Recent Stryker losses

[akd]

Bringing home slain soldiers a somber duty

The most recent call brought six names, six numbers – an entire squad, save one soldier, wiped out in Sunday’s Stryker bombing in Baqouba.

<a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/070513/21soldier.htm" target="_blank">"Today, Darrell has come home on his shield."

</a>

One of those casualties was Darrell Griffin, felled by a sniper's bullet on March 21, 2007, while patrolling in Sadr City. He was fatally shot while standing in the hatch of a Stryker armored vehicle. I interviewed him on March 3, 10 days before his 36th birthday, at a forward operating base near the town of Iskandariyah, 35 miles south of the city where he was killed. The desert sun was bright, and he wore a pair of dark glasses, which covered his eyes but couldn't conceal a spasmodic muscle tic in his face. He was quite self-conscious about the tic, he confessed, but shrugged it off. "That's what happens after two combat tours in Iraq." We talked about a recent battle and about his collection of digital photographs chronicling his two tours in Iraq. He'd seen things, he said, that he could never tell his wife or family on the phone.

Three Fort Lewis soldiers killed

News of three more fallen Fort Lewis soldiers was released Friday: two of them the first members of their units to be killed in Iraq, the third an infantryman in a Stryker battalion hit harder than any during the war.

4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division is now running operations and taking losses.

[ May 12, 2007, 09:02 AM: Message edited by: akd ]

[MikoyanPT]

Just known that 100 comandos of portuguese special forces in afganistan got transfered to a quick reaction taskforce in kandahar. They are the first portuguese soldiers intentionaly trown in combat since the end of the colonial wars in 1974.

Until now the united nations duties assigned to portuguese forces were uneventful in iraq, got one dead and one paralised soldier in afghanistan (ambush with explosives), seven dead in kosovo, mine incident and apc fell down a ravine. Small skirmishes in East Timor (no casualties there).

I got the bad feeling that our contingents got lucky so far, kandahar doesn´t look good.

I guess every democratic country has to spill is share of blood to the cause of freedom. That´s a sad thing.

[tiny_tanker]

Wow, I had not heard about the Baqubah attack, bit I didn't work this weekend either. It must have been a rather large explosion as the Stryker has proven fairly resilient to many IED's. A terrible loss none the less.

[civdiv]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,271937,00.html

Questions Raised on Army Troop-Carrying Vehicle

Sunday , May 13, 2007

AP

BAGHDAD —

A string of heavy losses from powerful roadside bombs has raised new questions about the vulnerability of the Stryker, the Army's troop-carrying vehicle hailed by supporters as the key to a leaner, more mobile force.

Since the Strykers went into action in violent Diyala province north of Baghdad two months ago, losses of the vehicles have been rising steadily, U.S. officials said.

A single infantry company in Diyala lost five Strykers this month in less than a week, according to soldiers familiar with the losses, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to release the information. The overall number of Strykers lost recently is classified.

In one of the biggest hits, six American soldiers and a journalist were killed when a huge bomb exploded beneath their Stryker on May 6. It was the biggest one-day loss for the battalion in more than two years.

"We went for several months with no losses and were very proud of that," a senior Army official said in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to comment publicly. "Since then, there have been quite a few Stryker losses."

"They are learning how to defeat them," the Army official said of Iraqi insurgents.

The Army introduced the $11 billion, eight-wheeled Stryker in 1999 as the cornerstone of a ground force of the future — hoping to create faster, more agile armored units than tank-equipped units, but with more firepower and protection than light-infantry units.

But the Army and the Marines are already looking for something different that can survive big roadside bombs — the main threat to soldiers in Iraq — meaning the Stryker's high-profile status as the Army's "next generation" vehicle may be short-lived.

"It is indeed an open question if the Stryker is right for this type of warfare," said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior analyst with the Brookings Institution. "I am inclined to think that the concept works better for peacekeeping. But based on data the Army has made available to date, it's hard to be sure."

Supporters of the Strykers, which have been used in Iraq since late 2003, say the vehicles that carry two crew members and 11 infantrymen offer mobility, firepower and comfort.

Lighter and faster than tracked vehicles like tanks, each Stryker can rush soldiers quickly to a fight, enabling commanders to maintain security over a wide area with relatively fewer troops. Humvees can carry only four soldiers — and are more vulnerable to bombs even when their armor is upgraded.

"I love Strykers," said Spc. Christopher Hagen, based in Baqouba. "With Strykers, you're mobile, you're fast. You can get anywhere anytime. They bring a lot of troops to the fight."

But some analysts have long questioned the wisdom of moving away from more heavily armored tracked vehicles like tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles to wheeled transports, like the Stryker.

They say that is especially true in Iraq, where powerful bombs — not rocket-propelled grenades or small arms fire — are the main threat.

"The Stryker vehicle was conceived at a time when the Army was more concerned about mobility and agility than it was about protection," said Loren Thompson, a military analyst from the Lexington Institute. "Stryker was the answer to that need."

The Stryker's vulnerabilities have become increasingly apparent since a battalion of about 700 soldiers and nearly 100 Stryker vehicles from the Army's 2nd Infantry Division was sent to Diyala province in March to bolster an infantry brigade struggling to restore order there.

