Posted on 05/05/2004 9:26:30 PM PDT by Vetvoice
While the dramas in Fallujah and Najaf come to a conclusion, the Army's soldiers are still riding the roads of Iraq in inferior armored vehicles while the better-protected armored personnel carriers are waiting for them in Kuwait.
We're asking our troops to perform a job with the wrong tools, a mistake rooted in the 1999 decision by President Clinton's Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki to take the Army off tracks and put it on wheels.
When, in July 2003, acting Army Chief of Staff Gen. John Keane laid out the overall Army plan to rotate the units stationed in Iraq since the start of the war and replace them with fresh units from the United States and Europe, his plan included a surprise development: The new Fort Lewis Stryker Brigade would be part of the replacement strategy.
Under Keane's rotation plan, the Stryker Brigade would deploy to Iraq, overlapping with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment for five or six months, after which the cavalry unit would return to the United States. Despite delays, the absence of its main offensive weapon and the fact that it had yet to be certified as a combat unit, the Stryker Brigade (3rd Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division) deployed on a combat mission to Iraq last December.
Considered by the Army generals to be too "thin-skinned" to take part in combat, the Stryker Brigade is stationed in the generally tame extreme north of Iraq in Mosul in territory controlled by the Kurds. Reports are that some Strykers have been moved south to provide convoy protection but their protection for, or of, anything is questionable. They lack firepower.
When the rotation plan began, the Army was in full panic mode, trying to add armor to the light trucks (Humvees) that it purchased in the '80s. Our soldiers have been patrolling, convoying and dying in these unprotected vehicles. The Army's knee-jerk reaction of "up-armoring" the Humvees with added steel on the sides and thick window coverings is offset by the laws of physics. To now add 2,500 to 3,000 pounds of armor, Plexiglas, sandbags on the floor to guard against mines and still try to carry the 2,000 pounds of cargo for which the truck was originally built has, predictably, placed many of them in garages and junk yards years before their scheduled retirement date.
But we already had -- and still have -- 700 upgraded M113A2-3 armored personnel carriers stored as "prepositioned stock" in Kuwait, scarcely 20 miles south of the Iraqi border. Using these 700 truly armored M113s and stripping our National Guard units for many of the 11,000 M113s we have stateside could have eliminated most of the deaths inflicted in the past 13 months by Improvised Explosive Devices.
The M113 could be hit by an Improvised Explosive Device but should have the same advantages as the Humvees of superior armor and heavier weight to help it hold the road and not crash. So, the enemy is fixed in Fallujah and Najaf. What are the commanders supposed to use to spearhead an attack against his fortifications? It certainly cannot be the wheeled vehicles that are Shinseki's legacy.
The unnecessary deaths of our soldiers due to a lack of armored convoy and patrol vehicles are a command blunder that should result in some general officers, at the very least, being sacked and possibly tried for manslaughter -- because they have apparently kept secret safer vehicles available to the troops in Iraq from the command authority of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard B. Myers.
Trying to armour it is like putting wheels on a bumblebee. Stupid............FRegards
And then there are those who want to politicize every death and create in the minds of the mothers of America the notion that it is above and beyond the call of duty to ride in an unarmored vehcle.
Shoultz is tied in with Hackworth. You have to wade through a lot of histrionics to get to the nuggets worth keeping.
Aren't M113s just as or more vulnerable to RPGs as Strykers?
Yep. Obviously whoever wrote this has never laid eyes on an M113. At least the Humvee is quicker. The -113 is slow and still thin-skinned. From what I've been reading the Strykers have been doing very well over there. One of them got hit with an IED, but it didn't totally demolish it and kill everyone inside like this article would have you believe.
One thing people fail to realize is just how cheap and effective an RPG is. They're powerful enough to knock the hell out of a Bradley. The only armored vehicle that's generally "safe" against it is the Abrams MBT. So unless we're going to perform all operations in the M-1 or armor everything we have to that standard, IEDs and RPGs will continue to be a problem. The enemy has tons of them, and, luckily, they can't shoot for sh*t. Not only that, but we're seizing massive weapons shipments on a fairly regular basis. We just have to keep widdling away at them.
There's supposed to be a next-gen Humvee coming out, maybe they can make engine, suspension, and armor adjustments to it so this won't be as big a problem anymore.
I wish we could have a vehicle "impervious" to IED/RPG fire. However, with advent of new Thermobaric round for RPG? I doubt we could do it.
The threat of sudden, violent death/dismemberment surely weighs on our troops. Just as it did to those of us who served in VN and our fathers/grandfathers before us. The injuries from such explosions are traumatic to survivors and demoralizing to those around them. Amputations. Prolonged rehab. Frequent trips to the VA. Prosthetic devices. All bode ill for the young GI...
Can such be prevented by "upgrading armor?" Time will tell...
There are some nuggets in here interspersed with the M113 sales pitches.
Yes.
Yes.
No.
To date, Stryker have taken hits from IEDs and RPGs that would have disabled or destroyed an APC. One Stryker has been lost to RPG fire with no loss of life.
No more succeptable than a Stryker, probably more resistant when fueled. Far more resistant than any configuration of Hummer
Aren't M113s just as or more vulnerable to RPGs as Strykers?
Late issue M113s should be more resistant to RPG than basic Stryker though I am not privy to test data and probably could not discuss it if I were. The 113 is a tough little outfit.
Is the maintenance infrastructure in place to deal with putting hundreds of miles a week on tracked vehicles?
This would require effort but IMHO a doable task. Consider the rapid destruciton of Hummers and look at the maintenance assets in Kuait plus the track maintenance assets already on hand and the task is not so overwhelming.
Driving around in humvees doesn't exactly project the air of an occupying force. They know these things can be easily taken out, and they aren't afraid of them.
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