More like 46,000 pounds, once the supplemental applique and slat armour, fuel and ammo, and the crew- driver, gunner and commander, plus the 9 infantrymen aboard, 12 personnel times 165 pounds each [typical] for another 1980 pounds or so]
Stryker brigade prepares to move out IN HARM'S WAY
MICHAEL GILBERT; The News Tribune
In a few weeks, Fort Lewis will see the largest deployment of a combat unit since Vietnam. The Army's first Stryker brigade is about to leave three years of incubation at Fort Lewis for its real-world debut in Iraq.
The 3,600 soldiers of the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division are scheduled to move out later this month and in early November. They'll pioneer a new armored vehicle and a new way of operating that represents the Army's first steps toward transforming itself into a more mobile, technology-driven fighting force.
Observers from around the world will watch closely to see if the Stryker concept and its namesake troop carrier can deliver on high expectations while keeping its soldiers safe.
The troops know they'll be testing the hardware under unusually trying conditions.
"Kosovo was a piece of cake. Bosnia was all right. This is going to be a firefight," said Sgt. Steve Stroub, a veteran of two deployments.
Today, The News Tribune answers 12 questions about the Stryker brigade as it starts down the road to Iraq.
Where are they going?
Brigade officials say they still don't know for sure. When the Pentagon announced the deployment in July, the Army's No. 2 general said the brigade would go to the area in western Iraq where the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment operates.
The province of Ar Anbar is a 55,400-square-mile expanse of desert dotted with villages. Its largest city, Ar Ramadi, lies about 60 miles west of Baghdad. It's at the southwest tip of the so-called Sunni Triangle, where resistance to the U.S. military presence has been the most deadly.
Troops in nearby Khaldiyah called in tanks and helicopter strikes in an eight-hour battle with insurgents there Monday. At least one U.S. soldier was reported killed and three others wounded.
When are they leaving?
The brigade is scheduled to load its vehicles and equipment aboard at least two cargo ships at the Port of Tacoma in the middle of this month. While the ships make the two- to three-week voyage to Kuwait, the soldiers will begin the trip by air.
It will be the largest deployment of a Fort Lewis combat unit since 1966, when 9,000 soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division went to Vietnam.
The soldiers will link up with their vehicles in Kuwait, where they will spend two to four weeks preparing for the trip up into Iraq, Army officials said.
How long will they be gone?
The Pentagon's current plan is for units to stay in Iraq at least a year.
Who will lead them?
The brigade commander is Col. Michael Rounds, 44, a small-town New York native who has spent much of his career at Fort Lewis.
Rounds graduated from West Point in 1981 and has a master's degree in East Asian studies from Yale. The military taught him to speak Chinese, then sent him to the U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong from 1990-92 and as assistant Army attache at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing from 1996-98.
He was the operations officer of an infantry battalion in South Korea, and commanded Fort Lewis' 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment on a six-month peacekeeping assignment in the Sinai Peninsula in 2000.
By reputation he is quiet and low-key but intense, inclined to talk things over with his subordinates one-on-one or in small groups.
Kent Troy, the Fort Lewis protocol officer, was a West Point classmate of Rounds. He didn't know him then, but has worked with him often in the last couple years arranging visits by VIPs interested in seeing the Stryker brigade.
"He is very quiet and very methodical, very conscientious, and really thinks through issues," Troy said. "He doesn't just react."
Rounds and his wife, Julie, live on post with their children, Kaitlin and Alex.
Will the soldiers be safe?
Naturally, that question is foremost on the minds of the soldiers' families. And it's been the subject of considerable speculation since the inception of the Stryker program.
Shannon Thompson of University Place, whose husband, Lyle, is an infantryman, said she didn't have a good feeling when she read recent news stories about Stryker armor panels that failed ballistics tests.
"I thought, 'Oooh, my baby's going to be riding around in one of those,'" said Thompson, whose dad is ex-Army and later worked in a tank factory in York, Pa.
But she said she'd worry a lot more if her husband was going to be riding in a Humvee or a 5-ton truck, with little or no armor.
What's the difference between this and the Army's other armored vehicles?
The Army's M1 Abrams battle tank is a heavily armored, 70-ton tracked behemoth. Until the Iraq war, none had ever been destroyed by enemy fire. The Iraqis knocked out two.
Likewise, the Bradley fighting vehicle is more than 25 tons, more heavily armored than the Stryker and has a bigger gun - a 25 mm cannon compared to the Stryker's .50-caliber machine gun or Mk-19 grenade launcher.
