Strykers readying for first deployment

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, Oct. 15, 2003) -- The Army's newest vehicles are loaded on ships and ready for travel to Iraq in November.

Now Soldiers in the Army's first Stryker Brigade Combat Team -- the Fort Lewis, Wash.-based 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division -- just have to wait until early November for their flights to Kuwait on move into Iraq.

But waiting won’t be a big deal for Cpl. Jose Chavez because deploying to war is why he and the guys in his unit joined the Army, he said.

Chavez is an infantry team leader in 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, at Fort Lewis and joined the brigade a year ago just as it received the Stryker vehicles.

The low-intensity guerilla war the Army is fighting doesn’t concern Chavez or the men in his unit either, he said. Their training was always serious and “to standard,” but everything became even more serious after their deployment orders arrived, Chavez said.

The Army was concerned about the Rocket Propelled Grenade threat, what Chavez called the “enemy’s weapon of choice.”

So two new types of armor have been installed on the vehicles. The most obvious add-on to the discerning eye is called slat armor. It resembles a “bird cage” that will add three feet to the Stryker’s width, Chavez said.

The slat armor installed on the Strykers resembles a big catcher’s mask that wraps around the vehicle. The armor is basically a grill of wire mesh that will cause the RPG to detonate away from the vehicle.

“Therefore it loses its effectiveness,” said Peter Keating, a spokesman for General Dynamics, the chief contractor for the Stryker program.

Keating said that adding the slat armor prior to the brigade’s deployment would give the unit an “operational advantage” once it hits the ground in November.

That slat armor is only one step in the extra protection on the Stryker, though.

The Army has also installed ceramic tiles on the vehicles to give them the capability of stopping heavy machine gun rounds up to 14.5mm, said Keating. Depending on the model, up to 126 tiles could be installed, he said.

“That’s better protection than generally most armored vehicles of this type category have in the world today,” Keating said. “It’s a real advantage to have that.”

A metal plate has been added to the tile’s backside because a General Dynamics sub-contractor didn’t stick with the original design of the tiles, Keating said. The ceramic/metal plates will be replaced at a future date possibly during or after the deployment, he said.

Keating said the tiles will act the same as the ceramic plates most Soldiers are wearing in Iraq right now. Lightweight and durable, the added weight won’t affect the Stryker’s performance in Iraq because that weight was figured into its design, he said.

Plans are in the works to add another type of armor package to the inventory next spring, said Keating. That add-on armor is called “reactive armor.” Essentially that armor explodes when an RPG or other anti-tank round hits it, he said.

It’s already on M-2 Bradley fighting vehicles in Iraq right now, Keating said.

That reactive armor won’t always be on the Stryker, said Keating. It can be put on and taken off as a situation warrants, he said.

The idea for the slat armor isn’t new. “Historically that type of protection has been used as far back as Vietnam,” he said.

But developing and approval only took about six months, Keating said. The approval came in August, he said.

“It’s been live-fire tested and it’s been a real rapid response,” he said of the testing process.

When Operation Iraqi Freedom started, the unit was going through the first of its two evaluations for deployment. Those tests took place at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., and the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, La.

The situation on the ground in Iraq –- a low-intensity guerrilla war -- was envisioned by then Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki as only one of the environments a Stryker unit would be in, said Maj. Gary Tallman, Army spokesman at the Pentagon.

Shinseki also envisioned major theater wars and support-and-stability operations, also known as humanitarian missions, Tallman said.

The best way to see if the Army's first Stryker-equipped unit is ready to deploy is to look at the validation process the unit went through, Tallman said.

The unit went through what Tallman said was "a full spectrum of training events" before it was certified ready for deployment.

Training included simulating a major theater war, small-scale contingencies and stability and support operations.

All of those events, from the desert environs of Fort Irwin and the restricted, urban-like terrain of Fort Polk, has helped ready the Stryker relatively quickly for deployment, Tallman said.

All of that field time before and after the evaluations was “unbelievable” but necessary, he said.

They heard rumors about deploying to Iraq when they were in California and were disappointed when they didn’t go right away, he said. But that doesn’t matter now, he said, they’re going and can’t wait to hit the ground.

Well, you've hit on the main point of the vehicle. The Stryker is NOT a fighting vehicle. The vehicle exists to move the squad, not the squad for the vehicle like the Bradley.

That venetian blind RPG armor that you are so contemptuous of is the best that can be made for the weight of it. Is it perfect? Of course not, but we lost a few Abrams to RPGs during the war, too. Would you prefer to use the reactive armor that weighs even more, which would reduce mobility? The limitations of reactive armor are the same as the slat armor, and it's heavier. True, the best would be a combination of both, but the vehicle can't have unlimited weight.

