Stryker it by RPG in Irag

[Judd]

This article was published in the Tacoma News Tribune on Jan. 31st 2004
Apparently the vehicle held up well and pursued the enemy contact. Crew shut vehicle down after realizing some damage had occured in the engine area.
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.

[Hannibal]

It looks like they are holding up pretty well as could be expected, hopefully that slat armor does the trick.

I guess you could call the slat armor the "Interim Armor" for the new "Intereim Armored Vehicle"?

[Hannibal]

Oh and where's my manners! Welcome to Trackpads Judd! Pick an Avatar from the gallery or let us know and we will get one for you!!

Thanks again for posting!

-Jason

[sfga6970]

The slat armor seems to be similar to the stand-off sand bags we used in VN to detonate shells before they actually reached the bunker. Worked pretty well, the force of the explosion was dissipated before it could penetrate the top or sides. For our soldiers sake, I hope they have designed it well.

[kruser79]

I saw an MEV with it here in Yuma. It's strange looking, and appears bulkier than the Add On Armor. But you know what? Whatever keeps the soldier alive. It looks like this stuff has done it's job, at least in this instance, and that's all that matters.
sfga, it is about the same thing, or like lining the floor of your vehicle with sandbags to dissipate the blast of mines. I've seen pics of a similar setup on Israeli APCs. Except some of the pics I've seen show a combination of slat armor and reactive box armor.

[sfga6970]

Whatever it takes to keep them safe is worth the effort.

[Niner One]

Originally Posted by sfga6970

The slat armor seems to be similar to the stand-off sand bags we used in VN to detonate shells before they actually reached the bunker. Worked pretty well, the force of the explosion was dissipated before it could penetrate the top or sides. For our soldiers sake, I hope they have designed it well.

I don't think the slat armour has the same idea... For that the bars seem to be too far from each other. Because the RPG's grenade (the PG) has a nose mounted pressure activated contact fuse is has to hit thing's pretty hard and square. If the nose doesn't hit the bar, the rest of the grenade probably willso the fuse won't necessarily work. If nothing else the impact would probably deform the cone and greatly reduce the effectiveness of the HEAT effect.

If the nose of the grenade hits the bar straight and the fuse and the grenade works as intented, I cannot believe that the some 20inch space between the bar and the main armour is enough to reduce the more than 300mm penetration enough.

Just some thoughts... Have a good one.