Posted on 01/31/2004 10:23:42 AM PST by Cannoneer No. 4
MOSUL, Iraq - The Army's new Stryker vehicle had its first combat encounter with a rocket-propelled grenade Friday.
The round struck the front of the vehicle above its slat armor cage, cutting a hose inside the engine compartment. The vehicle commander suffered a superficial cut near his nose, officials said.
But the Fort Lewis crew was otherwise unhurt and drove the vehicle out of danger, their company commander and 1st sergeant said.
It was one of four RPG attacks on Strykers on Friday in Mosul. The other three rounds missed.
Soldiers throughout the brigade had figured it was only a matter of time before a Stryker was hit by an RPG, one of the most widely available anti-armor weapons in the world.
Commanders said the attacks are proof that local insurgents are finished with merely observing the new vehicles moving about the city streets.
"You need to tell your soldiers this is still a very, very dangerous environment," 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment commander Lt. Col. Gordie Flowers told his troop leaders after the day's events. "They need to know that they need to have their 'A game' on every time they go out the gate."
All four attacks were against vehicles from the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry.
Battalion officials gave these details:
•A few minutes before the Stryker was hit at 8:30 a.m., gunmen attacked the same vehicle with small-arms fire and an RPG from about 750 feet away. The round fell short.
•About 7:30 a.m., in a neighborhood in northeast Mosul, insurgents fired an RPG at a Stryker parked near where soldiers had discovered a weapons cache. The attackers got away.
•Attackers tried to hit the same vehicle just before 3 p.m. as it was parked along the eastern shore of the Tigris River, near where dive and boat teams were looking for one of two soldiers missing in the river since Sunday.
The attackers fired the RPG from the west side of the river, from at least 750 feet away, officers said. The grenade struck hanging lines above the vehicle and caused no damage.
Soldiers saw the attackers on the other shore. They returned fire, and a squad searched the area moments later but found no sign of them.
Depending on the type, RPGs are capable of boring through a Stryker's armor and spraying hot shrapnel all around the interior of the vehicle.
The threat prompted the Army to install bulky, 5,000-pound slat cages around the Strykers while RPG-resistant armor is still being developed.
Friday's strike didn't answer the question of whether the slat armor will work as advertised and diffuse the impact of the RPG before it strikes the body of the vehicle.
But at least on this day, the RPG strike wasn't the deadly event that many feared.
The grenade was fired from close range - less than 300 feet - and struck above the cage at the front of the Stryker, battalion officials said. Photographs of the damage showed finger-sized holes near the hinge of the armored hatch that covers the engine compartment.
Crew members had headaches after the blast, but drove the vehicle out of danger, said 1st Sgt. Mike Hurtado of the company.
"The vehicle was drivable. We drove it around in an attempt to pursue the enemy," said company commander Capt. A.J. Newtson.
It was another half-hour or so before they realized one of the engine hoses had been cut, so they stopped driving it to avoid further damage and later towed it to their base camp in central Mosul, he said.
When they were fired at the first time, the soldiers were on an early morning patrol in search of roadside bombs set overnight in the southeast section of town.
After the grenade fell short, the soldiers tried to seal off the area. A resident of the neighborhood told soldiers where they might find the insurgents who shot at them, battalion officials said.
They searched the area on foot, recovering a 155 mm artillery round from the yard where the tipster had told them to look. But they didn't find the gunmen and were reboarding their vehicles when the second attack came.
The same shooters, they believe, moved in closer, fired the RPG and climbed into a car and drove away.
Newtson said the attackers used the dense urban setting to blend in with civilians and escape. Mosul is one of the largest cities in Iraq, with some 1.8 million residents.
Newtson and Hurtado said their injured soldier from the damaged Stryker had returned to duty and would likely be back out on roadside bomb patrol this morning.
They said the expected repairs to the vehicle wouldn't take long and that it would be returned to service soon.
"It worked the way it was supposed to," Flowers said. "To take the hit and still get you out of the attack zone."
Battalion officials said they figured sooner or later their search operations along the Tigris would be attacked. The mission to find two missing soldiers is tying up one of its infantry companies as they provide security coverage for the divers and boat teams working in the water.
Staff Sgt. Christopher Bunda, 29, a squad leader with the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry, was lost in the river when a boat he was in capsized Sunday afternoon. Lt. Adam Mooney, 28, and Chief Warrant Officer 3 Patrick Dorf, 32, disappeared after their OH-58 Kiowa Warrior helicopter crashed into the river about an hour later as they searched for Bunda.
Navy divers recovered Dorf's body Thursday afternoon.
Michael Gilbert: mjgilbert41@yahoo.com
(Published 12:01AM, January 31st, 2004)
Big Kahuna was the first, 1970.