Trouble started as soon as the Strykers arrived in Baqouba, the provincial capital of Diyala.

U.S. commanders ordered the vehicles into Baqouba's streets at dawn the day after they arrived. The hope was that the large, menacing vehicles — armed with a heavy machine gun and a 105mm cannon — would intimidate insurgents and reassure local residents.

Instead, insurgents hammered the Strykers with automatic weapons fire, rocket-propelled grenades and a network of roadside bombs. By the end of that first day, one American soldier was dead, 12 were wounded and two Strykers were destroyed.

Losses have since mounted. The May 6 attack that killed six soldiers and a Russian journalist was followed a few days later by another blast. Soldiers scrambled out of the Stryker and took cover in a house while they watched the vehicle burn. Several of them were injured but none seriously.

Lt. Col. Bruce Antonio, who commands a Stryker battalion in Diyala, said he and soldiers still have confidence in the Strykers and noted they had survived many bombs, which the military calls improvised explosive device or IEDs.

But Antonio said some insurgents had found "the right mix of explosives and IED positioning to inflict severe damage on the vehicle." He also noted that tanks had also proved vulnerable too.

The insurgents also apparently are becoming better at hiding the devices — the IED that killed the six soldiers and the journalist was believed hidden in a sewer line. To add potency, insurgents surrounded the device with cement to channel the blast force up into the tank, according to soldiers familiar with the investigation.

Supporters of the Strykers say all that proves that it's the lethality of bombs in Iraq — not the Strykers themselves — that are the problem: The bombs are now so powerful that even Abrams main battle tanks are vulnerable to some of them.

"I'm not sure if it's any reflection on the (Stryker) but rather on how things are getting worse" in Iraq, according to a senior Democratic congressional staffer who tracks Army programs, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly.

Stryker soldiers said that when they were based in Mosul in the north, roadside bombs weren't so big — often, little more than pipe bombs. In Baqouba, the bombs are bigger and buried deeper, making them difficult to detect.

"With what we got hit with the other day, it wouldn't have mattered what we were in," said Spc. John Pearce, speaking of the May 6 bomb. "We were going to take casualties, regardless."

Either way, the Army and Marine Corps already are pushing for new Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAPS, whose V-shaped hulls are designed to deflect bomb blasts outward, rather than through the vehicle.

The Pentagon has requested nearly 7,800 of the new vehicles at a cost of $8.4 billion and is considering ordering thousands more to give soldiers better protection.

Such moves, however, serve only to reinforce the views of critics, who believe the Army opted for a vehicle that was useful in Balkan peacekeeping or other "low threat" missions but is inadequate in so-called "asymmetric warfare," where a weaker opponent devises simple tools to exploit a strong opponent's weak points.

"As long as the Stryker-equipped light infantry was used ... against lightly armed insurgents, there was no problem," said retired Col. Douglas Macgregor, who writes on defense issues.

"Now, they are being tossed into the urban battle where only tracked armor can survive."

[Kwazydog]

Originally posted by civdiv:

But some analysts have long questioned the wisdom of moving away from more heavily armored tracked vehicles like tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles to wheeled transports, like the Stryker.

"

I was at a conference a few months back where a US military spokesman whom was giving a lecture on IEDs said that they believe that early detection and disposal was the key to removing the IED threat, not more heavily armored vehicles. The reason being of course is that any vehicle is vulnerable to an IED depending on the size and type of IED used, and the size and complexity of the IEDs used in Iraq today is significantly greater than even a year ago and can be adapted very quickly.

Ive seen enough footage of IEDs now to pretty much guarantee that an IED the size of one needed to take out a Stryker would likely have the same effect on an M2. Short of converting M1s to APCs and even then reinforcing their lower hull or creating a similarly large heavily armored vehicle I really cant see a new vehicle being a solution to the IED threat. To be honest I dont know if there is a solution.

[ May 13, 2007, 06:36 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

[PLM2]

You can't hear a stryker coming like you can a bradley or an abrams

[Caseck]

Gotta' love the media giving the bad guys a full AAR.

[ May 13, 2007, 07:44 PM: Message edited by: Caseck ]

[gunnergoz]

"It is indeed an open question if the Stryker is right for this type of warfare," said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior analyst with the Brookings Institution. "I am inclined to think that the concept works better for peacekeeping. But based on data the Army has made available to date, it's hard to be sure."

I love it when these deskbound geeks start spouting off. What is "right" for "this type of warfare?" A rolling battleship? A stealth tank? An invisible bicycle?

Given enough explosives and the right technology, there is no vehicle that cannot be breached and the crew killed or maimed. The question is one of what is practical and affordable.

I find this kind of pontificating by think-tank weenies just plain insufferable and about as useful as tits on a boar hog.

[Sergei]

Tits are never useless.

[gunnergoz]

Originally posted by Sergei:

Tits are never useless.

Nah, not true. Just ask any boar hog...

