[archy]

Army officials outfitted the Strykers with what the soldiers call a "cage." The slat armor put on the vehicles in Kuwait does look like a cage. It encircles the vehicle and gives added protection to the body of the Stryker. It is slats placed about 18 inches away from the main body. The theory was that an RPG would hit the slat and "defuse" between the slat and the main armor, said Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, the brigade commander.

The theory was exactly right, he said. "A bit earlier this morning there was an RPG attack against a Stryker vehicle in the eastern part of Mosul," he said to reporters traveling with Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. "It was the second attack against a Stryker, but the first to strike the slat armor.

"It did exactly was it was intended to do," he continued. "When the round impacted on the slat armor, it detonated the warhead. The round defused in that space."

There were no casualties of any kind, he said, and there was "very, very minor damage to the vehicle."

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.

Uh-huh... so the shaped charge jet of the PG-7 grenades IS getting through. And if it gets to that 40mm High Explosive ammunition, grenades or engineer demolition charges carred on board....

Stowed Ammunition
(32) 66mm smoke grenades
(3200) 7.62mm rounds
(2000) .50 cal rounds OR
(430) MK19 rounds

Four hundred-plus Mk 19 grenades, sympathetic detonating inside a Stryker...I hope the crews have some GOOD earplugs.

[historian1944]

On both Strykers that were hit with RPGs, without the slat armor, both vehicles would have been catastrophic losses. If a Bradley was hit in the side like the Stryker with slat on it that continued mission, it would have been catastrophic loss. The slat armor is doing what it is designed to do. It is not the perfect solution, but neither is the reactive armor package. Reactive armor has more weight, and there are RPG rounds that will defeat that, too.