For those whom advocate wheeled APCs... food for
thought...
Study Faults Army Vehicle
Use of Transport in Iraq Puts Troops at Risk, Internal Report
Says
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Thursday, March 31, 2005;
The Army has deployed a new troop transport vehicle in Iraq with
many defects, putting troops there at unexpected risk from
rocket-propelled grenades and raising questions about the vehicle's
development and $11 billion cost, according to a detailed critique
in a classified Army study obtained by The Washington Post.
The vehicle is known as the Stryker, and 311 of the lightly
armored, wheeled vehicles have been ferrying U.S. soldiers around
northern Iraq since October 2003. The Army has been ebullient about
the vehicle's success there, with Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the
Army chief of staff, telling the House Armed Services Committee
last month that "we're absolutely enthusiastic about what the
Stryker has done."
Soldiers emerge from a Stryker during a battle with insurgents in
Mosul, Iraq, in February. An Army study criticizes the vehicle's
performance. (Jim Macmillan -- AP)
But the Army's Dec. 21 report, drawn from confidential interviews
with operators of the vehicle in Iraq in the last quarter of 2004,
lists a catalogue of complaints about the vehicle, including design
flaws, inoperable gear and maintenance problems that are "getting
worse not better." Although many soldiers in the field say they
like the vehicle, the Army document, titled "Initial Impressions
Report -- Operations in Mosul, Iraq," makes clear that the
vehicle's military performance has fallen short.
The internal criticism of the vehicle appears likely to fuel new
controversy over the Pentagon's decision in 2003 to deploy the
Stryker brigade in Iraq just a few months after the end of major
combat operations, before the vehicle had been rigorously tested
for use across a full spectrum of combat.
The report states, for example, that an armoring shield installed
on Stryker vehicles to protect against unanticipated attacks by
Iraqi insurgents using low-tech weapons works against half the
grenades used to assault it. The shield, installed at a base in
Kuwait, is so heavy that tire pressure must be checked three times
daily. Nine tires a day are changed after failing, the report says;
the Army told The Post the current figure is "11 tire and wheel
assemblies daily."
"The additional weight significantly impacts the handling and
performance during the rainy season," says the report, which was
prepared for the Center for Army Lessons Learned in Fort
Leavenworth, Kan. "Mud appeared to cause strain on the engine, the
drive shaft and the differentials," none of which was designed to
carry the added armor.
Commanders' displays aboard the vehicles are poorly designed and do
not work; none of the 100 display units in Iraq are being used
because of "design and functionality shortfalls," the report
states. The vehicle's computers are too slow and overheat in desert
temperatures or freeze up at critical moments, such as "when large
units are moving at high speeds simultaneously" and overwhelm its
sensors.
The main weapon system, a $157,000 grenade launcher, fails to hit
targets when the vehicle is moving, contrary to its design, the
report states. Its laser designator, zoom, sensors, stabilizer and
rotating speed all need redesign; it does not work at night; and
its console display is in black and white although "a typical
warning is to watch for a certain color automobile," the report
says. Some crews removed part of the launchers because they can
swivel dangerously toward the squad leader's position.
The vehicle's seat belts cannot be readily latched when troops are
in their armored gear, a circumstance that contributed to the
deaths of three soldiers in rollover accidents, according to the
report. On the vehicle's outside, some crews have put sand-filled
tin cans around a gunner's hatch that the report says is
ill-protected.
Eric Miller, senior defense investigator at the independent Project
on Government Oversight, which obtained a copy of the internal Army
report several weeks ago, said the critique shows that "the
Pentagon hasn't yet learned that using the battlefield as a testing
ground costs lives, not just spiraling dollars."
Asked about the report, Army officials who direct the Stryker
program said they are working to fix some flaws; they also said
they were unaware of some of the defects identified in the
critique. "We're very proud of the Stryker team," said Lt. Col.
Frederick J. Gellert, chief of the Army's Stryker Brigade Combat
Team Integration Branch in Washington, but "it hasn't been
something that's problem-divorced."
According to the latest Army figures, 17 soldiers in the Stryker
combat brigade have died in Iraq in 157 bomb explosions, but no
delineation is made for those who perished inside the vehicle and
those who were standing outside it; an additional five soldiers
have died in two rollovers. No current figure was provided for
those who perished in grenade attacks, although one officer said he
thought it was fewer than a handful.
Neither the lessons-learned report nor more recent Army data state
how many soldiers have been wounded while inside the vehicle. The
report states that in one case, a soldier was struck by shrapnel
that penetrated both the vehicle's armor and his own body armor; in
another case, an entire crew escaped with minor injuries after a
vehicle sustained nine grenade hits.
The criticisms of the Stryker's first performance in combat seem
likely to give new arguments to critics of the Army's decision in
1999 to move away from more heavily armored vehicles that move on
metal tracks and embrace a generation of lighter, more comfortable
vehicles operated at higher speed on rubber tires.
Senior Army officers in Iraq, like those at the Pentagon, have been
surprised by the intensity of hostilities there since mid-2003, and
lately some officers have said they depend on heavy armor to
protect their soldiers in urban warfare, even though tanks in Iraq
have also suffered unexpected damage.
But Maj. Gen. Stephen M. Speakes, the Army's director of force
development, said that when he rode in the Stryker for the first
time, he "marveled at how much nicer it was" than riding in a
Bradley vehicle or an older troop transport, the M113, which he
likened to being inside an aluminum trash can being beaten by a
hammer. He said the Stryker was "amazingly smooth" and quiet by
comparison.
In a report completed at the time of deployment, the Pentagon's
operational test and evaluation office rated the Stryker vehicles
sent to Iraq "effective and survivable only with limitations for
use in small-scale contingencies." Congressional auditors at the
General Accounting Office in December 2003 said the first brigade
"did not consistently demonstrate its capabilities, indicating both
strengths and weaknesses."
Independent groups and a loose-knit group of retired Army officers
who dislike the Stryker vehicle have alleged that the Stryker's
2003 deployment was motivated partly by the desire of the Army and
the manufacturer, General Dynamics, to build congressional support
for buying additional brigades. But Speakes said that was nonsense
and that the brigade was deployed in Iraq simply because the Army
needed it.
Researchers Bob Lyford and Madonna Lebling contributed to this
report.
