Posted on 01/31/2004 10:23:42 AM PST by Cannoneer No. 4
MOSUL, Iraq - The Army's new Stryker vehicle had its first combat encounter with a rocket-propelled grenade Friday.
The round struck the front of the vehicle above its slat armor cage, cutting a hose inside the engine compartment. The vehicle commander suffered a superficial cut near his nose, officials said.
But the Fort Lewis crew was otherwise unhurt and drove the vehicle out of danger, their company commander and 1st sergeant said.
It was one of four RPG attacks on Strykers on Friday in Mosul. The other three rounds missed.
Soldiers throughout the brigade had figured it was only a matter of time before a Stryker was hit by an RPG, one of the most widely available anti-armor weapons in the world.
Commanders said the attacks are proof that local insurgents are finished with merely observing the new vehicles moving about the city streets.
"You need to tell your soldiers this is still a very, very dangerous environment," 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment commander Lt. Col. Gordie Flowers told his troop leaders after the day's events. "They need to know that they need to have their 'A game' on every time they go out the gate."
All four attacks were against vehicles from the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry.
Battalion officials gave these details:
•A few minutes before the Stryker was hit at 8:30 a.m., gunmen attacked the same vehicle with small-arms fire and an RPG from about 750 feet away. The round fell short.
•About 7:30 a.m., in a neighborhood in northeast Mosul, insurgents fired an RPG at a Stryker parked near where soldiers had discovered a weapons cache. The attackers got away.
•Attackers tried to hit the same vehicle just before 3 p.m. as it was parked along the eastern shore of the Tigris River, near where dive and boat teams were looking for one of two soldiers missing in the river since Sunday.
The attackers fired the RPG from the west side of the river, from at least 750 feet away, officers said. The grenade struck hanging lines above the vehicle and caused no damage.
Soldiers saw the attackers on the other shore. They returned fire, and a squad searched the area moments later but found no sign of them.
Depending on the type, RPGs are capable of boring through a Stryker's armor and spraying hot shrapnel all around the interior of the vehicle.
The threat prompted the Army to install bulky, 5,000-pound slat cages around the Strykers while RPG-resistant armor is still being developed.
Friday's strike didn't answer the question of whether the slat armor will work as advertised and diffuse the impact of the RPG before it strikes the body of the vehicle.
But at least on this day, the RPG strike wasn't the deadly event that many feared.
The grenade was fired from close range - less than 300 feet - and struck above the cage at the front of the Stryker, battalion officials said. Photographs of the damage showed finger-sized holes near the hinge of the armored hatch that covers the engine compartment.
Crew members had headaches after the blast, but drove the vehicle out of danger, said 1st Sgt. Mike Hurtado of the company.
"The vehicle was drivable. We drove it around in an attempt to pursue the enemy," said company commander Capt. A.J. Newtson.
It was another half-hour or so before they realized one of the engine hoses had been cut, so they stopped driving it to avoid further damage and later towed it to their base camp in central Mosul, he said.
When they were fired at the first time, the soldiers were on an early morning patrol in search of roadside bombs set overnight in the southeast section of town.
After the grenade fell short, the soldiers tried to seal off the area. A resident of the neighborhood told soldiers where they might find the insurgents who shot at them, battalion officials said.
They searched the area on foot, recovering a 155 mm artillery round from the yard where the tipster had told them to look. But they didn't find the gunmen and were reboarding their vehicles when the second attack came.
The same shooters, they believe, moved in closer, fired the RPG and climbed into a car and drove away.
Newtson said the attackers used the dense urban setting to blend in with civilians and escape. Mosul is one of the largest cities in Iraq, with some 1.8 million residents.
Newtson and Hurtado said their injured soldier from the damaged Stryker had returned to duty and would likely be back out on roadside bomb patrol this morning.
They said the expected repairs to the vehicle wouldn't take long and that it would be returned to service soon.
"It worked the way it was supposed to," Flowers said. "To take the hit and still get you out of the attack zone."
Battalion officials said they figured sooner or later their search operations along the Tigris would be attacked. The mission to find two missing soldiers is tying up one of its infantry companies as they provide security coverage for the divers and boat teams working in the water.
Staff Sgt. Christopher Bunda, 29, a squad leader with the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry, was lost in the river when a boat he was in capsized Sunday afternoon. Lt. Adam Mooney, 28, and Chief Warrant Officer 3 Patrick Dorf, 32, disappeared after their OH-58 Kiowa Warrior helicopter crashed into the river about an hour later as they searched for Bunda.
Navy divers recovered Dorf's body Thursday afternoon.
Michael Gilbert: mjgilbert41@yahoo.com
(Published 12:01AM, January 31st, 2004)
It would make pursuing the dirtbags more fun.
 |
I don't trying to mount a Quad 50 on a Stryker Infantry Carrier Vehicle would leave much room for any infantry. Strykers are pretty top heavy already.
Didn't somebody say we gave away all our old Quad 50's to the Israelis?
Didn't somebody say we gave away all our old Quad 50's to the Israelis?