The difference is tactical. Name a vehicle that can be dismounted 200 miles from the AO at a secure airfield and can get to there in 4 hours, with the soldiers inside still ready to fight and not fatigued from having their dental fillings rattled loose. I've ridden in Bradleys, M113s and Strykers. The Stryker ride is far superior. Will it do everything a Bradley can? No. Can a Bradley carry a 9 man squad? Not the last time I was in one.

That said, the vehicle cannot be used like a Bradley. The Bradley is actually used like a grounded HIND helicopter: it's a light tank that carries a few troops. The emphasis is on the vehicle, not the squad. With the Stryker, the emphasis and therefore the tactics, training and doctrine need to be different, and based once more on the squad.

The Marines use the LAV-25, which is a roughly similar (true it has the M242 Bushmaster on it, which allows a greater standoff range), and has significantly less armor on it, because they felt that the maneuver advantage was more important. The Marines will only use the add on armor for stuff like Embassy evacs or other stationary things, where mobility and speed aren't so important. If they lost any in Iraq, it was only a couple.

Sorry fellows. It is true that I am abysmally ignorant of the Army doctrine which will govern the Stryker's use. I am also glad to hear of its successful use by the Canadians in Afghanistan. I wonder if they are using the same mods, however.

My real question is: How is this unit better than the upgraded M113? If we are going to use a wheeled troop taxi, why not use the excellent German unit? We could buy more of them. And they would fit 2 inside a C-130, of which I am most assuredly not ignorant.

I can well see the rationale for a vehicle somewhere between a Humvee and the Bradley for moving a squad around behind the lines. It just seems to me that this Stryker is almost as vulnerable to ambush as a Humvee, is not much of an improvement over the Marine LAV, and is phenomenally expensive for something that, if wrongly employed, can obviously be chopped to ribbons by widely distributed and cheap COMBLOC infantry weapons.

Since the vehicle is going to be in the hands of the fighting men very soon, I guess I'll get their opinions firsthand. I remember the long, painful development of the Bradley, which was finally developed to the point where it has served very well. I would be overjoyed if the Stryker could serve as well, too. I think the Army is making too many claims for it.

But it is possible to be ignorant and highly, even if not rightly, suspicious.

The Canadian LAV III in use in Afghanistan is the vehicle upon which the Stryker is based. It has a turret and a 25mm gun, thinner armor, lighter weight, better mobility.

Many people will tell you it is not better than an upgraded M113. It is indisputably faster on hard surface roads than any M113.

What German vehicle? Fox? I believe a small number of Fox NBC Reconnaissance Vehicles are part of the 3rd BDE, 2ID SBCT. The Stryker NBC Recon variant is not yet ready.

14 July, 2003

Kabul, Afghanistan

Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment (2 RCR), dismount a LAV III (Light Armoured Vehicle) at their camp in Kabul, Afghanistan.

The troops are some of the first arrivals for Operation ATHENA, Canada's contribution to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul.

Canada will contribute about 1,900 troops to the mission in the Afghan capital later this summer, making the Canadian contingent the second largest in ISAF. Currently this mission involves about 5,000 troops from 29 nations.

Photo by Sgt Frank Hudec, Canadian Forces Combat Camera

The German Fuchs 6-wheeled armored car is a very solid unit, utilized in some US units as the M93 NBC recon detection and analysis vehicle that can take samples of suspect contamination and test them, then report the results without exterior exposure to the crews. That's a heck of an asset to have going for us.

The bad news, they're not C130 transportable; too wide for one thing, and overly heavy in the better armoured and armed versions. The German border patrol [Bundesgrenzschutz used some with 20mm automatic cannon before the iron curtain came down, and have now refitted some serving with IFOR/KFOR/SFOR in the former Yugoslavia with a dual-feed 25mm or 30mm automatic gun, though a .308 MG3 light machinegun is more common. There's an 8-wheeled even heavier version of the family known as the luchs more usually utilized for the heavily armed role, and there was a light 4-wheeled version planned but never built.

Since they're a 6-wheeler, they only have the front two wheels steering [like a 2.5-ton truck], and they're a bit too short for a two-man crew plus a full 9-man squad inside. They're excellent as a wheeled recon vehicle or in their NBC recon role, a wheeled AT rocket launcher platform, or as airfield defense vehicles or something a little better than a Humvee for MPs working road intersection roadblocks. But I don't believe they're amphibious, And their off-road performance is limited, especially in snow, sand or mud.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.