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ARMORED WARFARE: Speedy Strykers Survive

Aug-16-2004 » Filed Under: 3/2 SBCT

StrategyPage posts occassional updates on the progress of the Stryker Brigade. The most recent entry is excerpted below:

August 14, 2004: A U.S. Army Stryker brigade stationed in the north of Iraq, around Mosul, for eight months so far, has proved itself quite capable in combat. The Stryker armored vehicles are controversial, as they are light armored vehicles that move via wheels, rather than tracks. The Strykers are also catching a lot of criticism for the usual problems a new combat vehicle encounters. The Stryker brigade equipment exchanged a lot of armor protection and heavy weapons for more electronics and communications equipment. The brigade has an initial version of the “battlefield Internet” that the army is slowly putting together. The action in and around Mosul is not as heavy as it is down around Baghdad. But there are heavily armed Baath party diehards and al Qaeda terrorists up in Mosul. Thus the Stryker brigade has seen a lot of action, some of it quite heavy. It was thought that the Strykers would be very vulnerable to RPGs, but only two vehicles have been lost that way so far. In some actions, platoons (four vehicles) of Strykers had dozens of RPGs fired at them with no serious damage. The protection on the Strykers has been up to the job, but the troops, and hostile Iraqis, have also noted that the Strykers are faster, and quieter, than armored vehicles.

My memory may be fuzzy, but I can only recall one Stryker being destroyed by an RPG. Someone please correct me if I'm forgetting something.

(via Donald Sensing)


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