[tiny_tanker]

I like how the bring the MRAP into the argument, touting as a possible replacement for a Stryker. It'll be a great replacement, for the HMMWV, since thats what its designed to replace, and thats all the army wants it for. From the data I have seen it the MRAP's will provide no more protection than that of the Stryker. Of course no vehicle has addressed the EFP issue yet, which is the most damaging road side weapon in use. And they will be seen in Syria, just like they are seen in Iraq.

[luderbamsen]

Imagine this: The US Army has converted a number of M1 Abrams tanks to APC's, with heavy armour and spouting cannon, machineguns and grenade launchers.

The insurgents respond with massive IED' and blow up some of them, with US casualties as the obvious result.

I'm pretty sure you could find someone you could quote as saying "I'm not sure this is the right vehicle for this type of conflict"...

Thought it sounded terribly cold, then-SecDef Rumsfeld was right when he said "You go to war with the army you got".

It reminds me of some idiot praising the AV-8B Harrier who said "If we had this in Vietnam, we would have won that war"...

[Wisbech_lad]

Uhm - I though we were in the peacekeeping/ insurgency suppression bit of the conflict?

MRAPS - hmm. I would put my bet on the insurgents coming up with a way of getting those to, much faster and cheaper than the DoD process of designing and procuring them... Besides, designing a Humvee replacement to cope with ied's in Diyala is guaranteed to mean it will be a bad Humvee replacement just about everywhere else (heavy, slow, expensive, poor visibility, uncomfortable, poor mileage etc)

By all means, get some specialised MRAPS in quick (think the South Africans had one for use in Namibia) but as a general HUMVEE replacement? Ugh.

[Andreas]

Just reading 'With the Jocks'. During the final attack on Bremen, a Loyd carrier prime mover with an ATG drove past a remote controlled IED (dug-in aerial bomb) which was detonated. The carrier was destroyed and the crew killed.

On the same road, a Churchill Crocodile drove past a remote controlled IED (dug-in aerial bomb) which was detonated. The Crocodile was flipped on its back by the detonation and the crew killed.

Armour did not make a blind bit of difference in that case.

All the best

Andreas

[MikoyanPT]

Make it bigger and heavier...

and it will became slower, easier to hit, more expensive, hard to maintain, more complicated to operate, dont cross many kind of bridges, dont go trough narrow streets, etc.

And they will never be impervious to all kinds of attack.

[MikeyD]

"Gotta' love the media giving the bad guys a full AAR."

Um, considering the 'bad guys' probably live just down the street from where they planted the IED I really doubt that story told them anything the couldn't see simply by craning their neck out their kitchen windows. And 7/8th of that article was just dredging up old debating points on the vehicle back when it was being tested.

[bartleby]

Originally posted by MikoyanPT:

Make it bigger and heavier...

and it will became slower, easier to hit, more expensive, hard to maintain, more complicated to operate, dont cross many kind of bridges, dont go trough narrow streets, etc.

And they will never be impervious to all kinds of attack.

True, but Israel and Russia have both made efforts to go that way. The BTR-T and the Achzarit/Nagmachon use tank chassis. I'm not sure how effective operationally they have been, but I'd be surprised if someone at the Pentagon wasn't investigating the concept.

But you're basically right. Making a bigger IED is pretty simple, but making a bigger APC is expensive and complicated. I'm not sure if there is a real "solution" to the problem.

[John Kettler]

bartleby,

The super heavy APC concept based on the M1 tank chassis (and M1 level armor protection) was under consideration in the mid 1980s by the defense analysis community. Saw the drawings myself! I believe the interest in this arose from the lumps Israeli armor took during the 1982 Lebanon incursion.

Regards,

John Kettler

[MikeyD]

Maybe they'll return to the hvy APC concept after thoroughly wargaming Stryker in heavy combat using CMSF!

[SgtMuhammed]

Other than making the typical media assumption that combat is supposed to be safe for American troops, which others have commented on, the article also assumes that the enemy is stupid. It only took a couple weeks for the Germans to begin fielding AT weapons in WWI and that was for a brand new weapon system.

I guess they need to start working on a way to beam guys into the combat zone.

[bartleby]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

bartleby,

The super heavy APC concept based on the M1 tank chassis (and M1 level armor protection) was under consideration in the mid 1980s by the defense analysis community. Saw the drawings myself! I believe the interest in this arose from the lumps Israeli armor took during the 1982 Lebanon incursion.

Regards,

John Kettler

Interesting, I hadn't heard about that. Can you direct me to some sources? I'm sort of interested in the HAPC concept, and this would be great to look into.

[sage2]

I guess they need to start working on a way to beam guys into the combat zone. [/QB]

Nah, you're not thinking outside of the box.

A much better solution is to beam the badniks about a mile up.

[Apocalypse 31]

You guys are pathetic.

Oh, and good job AKD posting two quotes about the same incident.

Nice try there, buddy. No cigar though. Better luck next time.

[SgtMuhammed]

What unit you with Mike? I met my wife at Lewis when I was with 1/9 INF then we changed to 1-5.

[Apocalypse 31]

Originally posted by sgtgoody (esq):

What unit you with Mike? I met my wife at Lewis when I was with 1/9 INF then we changed to 1-5.

1/14 CAV (Stryker) here at Union III in Baghdad.