Posted on 09/05/2003 6:05:45 PM PDT by centurion316
Seattle Times September 5, 2003
Problems With Armor Found On Stryker Combat Vehicle
By Ray Rivera and Hal Bernton, Seattle Times staff reporters
Weeks before the Army's Stryker vehicle is scheduled to make its combat debut in Iraq, the Army has discovered manufacturing problems in some of its armor plating that could make it vulnerable to heavy machine-gun fire, according to Army officials familiar with the program.
The extent of the problem is still unknown, but it's serious enough that Army officials have launched a crash program to test the plates at their Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland. They are hopeful it won't delay deployment of troops from Fort Lewis, said two Army officials at the Pentagon, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Small manufacturing deviations are not uncommon, but "because this is armor plating and a survivability issue, it's much more serious," one of the officials said. "This one got farther down the road than we would normally like."
The 19-ton wheeled troop carriers are the cornerstone of the Stryker combat team, the first step in the Army's ambitious, billion-dollar transformation initiative to produce a more nimble, lethal fighting force.
The first unit, the 3rd Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division, which has about 300 Stryker vehicles, is in its final training exercises at Fort Lewis before its scheduled October deployment.
Army officials said the unit would not be deployed until all of the faulty plates could be identified and replaced or fortified with 3-mm armor backing.
"We're very careful when it comes to the survivability of armored vehicles," said one of the Army officials.
The Stryker vehicles rely on 132 separate ceramic plates designed to protect against rounds up to 14.5 mm, slightly bigger than a .50-caliber bullet.
But Army procurement officials recently found that the military subcontractor hired to provide the armor deviated widely from specifications, providing 39 manufacturing variations of the plates, the sources said. The Army had approved only six variations.
Testers at Aberdeen found that at least one variation of the armor could not stop a 14.5-mm round, the Army officials said. The armor's supplier, German military contractor IBD, could not be reached for comment yesterday.
The Army has tested at least seven additional variations in live fire trials, all of which held, the sources said.
General Dynamics, the Army's lead contractor for the vehicle, has delivered more than 500 Stryker vehicles, equipped with more than 66,000 plates. General Dynamics has a $4 billion contract to produce 2,100 vehicles over the next six years.
Army officials said finding and replacing faulty armor plates won't be a problem because each has a serial number and is logged in a database.
The Army will not begin replacing armor on the 3rd Brigade's 300 vehicles until at least Sept. 14, when the unit completes training, the officials said.
The Stryker combat teams, which have about 3,600 soldiers, were conceived in 1999 by former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki with the idea of closing the gap between the Army's slow-moving heavy tank units and its light infantry forces, which are quick to deploy but have limited firepower.
The vehicles come in two variants: a mobile gun system, which is still under development, and an armored trooper carrier, which can quickly ferry up to 11 soldiers into combat zones. The troop carriers, in turn, come in eight variations, including mortar carriers, command and control vehicles, reconnaissance and medivac vehicles.
Six brigades are under development, the first two at Fort Lewis.
A source of concern has been the vehicle's vulnerability to rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), which have been widely used by Iraqi guerrilla forces.
The Army is planning to equip the vehicles with slat-armor, creating a sort of umbrella designed to detonate incoming grenades before they make direct contact with the vehicle.
So, as I understand you, if the Germans were to become more recalcitrant, insolent and insubordinate than usual, we would still have the tooling and the production line [for the 120mm gun, for example] right here in the goood old USA - correct? That's better than the defective ceramic armor - which, from the sound of it, appeared to involve a vendor in Germany.
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