They were ready to roll right off, to do battle with the horrifdied attackers- Achmed- the loads on those trucks, beneath the tarpauleans- they're moving!!!- while the convoy moves on out of the attackers kill zone, and after the worst of the fighting is concluded, the tanks [or other vehicles] can catch back up with the convoy and the transporters for the tanks can drop their ramps and again travel at convoy speeds. And oh, BTW: if a couple of the vehicles are down for maintenance, other loads can be covered with tarps and moved on the flatbeds, leaving the bad guys to guess whether it's an attack response vehicle under there or not.
During the 1960s, the US Army used a 5-tank platoon; for such tasks, it was found that six worked a little better, with two vehicles so carried up near the front of a 20-vehicle or so convoy, two in the middle, and two toward the rear. Since the three-tank headquarters company tank section sometimed drew the short straw for that job, one answer was to use three tanks backed up with three M42 twin-40mm antiaircraft *Dusters, which worked very nicely.*
Indeed, if *lo-boy* depressed center flatbeds or Volvo FH16 *dropbed* trailers are used, the tanks don't even have to roll off ramps to immediately respond- they can *neutral steer* off the side of the flatbed, and get after the task at hand immediately.
Also heard of using Ontos with canister rounds as ambush breakers in convoys. I climbed into one at Camp Lejeune, it was pretty small. Might could almost put two of them on a lowboy.
As far as the M 85s go, they seemed to have a lot of feed trouble. The M2s in the M48s seemed to be more reliable from what I recall. Also, the M85 sights in our turrets seemed to mess up a lot; maybe they weren't saltwater proofed enough.
Thing is, like the M85, the M2 can be fed from either side, but the gun mounts are built to carry an ammo can on the left side only. One quick-and-dirty answer would be to add on a mount for a Russian PK MG on the other side, since they use a righthand-side feed, unlike the US M240, M60 and M249 MGs. There are Navy/Coast Guard twin-.50 mounts that could be copied and fielded, but for use inside a turret, the M85, designed for that purpose, would be a better pick, since it also has a quick-change barrel and a lo/hi rate of fire [500 RPM/1000 RPM each gun- think about 4 of THOSE on a quad .50 mount....] I'm not sure which link the new M312 .50 MG is supposed to use. But supposedly, pasrt of the problem with the Stryker's Remote Weapons System is the ammunition coming partially unlinked in the feed tray as the vehicle moves down the road, from vibration. The M9 link of the M85, which has a tab that snaps into the cartridge case's extractor groove, like a 7,62mm M60 or M249s M13 link, might solve that problem too. And if it did, it'd not only be a quick fix for the Strykers .509 teething problem, but a cheap one...and one that'd add to the firepower [1000 RPM on fast rate] as well. Until the 105-round ammo can rubs out.
But that's still better than a jam in 45 rounds or less.
-archy-/-
The setup for the M85 MG in the commander's cupola of an M48A5 or M60 tank was pretty miserable; when we could, we'd sctrounge an M2 off a headquarters compant track or truck, and mount that externally to the *Chrysler gun mount* welded to the outside of the turret. Even an M60 with a 300-round belt was an improvement over the M2HB TTin the cupola, which had only 50 rounds in the spool provided for it, and the cable-operated charging handle of which frequently frayed until it broke through at the worst possible time. Neither could the M85 quick-change barrel be swapped out when cupola mounted, though an experimental setup to use an M85 as a coax was tested for the M48, and that could be changed inside under armor. The 3000-round amnmo belt for it was a considerable improvement as well.
One of my uncles crewed on a White halftrack with a quad-50 anti-aircraft mount during his European vacation from Normandy to the Rhein. He said they never had a crack at any Luftwaffe planes--none came close enough---but used their vehicle mostly as direct fire support for grunts. I gathered that it was a bit intimidating to be on the receiving end of four Ma Deuces at once.
Apparently their ride was pretty reliable. Seems like he said their biggest problem was torn up tires from having so damn much shell and bomb fragments to run over--that and almost freezing their 'nads off in the 44-45 winter. But it sure topped being a grunt :]
I am still around, though busy at times.
-archy-/-
The older M85 MG is not convertable to 25mm. At least not until I start tinkering with one. The 25mm ammunition wasn't available the last time I had some M85s that I could work on for that sort of project.
Coincidentally, of course, the builder for the Mark 47 is General Dynamics.
It may be that the Stryker's incompatability with the Mark 19 was designed in from the get-go.
-archy-/-
It works pretty well on an M113A3 though. And there's still room for a full crew inside, though the additional weight probably eliminates the M113's amphibious capability. Probably kinda hard on the driver;s ears unless he buttons up his hatch.
Limit of amount of ammunition that can be carried inside, especially with crew inside too. Also possibility of explosion inside should explosive ammunition ignite, reason for *blowout* panels in M1A1 tanks.
*Cavalry version* of Bradley M3 vehicle, mechanically same as M2 Infantry version, but with only 3 crew aboard, carry much more ammunition, plus TOW rockets for anti-tank work. More room for larger ammunition, since fewer people inside.
There have been Bradley version experiments with larger weapons, including 30mm gun of Comanche gunship- also fitted to some Humvee trucks for Special Operations missions.
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