The Army acknowledges the Strykers can't take a hit like the much heavier Abrams and Bradley vehicles.
That's one of the vehicle's many deficiencies, said Victor O'Reilly, an Irish writer of military thrillers who compiled a 108-page critique of the Stryker in August for U.S. Rep. Jim Saxton (R-N.J.).
"The (after-action reports) from Iraq show very clearly, to be blunt, the need to be able to take the first hit," O'Reilly said.
But other analysts say that's an unfair comparison, especially now that the main ground assault phase of the Iraq war is over.
The Army says the Stryker's infantrymen have the anti-armor missiles to fight enemy tanks, but the unit is really built for lower-intensity missions like Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti and Somalia.
Compared to the Abrams and Bradley, "the Stryker would, of course, look like a death trap," said Ralph Peters, a retired Army intelligence officer and widely published military analyst.
"Of course, any soldier would rather go into all-out combat in a Bradley. But Stryker is for the in-between conflicts, where we've been relying on Humvees and trucks, which offer considerably less protection and firepower than the Stryker."
The Army says it is buying the Strykers, at about $2 million apiece, to build a force that can be put into action more quickly and require less logistical support than tanks and Bradleys.
Stryker brigade officers say the vehicles are meant to carry infantrymen rapidly over great distances. They're supposed to stay concealed or out of rocket-propelled grenade range, but close to enough to provide cover fire.
Misunderstandings about the Stryker's role are not confined to civilian critics. Even as late as the final training tune-up last month, senior commanders were chiding their juniors for driving the Strykers too deep into a mock city before troops on the ground had a chance to clear the buildings.
It will be a constant concern of the brigade's leaders that the vehicles aren't used like tanks.
"It's not a fighting vehicle. It's a carrier vehicle," said Maj. Chuck Hodges, executive officer of one of the brigade's three infantry battalions.
"This vehicle is not designed to be leading with its chin through cities."
What other bells and whistles do the Strykers have?
The brigade has ground sensors, satellite links, unmanned aerial vehicles, electronic eavesdropping gear, lots of intelligence analysts and the Army's most advanced communications equipment.
It's all meant to help the Stryker soldiers find the enemy first, without having to ride up and get shot at first.
The approach is easy enough to understand when the enemy is another military unit assembled over in the next valley, or a band of gunmen in a convoy of pickup trucks.
But how will it work when the enemy is a solitary suicide bomber? Or when an improvised mine is planted in the road overnight - like the one that killed a soldier in Ar Ramadi Sept. 20?
"I think that's a good question," said Peters, the military analyst. The answer will come only over time, he said.
"This is really, genuinely a new organization, and there will be a learning curve," he said. "Parts will be pretty steep."
What's wrong with the armor?
The Army said samples of some Stryker ceramic armor failed tests to ensure it can stop 14.5 mm bullets - about the size of an adult's thumb, and larger than those fired from most heavy machine guns.
Army and Stryker manufacturer General Dynamics Land Systems identified about 5,800 pieces of potentially defective armor on the 3rd Brigade's 309 vehicles.
Over the past two weeks, General Dynamics crews installed a 3 mm steel plate behind each of the faulty panels. About 15 of the 132 panes on each Stryker were shored up, officials said.
"All the Stryker vehicles will have the promised armor protection before they deploy," said Maj. Gary Tallman, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon.
Will they withstand rocket-propelled grenades?
The ubiquitous RPG is one of the most prolific small-arms weapons in the world and one that Iraqi fighters have used to deadly effect against U.S. troops.
Army contractors are working on lightweight armor for the Strykers that can stop RPGs, but it isn't scheduled to be ready until next year at the earliest.
So each of the 3rd Brigade's Strykers will be outfitted with a low-tech solution: a steel cage known as slat armor. The cage is supposed to "catch" the RPGs and cause them to explode 10-18 inches away from the vehicle.
General Dynamics crews and Stryker soldiers will install the slat armor on the vehicles in Kuwait.
Still, critics note the slat armor won't protect the roof or the wheels and wheel wells from RPG strikes.
How do the soldiers feel about the mission?
There's no polling data or anything like that, but soldiers who talked to reporters during training last month seemed generally positive.
Many have been with the 3rd Brigade since it began the Stryker transformation in early 2000. For them, it's been a long three years of learning new equipment, constant training and lots of attention from senior Army leaders.
