thedrifter
08-09-03, 05:22 AM
08-06-2003
Guest Column: Into Harm’s Way with the Stryker
By Lonnie Shoultz
Despite the fact that it lacks its main weapon and has yet to be certified as a combat unit, the Fort Lewis-based “Stryker Brigade” will deploy on what amounts to a combat mission in Iraq in two months.
The announcement on July 23 by Acting Chief of Staff Gen. John Keane came as part of an overall Army plan to rotate the units stationed in Iraq since the start of the war for fresh units from the United States and Europe. Since Keane did not announce any lessening of the operational tempo for Army units in the Balkans, Afghanistan and elsewhere, his unit rotation plan was vague at its very best – a mixture of fact, fiction and fantasy.
Under the rotation plan, the Fort Lewis brigade will deploy to Iraq in October 2003, overlapping with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment for 5-6 months, after which the cavalry unit will return to the United States. The Stryker Brigade will remain in Iraq for 12 months, Keane announced.
Keane also announced assignments sending two “enhanced readiness brigades” from the Army National Guard to Iraq (see Keane’s “Army Update” presentation posted at SFTT.org). Army officials on July 26 announced that the 30th Infantry Brigade from North Carolina and the 39th Infantry Brigade from Arkansas have been alerted to deploy to Iraq. The 30th Infantry Brigade will be augmented with an infantry battalion from the 27th Infantry Brigade, New York ARNG. The 39th Infantry Brigade will be augmented with an infantry battalion from the 41st Infantry Brigade, Oregon ARNG.
The deployment of the Stryker brigade may come closer to fantasy than the two National Guard brigades, which at least can be expected to have their full suite of weapons.
As one who has watched carefully over the past three years the Army’s tortuous efforts to develop the eight-wheeled “Stryker” vehicle, the news that the Fort Lewis brigade has been earmarked for occupation duty in Iraq is shocking and disheartening. It reconfirms the fact that the operational tempo of the 1990s and post-9/11 era – combined with the Clinton administration’s rash force cuts – has bled the Army white. This also indicates that the current Army leadership is indifferent to the dangers in which it is placing the unit’s 3,600 troops.
What is rash about deploying the Stryker Brigade to Iraq? Plenty.
The main firepower intended to allow the Stryker Brigade to break through an ambush or to knock out a bunker stopping its infantry is the Main Gun System (MGS). The primary contractor for the Stryker Brigade, General Dynamics, claims to have built eight of the guns but the company has refused to release any data other than to confirm that the guns are not ready for deployment because they cannot be fired off the centerline of the Stryker vehicle. (If a target is directly in front of the MGS it can fire a round. If the barrel of the gun must be rotated to either side if the center line of the weapons carrier, firing the gun can flip the carrier over and render it unusable.)
Nobody in the U.S. defense industry seems to be surprised at the failure of General Dynamics to deliver the MGS. After all, the company has yet to deliver the armored gun system that it contracted to build for the Army in the 1980s.
When it became apparent that General Dynamics didn’t have a clue about the terminal date for building and delivering the MGS to the Stryker Brigade, the Army’s first alternate plan was to use a 106-mm recoilless rifle as a replacement. When it was determined that the back-blast from the 106 might do great harm to the men and other Strykers in the vicinity, Army officials approved a plan to use instead a TOW missile launcher that could be used for close-in fighting.
It is apparent that Keane and those on the Army staff who assisted him are not veterans of urban warfare where the buildings, vehicles, targets and infantry are all operating very close together. Shooting a TOW missile into that environment is liable to kill more of our troops than the enemy. The resulting shell and other blast fragments are also certain to cut the tires off any Stryker vehicles nearby.
Nor is the Main Gun System the only problem. The Stryker is an overweight, vehicle with insufficient internal space for the infantrymen packed into the rear troop compartment. Unofficial reports indicate it is so tight that those inside cannot even take out their canteens for a drink of water.
And its armor is dangerously ineffective: The armor plating on the top of the vehicle might stop a 7.62-mm round, but the thin armor behind the eight big wheels will not stop anything. Since the front four of the Stryker’s eight wheels are used for steering, there cannot be any RPG skirts attached to that area or they will impede the movement of the steering wheels, nor can the builder add appliqué armor to its upper sections if an airlift is anticipated. Add-on armor of any type adds too much weight for this thing to be flown on the Air Force C-130.
That airlift capability was a prime selling point Shinseki used for gaining Congress’ approval for these brigades.
