A nimble vehicle embodies Army's new tactics

But once in Iraq, vulnerability may be an issue

By Eli Sanders, Globe Correspondent, 9/7/2003

TACOMA, Wash. -- As members of the Army's new Stryker Brigade approached a mock town surrounded by evergreen trees, their signature combat vehicles hung back, trying to keep out of range of potential enemy fire.

These eight-wheeled, light-armored vehicles, known as Strykers, are the embodiment of the Army's multibillion-dollar effort to transform itself into a more mobile fighting force. Yet during the training exercise at Fort Lewis on Friday, the Strykers were relegated mainly to what commanders called "overwatching" roles, sitting at a safe distance from the town to avoid rocket-propelled grenades and other munitions.

With the Fort Lewis Stryker Brigade's roughly 5,000 soldiers set to deploy to Iraq in the next month or two, the vulnerabilities of the brigade's vehicles are raising questions about how well they are suited for an urban guerrilla warfare environment.

"This vehicle is not designed to be leading with its chin through the cities," said Major Chuck Hodges, executive officer for the Stryker battalion participating in the exercise. "When they create the M-1 tank that can drive 60 miles per hour and carry nine people in the back of it, I'll be looking forward to it. But right now that vehicle does not exist."

It was the lack of such a vehicle that led the Army to begin building the Strykers in the first place, said Army spokesman Lieutenant Cololonel Joe Piek. In 1990, when Iraq's invasion of Kuwait seemed to threaten Saudi Arabia's oil fields, the Army had to deploy the lightly armored 82nd Airborne. Anything with heavier armor would have taken too long to get to Saudi Arabia.

"What we didn't have before we had the Stryker was something we could deploy very rapidly and had sufficient lethality and mobility," Piek said. "The idea behind the brigade is to fill the gap between our light and heavy forces."

Strykers can move faster and can carry more troops than heavily armored Bradley fighting vehicles. They're also light enough and small enough to be loaded onto C-130 cargo planes, making them ideal for rapid deployment.

But a Stryker's light weight also makes it vulnerable to certain munitions. There are worries that the Stryker is too light for Iraq, where the issue is not so much rapid deployment as it is withstanding guerrilla assaults. The Army has found that some of the vehicles' armored panels are vulnerable to high-caliber rounds, and it has begun a program to replace them before the Fort Lewis brigade leaves.

In response to concerns about possible damage to the Strykers from the rocket-propelled grenades often used in attacks on American soldiers in Iraq, the Army has begun installing what it calls "slat armor." Slat armor is essentially a cage of hardened steel bars that surround the body of a Stryker. The intent is for rocket-propelled grenades to explode against the armor, before they hit the vehicle itself.

First Sergeant Robert Swift, 38, said he and other members of the first Stryker Brigade have been following the news of continuing US deaths in Iraq with concern.

"Of course we're all nervous, scared," he said. "If they don't say they're scared, they're lying."

As for his brigade's vehicles, which have never before seen battle, First Sergeant Swift said, "all vehicles have their vulnerabilities. It's how you employ those vehicles and use them to your advantage."

The Army plans to eventually have six Stryker Brigades.

Commanders say they plan to use the Strykers' advantage as platforms for the Army's latest communications and surveillance gear. They will be able to electronically track every Stryker in the field and send it instructions by e-mail. Heat sensors on the vehicles will allow troops to use .50-caliber machine guns and 40mm grenade launchers mounted on the roofs to hit distant targets that soldiers on the ground can't see.

Major Hodges argued that even with their light armor, the Strykers are far better protected than the Humvees and trucks that soldiers in Iraq now use.

And Lieutenant Colonel Buck James, who commanded the troops in the training exercise, said the focus on the vulnerabilities of the Stryker springs from an outdated understanding of the way the Army fights. Through the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, reconnaissance operations, and heat sensors, he said, the brigades will know what to expect ahead of time, obviating the need for a vehicle that can withstand hits stronger than expected.

"The greatest contribution of the Stryker," James said, "is going to be to give the Army is a cadre of young leaders who understand the new way to fight."