Unknown when new Stryker armor will be available
High-tech equipment 'taking some time' in development
By Jeff Schogol, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Wednesday, September 21, 2005
ARLINGTON, Va. — New armor for the Army’s Stryker fighting vehicles is still being developed and it is not known when it will be made available, military officials said.
The equipment is “taking some time” in development, with the aim being to keep the weight down while maintaining effectiveness, said Col. Robert B. Brown, commander of the 1st Brigade 25th Infantry Division Stryker Brigade in Iraq.
The Army decided in 2003 that the Stryker should have “reactive armor,” a high-tech surface that explodes on impact deflecting the blast and the projectile.
Currently, “cage” armor, designed to protect Strykers from rocket propelled grenades, is effective but makes the vehicle as wide as an M1 tank, limiting its agility, Brown told Stars and Stripes on Sunday.
Strykers first saw combat in late 2003, in northern Iraq. Prior to deploying, the light-armored fighting vehicles were equipped with a cagelike “slat” armor designed to catch RPG rounds so they explode away from the vehicles.
But a December 2004 report from the Center for Army Lessons Learned found the add-on armor caused the Strykers to roll over and did not protect exposed personnel from RPG shrapnel.
Neither reactive armor nor slat armor protects exposed personnel. But the 25th ID helped develop the Combat Ballistic Shield, which goes around the back hatches and has a bullet-proof window for vision, said Brown.
In a Sunday e-mail, Brown rebutted the CALL report, saying his unit had experienced no rollovers due to the slat armor.
“The rollovers we had would have occurred with or without slat,” Brown wrote. “I believe some Stryker rollovers have occurred due to the slat being top heavy, but we have not experienced this as we learned from other units and practiced extensively with slat prior to the deployment.”
Still, the slat armor adds considerable bulk to the Stryker: about 2.5 tons and about 3 feet in width, according to published reports.
The reactive armor would add about 7,000 pounds but only 12 to 14 inches in width.
Reactive armor isn't such a good idea on a vehicle that is likely to have dismounted personnel standing around it, or people climbing around on the outside.