears that the shape of the hull, and or armor configuration may offer a higher degree of protection for the driver of the Stryker vehicle. Of course, we don't know the size of the explosive device, which is critical.

[centurion316]

For the Stryker Ping List with regards

[thiscouldbemoreconfusing]

a halleon fire suppresion system under the hood and within, that's right, within the fuel tank could prevent a reoccurance and it would be cheap.

[tbpiper]

halleon fire suppresion system

Yes, but it might be harmful to the environment.

[Jonah Hex]

Thank goodness they all made it!

[ikka]

Their vehicle was destroyed - not by the blast, soldiers said, but by a fire in the engine compartment that spread throughout the vehicle and ignited their ammunition.

Well, that is something that needs to be fixed. The Abrams tank has some sort of cook-off setup for it s ammo - if there is a fire, the ammo blows up but the force of the blast is directed away from the crew.

[fourdeuce82d]

Then I put him on the floor and laid on top of him because I thought we were under fire,

damn blurry monitor...

[Cannoneer No. 4]

ping

[Darksheare]

"Their vehicle was destroyed - not by the blast, soldiers said, but by a fire in the engine compartment that spread throughout the vehicle and ignited their ammunition."

Didn't archy call it on this one?
That Strykers would have engine compartnment fires and ammo cookoffs due to blast damage?
At least no-one died in this one, THANK GOD.

[Taliesan]

Then I put him on the floor and laid on top of him because I thought we were under fire,

I agree. Right there is the unnoticed gem in this account.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

ping

[Cannoneer No. 4]

There was a picture of the burnt out vehicle on the Tacoma Tribune website early this morning but now I can't get to it without registering or I'd post it.

The tone of this article seems to indicate that everybody is just tickled to death with how great these vehicles are. That's good, if true. The troops should have confidence in their equipment. They had one to roll the other day, and the vehicle commander got slung out, but not seriously hurt.

We have yet to hear of failures of the Remote Weapons Station. Last I heard the .50 cal jams pretty bad. Either they fixed that or they just aren't firing much .50 cal.

[archy]

Interesting article on the first combat loss of a Stryker vehicle. My experiences during Vietnam underscored that this was the worst case scenario for a M113. If you struck a mine with the right track, then the force of the explosion was absorbed by the engine compartment and the crew usually received only minor injuries. However, if the vehicle detonated a mine with the left track, then the result was usually a fatality for the driver who sat right next to the left front road wheel. It appears that the shape of the hull, and or armor configuration may offer a higher degree of protection for the driver of the Stryker vehicle. Of course, we don't know the size of the explosive device, which is critical.

True of an M113A1, not with a mogas-engined M113, which about a quarter of the vehicles we had when I arrived in-country in 1968 were. For a fuel tank, they had a plastic bag hung vertically between the inner and outer hull wall, behind the driver, and roughly in line with the track commander's .50 caliber position. THe NVC used that spot as their preferred aiming point with a B-40/ RPG-2 rocket launcher, forerunner of the RPG-7 and very capable of taking out an M113 or M48 tank. If they fired on a moving vehicle from the driver's side and were a little early, they got the driver; a little high and they got the TC and knocked out his .50- good thing for them. And if they were on target with the fuel bag, the resulting fireball filled the troop compartment; one more good reason to ride outside. The Stryker's exterior fuel tank is an improvement over that arrangement, maybe and maybe not preferanle to the rear/sides mounting of the M113 fuel tanks, which at least keep any burning fuel from ruptured tanks as far away from the engine and crew compartments as possuible- and from the wheels and suspension, necessary for getting out of the intended kill zone as quickly as possible.

There's now a delay fuze for the Russian TM46 and TM57 antitank mines reported by the Israelis, which means that a mineclearing vehicle may get nailed by a mine its own rollers have initiated, or a second vehicle could be caught in a blast triggered by a first. The only really simple countermeasure is uneven spacings of vehicles, so that a common setting or delay period can't be routinely predicted for use for an all-purpose setup. I don't know if those the Israelis encountered were variable or fixed for different delay periods, only that one example offered a 15-second delay from initiation, probably long enough to get an engineers mine roller vehicle, or possibly to catch a tailgater following a initial escort vehicle. The Israeli Merkava crews were NOT happy to hear of the development, and those in the up-armored Israeli M113 *Zeldas* were even less overjoyed.

