By Emelie Rutherford
The Army has Stryker vehicles redesigned with double-V-shaped hulls ready in South Carolina to be shipped to troops in Afghanistan, service officials told a Senate panel yesterday.
Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli told the Senate Armed Services Airland subcommittee that problems Pentagon testers encountered with the driver station of the reconfigured vehicles are being resolved.
The Army had accepted 79 of the reconfigured Strykers, made by General Dynamics [GD], as of last Friday, with nine “postured” in Charleston, S.C., to be shipped to Afghanistan, said Lt. Gen. William Phillips, principal military deputy to the assistant Army secretary for acquisition, logistics, and technology.
“Our intent is it get at least 150 ready in the next couple of months for fielding,” Phillips said. “This has been very positive for the Army and it will help protect our soldiers in theater.” Double-V-hulled Strykers, he said, have at least the same level of blast protection as all-terrain Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (M-ATVs).
Airland subcommittee Chairman Joseph Lieberman (I/D-Conn.) asked during the hearing on Army modernization why the service is still requesting funding for flat-bottomed Strykers despite its enthusiasm for the new double-V-hulled versions, which can better deflect blasts from improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
Deputy Army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Robert Lennox said it will take the service “a number of years to integrate” the Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Reconnaissance Strykers into a double-V-shaped platform.
“And since a number of these vehicles will be useful for homeland defense, we thought we’d progress with those that would not operate in an IED environment,” he added. “We thought it was a prudent thing to do, to minimize the risk but still get this capability out to the field relatively quickly. But we did wrestle with that.”
The Army officials said the service is weighing an overall Stryker modernization plan that would kick in in future years and be informed by the double-V-hull effort. The Army also is looking at other technologies for increasing the underbody protection on vehicles, including “chimneys” that carry the blasts up and out of vehicles.