"I've been so ready to do my job it's insane," said Christian Johnson, a fiery first sergeant in one of the brigade's infantry companies. He said he's managed to avoid orders that would've sent him to other units in Germany, Alaska and Kansas.
"After all this, a real-world deployment - I figure at least you're owed that," he said.
Others are not so fired up. Some soldiers say privately they're worried about whether all the new stuff - especially the vehicles - is up to the challenge. They gripe about rumor after rumor the past year about imminent deployments. Some even question whether they're really going to Iraq now.
Others worry more about getting mail or good food to eat.
Most said they're anxious to get on with the job before them.
"I'm ready to get this over with, to get the show on the road," said Sgt. John Andrews, 22. "We've been talking about this for too long."
For his part, Rounds, the brigade commander, said there's no doubt the soldiers are up to the task.
"It's always a challenge when you leave your loved ones for a year," he said, "but we're absolutely confident the brigade is ready to go."
What will they do over there?
Rounds, deputy commander Lt. Col. Rob Choppa and the rest of the brigade's command team will likely find themselves thrust into demanding roles in Iraq.
All over the country, American officers are the de facto mayors of the cities, towns and neighborhoods where their troops are stationed.
They're trying to create local governments and, fix utilities, broker peace among rival clans, ensure security, win the goodwill of the locals and root out remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime.
The job puts a premium on leaders at all levels who are flexible, said Col. Ralph Baker, who commands a brigade of the 1st Armored Division in Baghdad. He previously commanded one of the Stryker brigade's three infantry battalions.
Many of the soldiers under his command learned their leadership skills in Kosovo and Bosnia.
From the first days of the Stryker brigade in 2000, commanders have been trying to teach independent thinking to leaders up and down the chain of command. Baker designed exercises so that if soldiers followed orders to the letter, they'd fail.
Will they be in cities or in the desert?
The brigade may be assigned to urban operations, border patrol or convoy escorts. The soldiers are prepared for any of these, or all of the above.
At training ranges here, near Yakima, in Southern California and in Louisiana, virtually every exercise has included some kind of urban operation. The soldiers practiced moving house to house, clearing buildings of would-be attackers, running road blocks at busy intersections and gathering information from civilians.
Elsewhere, along Iraq's long borders with Syria and Jordan, the brigade's mobility, long-range optics and night-vision gear, aerial vehicles and communications network could be useful in tracking movement. Muslim extremists continue to "flow in on ratlines" across the border to fight U.S. troops, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez told reporters last week.
The Strykers may help escort some of the food, water and supplies that are trucked into Iraq from Kuwait. Tracked Bradleys are chewing up treads at an unprecedented pace providing security for these and other convoys.
The wheeled Strykers may be "a better fit for convoy duty than the Bradleys," Gen. Paul Kern of the Army Materiel Command told Knight-Ridder Newspapers. "They have good armor, good weapons, good speed and a good ride."
Michael Gilbert: 253-597-8921
mike.gilbert@mail.tribnet.com
How the Stryker brigade is organized
The 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division from Fort Lewis - known as "the Arrowhead Brigade" - includes 3,614 soldiers and more than 1,000 vehicles. It's structured like this:
The commanders: Headquarters company, 121 soldiers
The main fighting force: Three infantry battalions - 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment; 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment; and 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment - of 691 soldiers and 65 Strykers each; includes scouts, mortars, snipers, Javelin anti-armor missiles and medics
The scouts: 1st Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment, with 428 soldiers and 53 Strykers; reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition with unmanned aerial vehicles, seismic ground sensors, electronic intercepts and other means
The long-range artillery: 1st Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment, with 290 soldiers and 12 towed 155 mm howitzers
The logistics: 296th Brigade Support Battalion, with 388 soldiers and more than 42 trucks
The information gatherers: 209th Military Intelligence Company, with 67 soldiers; pulls together all the data the brigade gathers about the enemy, local conditions, weather; civil affairs and information operations
The engineers: 18th Engineer Company, with 120 soldiers, nine Strykers and other engineer vehicles; mine-clearing equipment, earthmovers to build and breach defensive positions
The communication technicians: 334th Signal Company, with 74 soldiers; operates the brigade's information network - computers, hubs, satellite links and radios
The protectors: C/52nd Anti-Tank Company, with 53 soldiers and 10 Strykers; protects brigade from tanks with TOW guided missiles
(Published 12:01AM, October 5th, 2003)