Report cites problems with Stryker vehicles

ARLINGTON, Va. — Soldiers assigned to the first Stryker combat brigade have reported numerous problems with the vehicle in Iraq, including add-on armor’s tendency to cause rollovers while not protecting troops from rocket-propelled grenades; nonfunctioning computer systems and wheels that need constant attention, according to an internal Army study.

The study, first reported on Thursday by The Washington Post, was generated by the Center for Army Lessons Learned at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

CALL officials sent a team to Iraq in September to interview soldiers assigned to the Stryker Brigade Combat Team 1, the 3rd Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division.

CALL released the results of the team’s efforts, the “Initial Impressions Report — Operations in Mosul, Iraq,” to an internal Army audience on Dec. 21.

The report covers topics from the effectiveness of the brigade’s Family Readiness Group to the Stryker itself, one of the Army’s centerpiece “transformational” systems.

The Army plans to have six Stryker Brigade Combat Teams, or SBCTs, in place by 2008. Three are already completed: the 3/2 Infantry Division; the 25th Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade from Fort Lewis, Wash.; and part of the 173rd Infantry Brigade in Alaska.

Many of the deficiencies in the report, such as with the add-on “bird-cage” slat armor, seat belts that are too short; and various crew-training issues also came up during a Dec. 20 Stryker roundtable with Pentagon reporters.

Those and other Stryker issues are being addressed, Army officials said.

“I don’t think there’s a single item [in the report] that we weren’t already working on before” the document was issued, Steve Campbell, the Army’s systems coordinator for the Stryker program, said in a Thursday interview with reporters in reaction to the report’s release.

But the report adds details, particularly the armor’s failure to deflect two weapons popular with insurgents: anti-personnel RPGs and anti-tank RPGs.

While the armor works well against high-explosive anti-tank, or “HEAT” rounds, when the other two kinds of RPGs hit, “the shrapnel continues to move through the slat and hits exposed personnel,” the report says.

The armor, which adds 5,000 pounds to the Stryker’s 19-ton basic weight, is also “causing multiple problems associated with the safety and operation of the vehicle,” the report says.

The Stryker is now so heavy that crews must check tire pressure three times a day and mechanics are changing nine tires each day on the fleet of 311 vehicles, the report says.

In fact, the change-out rate is more like 11 or 12 tires for the deployed fleet, Maj. Gen. Stephen Speakes, the Army’s director of force development, said Thursday.

But “that’s less than 0.5 percent tires per day” for the entire fleet, Speakes said — not bad, considering the fact that “these vehicles are going 60 miles per hour … and they are not stopping for anything, including curbs” and other obstacles, he said.

Another problem identified in the report is that the Stryker’s computers can overheat. The Army has approved adding air conditioning to the vehicles, but funding has not yet been approved, the report notes.

However, commanders’ vehicles, where the most sophisticated and numerous computers are installed, “already have climate control,” Speakes countered.

Air conditioning units are now being installed in the Stryker brigade’s 16 medical evacuation vehicles, he said.

Another issue identified in the report is the inability of the Stryker’s primary offensive weapon system, which is either a grenade launcher or a heavy machine gun, to hit targets when the vehicle is moving.

The Stryker wasn’t designed to fire on the move, Speakes said, but soldier feedback from Iraq has convinced the Army to add the capability, using a “remote weapons system,” to the Stryker starting with the fifth brigade in the summer of 2006.

Older Strykers will be also be retrofitted with the system, which will allow soldiers to fire the machine guns accurately when the vehicle is moving up to 25 miles per hour, he said.

“Nothing [in the report] surprised me, and all of it was useful,” Speakes said.

But Eric Miller, a military program analyst with the Washington-based Project on Government Oversight, or POGO, said the report’s conclusions were disappointing.

“We’re talking about a $4 million-a-pop vehicle,” Miller said in a Thursday telephone interview. “It should do what it’s designed to do.”

During the Dec. 20 roundtable, Lt. Col. Steven Townsend, commander of the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, defended the Stryker’s fielding, problems and all.

“Soldiers know this vehicle is not perfect,” Townsend said. “But they do know and believe it’s the best vehicle available, and they have it to use today.”

Miller agreed that the Stryker has had value in Iraq, despite its flaws.

“It’s obviously safer than driving around in an up-armored Humvee,” Miller said.

To read the complete report, go to www.pogo.org/m/dp/dp-StrykerBrigade-12212004.pdf.