[archy]

We have yet to hear of failures of the Remote Weapons Station. Last I heard the .50 cal jams pretty bad. Either they fixed that or they just aren't firing much .50 cal.

I've heard a bit more about that from Ft Knox: it seems that the problem may be with rounds binding in the feed chute or partially delinking from inertia or vibration during travel- thus a gun loaded on the nice, stable conditions of a firing range will work swell and perform as advertised for observers; one that's travelled on bumpy roads at varying speeds and cornered around a few city streets may not.

A couple of potential fixes seem possible, beyond a redesign of the ststems feed chute to something more akin the units used aboard aircraft guns of WWII and PT boat mounts: one being the use of the M9 link, which has a tab that snaps into the extractor groove of the .50 cartridge case, locking the round more positively in the link. This would require minimal modification of the M2 machinegun, but probably nothing insurmountable; alternately, the old tankers M85 gun that uses the M9 link could be fitted on Strykers, and since these guns offer a high/low rate of fire setting, [ca 1000 RPM on the high setting] could even offer a firepower improvement for the Strykers. And a pair of such guns on the Stryker's Remote Gun System mount, made to withstand the weight and recoil of the 40mm Mk19 grenade launcher, could be even more spectacular.

Until that can be worked out and turned into a field-usable kit, it's also possible that a pair of M240 7,62 NATO MGs might be substituted for the single .50 M2. It's not as if the Stryker crews are going up against other light armored vehicles, in which they'd fare poorly; what they need is the firepower to hose down RPG gunners and observers for mine detonations- 7.62 should do just fine, and if one gun of such a pair on the RGS should hand up, the other would probably still get the job done.

It's possible, though, that the Stryker armament setup is flawed beyond simple redemption and will require a complete reengineering and MWO replacement workover. If that's the case, you'll see the M2 .50s remain aboard the Strykers, and you'll see the enemy RPG gunners and sappers get bolder. And we'll lose more Strykers, and unfortunately, some more crewment in them as well.

[archy]

Interesting article on the first combat loss of a Stryker vehicle. My experiences during Vietnam underscored that this was the worst case scenario for a M113.

Incoming mortar rounds of the 4.2 or 120mm variety while you're refueling and the tank truck is right next to you is a downright unsettling prospect as well. Neither can I think of any light armorer vehicle in which I'd really care to take on a CAS attack from Warthawgs, nor an old-fashioned B52 Arclight strike. The Soviet-style 1KM grid square artillery TOT exercise by all guns of a corps is at least an equivalent.

In this instance, the tradeoff of a two-million dollar vehicle for the lives of those aboard was one with which I have no problem, though it likely required only one or two $25 antitank mines to get the job done. Over the long term, that's not a real great economy, but it sure beats having the human losses included.

The real good news is the presence of the medic/ combat lifesaver with the Stryker crew; even in a pair of Humvee's there's not much room for additional personnel or *straphangers,* and in this case, he was just exactly the right guy to have along at the right time. That's not an improvement over an M113A1's accomodations, but it sure beats a Humvee with sandbags on the floorboards.<p. -archy-/-

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Are all those M85's in storage at Anniston? Haven't seen one since Desert Storm.

A twin M85 mount would be pretty neat. Is there such a thing already?

If they can't get the RWS right, they need to sh*tcan it and mount ACAV tubs and gunshields.

Did you ever see the Alabama Slammer?

[CaptRon]

Soldiers said it knocked off the left front wheel and damaged the hub, but no passengers were hurt and the vehicle continued on under its own power.

I'd be interested in seeing this revolutionary new anti-gravity spare front wheel.

[Dionysius]

The M85 had a bad rep for frequent jamming. The cause was firing bursts that were too short. Nice long bursts it would fire forever. You don't have to mess with headspace and timing as well.

[centurion316]

I'd be interested in seeing this revolutionary new anti-gravity spare front wheel.

This is not your father's Oldsmobile. It has eight wheels, losing one doesn't not make it immobile.

[Darksheare]

Interesting.