We supplied the M55 mounts to the Israelis, yes, which they rebuilt with a pair of 20mm automatic cannon, and used for column defense against air attacks during the 1973 *Yom Kippur* war. Mounted on Walid armored cars captured from the Egyptians, Soviet BTR152 armored trucks captured from several of the Arab coalition states, and Israeli M3 halftracks [many of which had been converted from M16 quad .50 AA gun carriers and needed only to have the gun mounts reinstalled and the ammo can stowage racks refitted] the Israeli TCM-20 AA guns accounted for more Arab aircraft downed during the 1973 fighting than any other Israeli weapons system. And they didn't even have to hunt out their targets- the targets came to them.
The Israelis now use the stretched wheelbase version of their RAM armoured car as the preferred carrier for the twin 20mm TCM-20 AA gun setup. 
I suspect that for the purposes used in Iraq, a set of 4 Mk 19 40mm automatic grenade launchers might be even more effective, or possibly a mix of two M2 .50 calibers and two Mk 19s.
Going to fight in Iraq? Lessons from an infantry company commander
Mounted react to contact drills are a necessity in urban contact. Units will move to and from many locations for missions, finding themselves more vulnerable on a vehicle. Leaders must focus on three areas in this training. First, soldiers must maintain 360-degree security and alternate high-low. Second, leaders cannot forget dismount drills upon contact. Lastly, although never really accurate, soldiers must train on mounted firing while moving. These three areas are key to success in a mounted react to contact. Leaders must also consider the placement of their mounted weapons in their convoy. Remember, the heavy weapons do no good if they are in the front of your convoy.
Vehicle preparation prior to arrival in theater saves lives. As the first combat unit to assume mission in Mosul, we had to learn the hard way. Vehicles must be prepared in a manner that protects the soldiers from shrapnel and rifle/machine gunfire. A tough decision must be made with respect to sandbags in the trucks. The M998 HMMWV will experience thousands of miles. The weight of a combat-loaded infantry squad with over 50 sandbags will deteriorate a M998 quickly. The sandbags will save the lives of soldiers, but they do not protect the M998.
Armor plating along the doors of the drivers and passengers and along the benches in the back of the M998 protect soldiers. On December 26, 2003, we were ambushed while clearing an intersection of IEDs. After one explosion and a fusillade of fire from two enemy machine guns, we inspected the trucks and found that the armor plating on the doors and back of the M998 had withstood the explosion and machine gun impacts, saving the lives of over 10 soldiers. The armor plating must withstand 7.62mm at a minimum. Get it on your trucks as soon as possible.
Security is timeless in military operations. During mounted movements in an urban environment, vehicles must have three-dimensional security. Threats can come from anywhere at anytime. Leaders must prepare their vehicles to facilitate 360-degree security. We placed benches inside every HMMWV and LMTV. I do not know if we were the first ones to do this, but we did recognize this early on, due to AAR comments by soldiers. An RPG will hit you so fast that if soldiers are not in the proper security position, you may never know the origin of fire. Simple wooden benches so soldiers can sit back-to-back improve security, increase offensive capabilities, and enable units to gain the initiative quickly.
Sounds like the standard M998 HMMWV, modified with steel plates on the floor and sides, does better than the the M1114 Up-Armored version.
Roughly 3 million apiece for a Stryker. Or for serious convoy escort, use a lowboy flatbed trailer instead, and carry an old *obsolete* M48A5 or M60A1 tank on it, cost roughly a quarter million apiece.
Is a Stryker with a .50 mount that doesn't work and a 40mm Mk 19 that's an outright danger to its own crew [live firing suspended at Ft Lewis; and at least two US casualties incurred when a crew in Iraq had a weapon discharge during an attempt to clear a feed jam- not to mention what happens if a ammo box full of HEDP rounds takes an RPG hit] more effective than a five or six-tank convoy support platoon for the same cost?
And not *just* 7,62 AK fire, which the Stryker was tested against, and failed in several areas, but 7,62x39 M43 ammunition fired from the 24-inch barrel of the RPK or RPD light machineguns, a whole different threat than the same round from the shorter 16-inch barrel of an AK47 or AKM. Neither should the 7,62x54r cartridge of the SVD sniper's rifle, PK machinegun and similar previous weapons from the SovBl;oc and client state arsenals be forgotten. In the same general category as the US .30-06 cartridge, that's another threat to light vehicles that expedient up-armouring can at least help protect against.
The turret of the now-cancelled Military Police XM1117 Armored Support Vehicle, which mounted both a 40mm Mk 19 and a .50 M2 machinegun would seem top be a better answer. It wasn't so excessively heavy as to make a 4-wheeled MP ASV top-heavy, either or both weapoons could be used by the commander, rather than having to select one to mount in advance [and pray it works long enough to get the job done, as with the Stynker's RWS] and the weapons could be reloaded from under cover- I doubt barrel changes for the .50 were so possible, but that could be arranged if needed.
I'd expect the ASV would require the mounting of a pintle or ring-mount 7,62mm M240- or a pair of 5,56mm SAWs- should heavier weapons not be the preferred choice, and to provide instant response to any attack. But that's a minor detail, easily arranged in-theater at battalion maintenance shops.
I would imagine so!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.