Stryking Out

[POA]

Weekend Edition
April 24 / 25, 2004
Stryking Out
A General, GM and the Army's Latest Tank

By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR

On December 10, two Strykers, the Army's newest armored personnel carrier, were patrolling near Balad, Iraq, when the embankment beneath them collapsed and the vehicles plunged into a rain-swollen river. Three soldiers died and another was severely injured. Three days later, another Stryker rolled over a roadside bomb south of Baghdad. The explosion left one soldier injured and the vehicle in flames.

It was an inglorious combat debut for the Army's first new personnel carrier in thirty years. But it confirmed the worst fears of some of the Stryker's critics that the vehicle is unsafe and its crews untrained for using it in combat conditions. One former Pentagon analyst described the 8-wheeled vehicle as "riding in dune buggy armored in tinfoil."

The Stryker Interim Armored Vehicle is billed as the Pentagon's latest weapon in its new high-tech Army, a fast moving carrier designed for the urban battlefield and unconventional wars. This fall the Army deployed 300 Stryker vehicles and 3,500 soldiers to Iraq's notorious Sunni Triangle, the Iowa-sized area in central Iraq where the most intense guerrilla fighting is taking place.

But new documents reveal that Pentagon weapons testers had expressed serious reservations about the whether the Strykers were ready for battle. The Pentagon's chief weapons tester, Tom Christie, warned in a classified letter to the Secretary of the Defense that the Stryker is especially vulnerable to rocket-propelled grenades and improvised explosive devices. These are, of course, precisely the kinds of threats faced by the Stryker brigades now in Iraq.

Advertised as rapid deployment vehicles, the Stryker brigades could in theory be rushed anywhere in the world within 96 hours by C-130 transport planes. But numerous internal studies have questioned whether the Stryker can be deployed by C-130s at all. Moreover, a newly released Government Accounting Office report scolded the Pentagon for a host of other problems with the carrier, which was meant to replace the much-maligned Bradley Fighting Vehicle. The GAO report points to serious problems with the Stryker's design and maintenance and discloses deficiencies in training for its use.

Even Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wanted to delay funding of additional Stryker brigades until more testing and training could be completed. But congress, ever an anxious to spread the pork around to as many districts as possible, didn't heed the warning and approved the additional purchases.

The Stryker is a joint venture of two of the mightiest industrial corporations in America: General Dynamics and General Motors. These companies waged a fierce two-year long lobbying battle, stretching from Capitol Hill to the halls of the Pentagon, to win the $4 billion contract to build 2,131 Strykers, which was awarded in November 2000.

The first Strykers, which cost $3 million a piece, rolled off the assembly line in April 2002. Presiding over the ceremony at the Stryker rollout in Alabama was former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki. The Stryker was a key component in Shinseki's plan to upgrade the Army, a scheme he outlined in a 1999 paper titled "Army Vision." In that report, Shinseki called for the development of an interim armored brigade featuring "all-wheel formation". This was a thinly veiled hint that the contract would be awarded to General Dynamics. The Stryker is a wheeled carrier, as opposed to the tank-like vehicles built by United Defense which run on tracks.

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[Ropegun]

This seems fairly typical. When ever th military fields somehting new, teething problems occur.

Whether or not these 2 instances are teething problems, I'd probably say they are not. One of these Strykers rolled over a bomb, yet only one crewman was injured. I'd be satisfied if I was in it. Nobody died.

The other one was from a rollover due to an embankments collapsing. This is not the fault of the vehicle. Operator error maybe, but not the vehicle.

The same things were said about the M2/M3 Bradley when it came out, and the AH-64 Apache as well. Both have proven pretty capable and robust in combat. I think crews would tell you they have confidence that their equipment is good. That is, when they have it.

So, I think the real question is whether or not the Army actually needed these vehicles in the first place. Maybe the Brads are getting worn out. M113s have been phased out pretty much, though we had those things forever it seemed. But new toys are what the generals are always after.

And this is why I said in another thread that civilian oversight of the procurement process is necessary. If the Brads still function, and are'nt falling apart under their crews, no new vehicle is needed. So why spend the money?

Just my thoughts.

Peace.