It became apparent from the time the bids were announced that Shinseki intended the new vehicle to be a wheeled armored car. He told the story in a speech with President Clinton’s Secretary of the Army, Louis Caldera, of watching a Russian armored car beat our forces to the Pristina Airport in Kosovo because it was so much faster on a highway.
That tortured reasoning deserves a response. If Shinseki were such a keen observer of the Russian Army, he would know that when they operated their tracked tanks and wheeled armored cars in Afghanistan from 1979 until 1986, they lost 147 tracked tanks and 1,314 wheeled armored personnel carriers.
That doesn’t indicate that the speed gained on a highway by wheeled armor is a good exchange for a tracked vehicle that is more survivable and can go cross-country to a fight. A wheeled vehicle cannot operate on rough, muddy, rocky or slippery terrain. And if you cannot get to a fight, you cannot win it.
The Stryker will find itself confined to the roads or rolling meadows. A tracked vehicle can close with and kill the enemy wherever he chooses to hide.
Shinseki also promised Congress that his light armored brigade would be “off the shelf” units that could deploy anywhere in the world on Air Force C-130s in 96 hours, arriving ready to fight. On March 15, 2001, the Air Force sent the Army its guidelines for vehicles allowed to fly in C-130s.
The guidelines cautioned the Army, “The design of combat vehicles for C-130 transport should be based upon the operational limitations, not on the maximum capabilities, of the aircraft… This means combat vehicles (including armor, fuel, ammunition, equipment and crew) weighing 29,000 to 32,000 pounds that can roll off the aircraft ready to fight.” As of now, the Stryker is only barely deployable by the C-130 "J" model, which constitutes only 10 percent of the Air Force’s C-130 fleet.
Unarmed, overweight and poorly armored, the Stryker is about to enter the Iraqi guerilla war. Say a prayer for the soldiers of the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division.
Lonnie Shoultz is a former Special Agent with the U.S. Treasury Department who served in combat in Vietnam with the 101st Airborne Division and 5th Special Forces Group, where he received the Purple Heart medal on several occasions. He can be reached at lshoultz@gulftel.com.
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=DefenseWatch.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=161&rnd=862.4039905522798
Sempers,
Roger
:marine:
Guest Column: Into Harm’s Way with the Stryker
By Lonnie Shoultz
Despite the fact that it lacks its main weapon and has yet to be certified as a combat unit, the Fort Lewis-based “Stryker Brigade” will deploy on what amounts to a combat mission in Iraq in two months.
The announcement on July 23 by Acting Chief of Staff Gen. John Keane came as part of an overall Army plan to rotate the units stationed in Iraq since the start of the war for fresh units from the United States and Europe. Since Keane did not announce any lessening of the operational tempo for Army units in the Balkans, Afghanistan and elsewhere, his unit rotation plan was vague at its very best – a mixture of fact, fiction and fantasy.
Under the rotation plan, the Fort Lewis brigade will deploy to Iraq in October 2003, overlapping with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment for 5-6 months, after which the cavalry unit will return to the United States. The Stryker Brigade will remain in Iraq for 12 months, Keane announced.
Keane also announced assignments sending two “enhanced readiness brigades” from the Army National Guard to Iraq (see Keane’s “Army Update” presentation posted at SFTT.org). Army officials on July 26 announced that the 30th Infantry Brigade from North Carolina and the 39th Infantry Brigade from Arkansas have been alerted to deploy to Iraq. The 30th Infantry Brigade will be augmented with an infantry battalion from the 27th Infantry Brigade, New York ARNG. The 39th Infantry Brigade will be augmented with an infantry battalion from the 41st Infantry Brigade, Oregon ARNG.
The deployment of the Stryker brigade may come closer to fantasy than the two National Guard brigades, which at least can be expected to have their full suite of weapons.
As one who has watched carefully over the past three years the Army’s tortuous efforts to develop the eight-wheeled “Stryker” vehicle, the news that the Fort Lewis brigade has been earmarked for occupation duty in Iraq is shocking and disheartening. It reconfirms the fact that the operational tempo of the 1990s and post-9/11 era – combined with the Clinton administration’s rash force cuts – has bled the Army white. This also indicates that the current Army leadership is indifferent to the dangers in which it is placing the unit’s 3,600 troops.
What is rash about deploying the Stryker Brigade to Iraq? Plenty.
The main firepower intended to allow the Stryker Brigade to break through an ambush or to knock out a bunker stopping its infantry is the Main Gun System (MGS). The primary contractor for the Stryker Brigade, General Dynamics, claims to have built eight of the guns but the company has refused to release any data other than to confirm that the guns are not ready for deployment because they cannot be fired off the centerline of the Stryker vehicle. (If a target is directly in front of the MGS it can fire a round. If the barrel of the gun must be rotated to either side if the center line of the weapons carrier, firing the gun can flip the carrier over and render it unusable.)
Nobody in the U.S. defense industry seems to be surprised at the failure of General Dynamics to deliver the MGS. After all, the company has yet to deliver the armored gun system that it contracted to build for the Army in the 1980s.
When it became apparent that General Dynamics didn’t have a clue about the terminal date for building and delivering the MGS to the Stryker Brigade, the Army’s first alternate plan was to use a 106-mm recoilless rifle as a replacement. When it was determined that the back-blast from the 106 might do great harm to the men and other Strykers in the vicinity, Army officials approved a plan to use instead a TOW missile launcher that could be used for close-in fighting.
It is apparent that Keane and those on the Army staff who assisted him are not veterans of urban warfare where the buildings, vehicles, targets and infantry are all operating very close together. Shooting a TOW missile into that environment is liable to kill more of our troops than the enemy. The resulting shell and other blast fragments are also certain to cut the tires off any Stryker vehicles nearby.
Nor is the Main Gun System the only problem. The Stryker is an overweight, vehicle with insufficient internal space for the infantrymen packed into the rear troop compartment. Unofficial reports indicate it is so tight that those inside cannot even take out their canteens for a drink of water.
And its armor is dangerously ineffective: The armor plating on the top of the vehicle might stop a 7.62-mm round, but the thin armor behind the eight big wheels will not stop anything. Since the front four of the Stryker’s eight wheels are used for steering, there cannot be any RPG skirts attached to that area or they will impede the movement of the steering wheels, nor can the builder add appliqué armor to its upper sections if an airlift is anticipated. Add-on armor of any type adds too much weight for this thing to be flown on the Air Force C-130.
That airlift capability was a prime selling point Shinseki used for gaining Congress’ approval for these brigades.
It became apparent from the time the bids were announced that Shinseki intended the new vehicle to be a wheeled armored car. He told the story in a speech with President Clinton’s Secretary of the Army, Louis Caldera, of watching a Russian armored car beat our forces to the Pristina Airport in Kosovo because it was so much faster on a highway.
That tortured reasoning deserves a response. If Shinseki were such a keen observer of the Russian Army, he would know that when they operated their tracked tanks and wheeled armored cars in Afghanistan from 1979 until 1986, they lost 147 tracked tanks and 1,314 wheeled armored personnel carriers.
That doesn’t indicate that the speed gained on a highway by wheeled armor is a good exchange for a tracked vehicle that is more survivable and can go cross-country to a fight. A wheeled vehicle cannot operate on rough, muddy, rocky or slippery terrain. And if you cannot get to a fight, you cannot win it.
The Stryker will find itself confined to the roads or rolling meadows. A tracked vehicle can close with and kill the enemy wherever he chooses to hide.
Shinseki also promised Congress that his light armored brigade would be “off the shelf” units that could deploy anywhere in the world on Air Force C-130s in 96 hours, arriving ready to fight. On March 15, 2001, the Air Force sent the Army its guidelines for vehicles allowed to fly in C-130s.
The guidelines cautioned the Army, “The design of combat vehicles for C-130 transport should be based upon the operational limitations, not on the maximum capabilities, of the aircraft… This means combat vehicles (including armor, fuel, ammunition, equipment and crew) weighing 29,000 to 32,000 pounds that can roll off the aircraft ready to fight.” As of now, the Stryker is only barely deployable by the C-130 "J" model, which constitutes only 10 percent of the Air Force’s C-130 fleet.
Unarmed, overweight and poorly armored, the Stryker is about to enter the Iraqi guerilla war. Say a prayer for the soldiers of the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division.
Lonnie Shoultz is a former Special Agent with the U.S. Treasury Department who served in combat in Vietnam with the 101st Airborne Division and 5th Special Forces Group, where he received the Purple Heart medal on several occasions. He can be reached at lshoultz@gulftel.com.
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=DefenseWatch.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=161&rnd=862.4039905522798
Sempers,
Roger
:marine: