By Ann Roosevelt
The anti-tank guided missile Stryker vehicle called General Lee is ready to go back in action, now that it’s been repaired and shipped to its new home at Ft. Lewis, Wash.
General Lee will be issued to the Army’s 7th and newest Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 5th Brigade 2nd Infantry Division activated in April 2007, Project Manager Stryker told Defense Daily.
PM Stryker in coordination with Army headquarters determines the location and distribution of the Stryker fleet. “In the case of the General Lee, this vehicle was identified to go to 5/2 ID as soon as the repair process at Anniston was completed,” the PM’s spokesman said. This was based on the fielding requirements for the 5/2 vehicles and the required schedule to meet the brigade’s training ground.
Just before the vehicle is issued to soldiers, “electronics, recent post-production changes and software upgrades will be accomplished and this vehicle will join eight other ATGM Strykers for release to the unit,” a 5/2 spokesman told Defense Daily.
Specifically, General Lee will go to soldiers from A Company (Anti-tank), 52nd Regiment. “We anticipate that this issue and hand-off of the General Lee will occur in late May 2008,” the brigade spokesman said.
In September 2005, PM Stryker issued General Lee to the 3rd Brigade 2nd Infantry Division 52nd Infantry, and deployed to Iraq from Fort Lewis. It was the C Company soldiers who named it General Lee.
On paper, or computer, General Lee is officially known to the Army, Anniston Army Depot (ANAD), PM Stryker, producer General Dynamics [GD], and soon to its new 5/2 unit, as AGTM 0086.
Those who last saw General Lee in Iraq or as it arrived at ANAD wouldn’t recognize it now.
It took 52 days to complete all the more than 700 work orders on General Lee after it was inducted into ANAD’s processes, a depot spokeswoman said. General Lee was inducted into the process in October and completed at the end of November (Defense Daily, Jan. 7).
The last week of December the returned-to-new condition ATGM 0086 was shipped West, with General Lee proudly painted on its’ CARC Green side. CARC stands for Chemical Agent Resistant Coating.
While many vehicles arrive at ANAD with nicknames, General Lee is the only one to leave with the same identity, the same name, the ANAD spokeswoman said.
In 2007, ANAD processed 41 Strykers for battle damage or reset.
General Lee is well known from a dispatch titled “Superman” by Michael Yon, which recounts some activities of the wheeled armored Stryker’s previous unit, which was virtually unscathed while riding through roadside blasts in General Lee: http://www.michaelyon- online.com/wp/superman.htm.
Michael Yon is an independent writer, photographer and former Green Beret who was embedded in Iraq for nine months in 2005. Yon was back in Iraq in 2007 reporting on the war, and is about to return. He is entirely reader supported and publishes his work at http://www.michaelyon-online.com.
Getting General Lee ready to go, nearly the last step is the joint ANAD/Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) inspection, and clearance of the final parts shortage sheet.
Before heading out the gate, General Lee was shrink-wrapped. It’s not rolled endlessly in plastic wrap as you might think. One man operates a machine that takes about two hours to cover the vehicle. It’s like a large plastic blanket that covers the Stryker. Then heat is applied with a large propane heat gun that looks a lot like an oversized hair dryer. It causes the special plastic to shrink tight around the shape of the vehicle.
After the road trip to Fort Lewis, soldiers won’t immediately pick up General Lee.
It is the General Dynamics’ Deprocessing and Total Package Fielding organization that receives General Lee and prepares it for issuing to soldiers according to the direction from the Army’s PM Stryker, the company said. Normally about three to five people will spend a week conducting a full functionality check by the Tech Manual, verified by the Defense Contract Management Agency.
Then General Lee gets stuffed with basic issue items, additional authorized, components of the end items, and things like common ballistic shields.
However, if a vehicle is heading directly back to the fight in theater, General Dynamics will take another five days to install all the Operation Iraqi Freedom kits, which are comprised of such things as slat armor.
General Lee is set up in the basic configuration that all soldiers have been trained on by the General Dynamics New Equipment Training (NET) team.
General Dynamics’ Land Systems unit has a full time presence at Fort Lewis, supporting all the Strykers, a company spokesman said. That means about 570 employees are physically there, plus others at other installations and deployed employees.
A full time deprocessing team consists of 60 people, another 127 are on the NET team, the Contractor Logistics Support (CLS) headquarters accounts for another 18 people.
The Stryker Support Headquarters has eight people. The new 5/2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team has 10 CLS. A retrofit team consists of 60 people.
Another 187 employees are supporting the reset of 3/2 SBCT vehicles at Ft. Lewis over the next 4 months, and there are 100 full time in Supply & Repair operations in Auburn, Wash., just 20 minutes up the road. All these teams directly support the Strykers full time in their various specialties.
General Dynamics tracks all Stryker vehicles and other information through the Data Management Information System (DMIS) that will reflect AGTM 0086’s new status.
Once General Lee arrived at Fort Lewis, information loaded into DMIS reflected the new location; and a deprocessing checklist is prepared to document actions taken. Any retrofits for AGTM 0086 are updated in the system and installed by the retrofit team and loaded into DMIS. Once General Lee is handed off to the unit, DMIS again will be updated for the new unit and location.
From General Dynamics’ perspective, General Lee is an asset ready to issue as directed by the government Program Manager Stryker Brigade Combat Team fielding manager.
Project Manager Stryker said General Lee is part of an initial fielding for Brigade 7, which includes the Operator’s New Equipment Training (OPNET). The program office is required to provide new equipment training for any new piece of equipment being fielded to a brigade/soldier.
The Fielding Office coordinates the unit hand-off and NET schedule prior to the Execution (E) Date for that brigade based upon the unit’s requirements and training calendar, vehicle availability via production, cascade, or the redistribution of vehicles from one brigade to another based on requirements, and battle damage refurbishment (BDRF)–vehicles once damaged in Iraq and refurbished in Qatar or ANAD and NET instructor availability.
The General Lee‘s Modified Improved Target Acquisition System (MITAS) was overhauled by Raytheon [RTN] and will be installed by the deprocessing team before the vehicle is issued.
Since many of the vehicles that PM Stryker issues to the brigades can come from other units, the office treats vehicles being issued to new brigades as new issue items. Thus, all of its additional components will be issued to that new unit as well, which are all required for training.
The Army’s current plan is to have a total of 3,324 Stryker vehicles. The 10 Stryker vehicle variants have 85 percent commonality, reducing the logistics train.
Through December 2007, General Dynamics has produced 2,314 Strykers, the company spokesman said. The most recent count shows 2,249 Strykers have been fielded. Another 29 vehicles are in testing. More than 15,223 soldiers have been trained on them.
There are embedded Contractor Logistic Support (CLS) maintainers in seven separate brigades.
Through more than six rotations, the Stryker fleet has accumulated more than 15 million miles, and over the past 48 months has maintained a greater than 95 percent operational readiness rate across the Operation Iraqi Freedom fleet.
Strykers have survived more than 1,185 attacks from RPGs, IEDs, Vehicle-borne IEDs and suicide bombers, the company said. General Lee was declared a battle loss in April 2007 after one such attack, after surviving several other attacks.
Once General Lee is issued to A Company, the unit will undergo approximately 22 days of government-provided operator training, culminating in several days of live fire training at the Army’s Training Center in Yakima, Wash., the unit spokesman said. Upon completion of this training, the General Lee and the other eight Stryker ATGMs will return to Ft. Lewis and resume field training with the rest of the 5/2 SBCT.
The Army process to transform an infantry brigade into a Stryker Brigade Combat Team takes about 22 months, the unit said. The soldiers of 5/2 SBCT have not been formally alerted for deployment at this time. However, they are scheduled to accomplish their Mission Readiness Exercise (MRE) at the National Training Center, Fort Irwin, Calif., in March 2009. This is their culminating training event and is considered a final requirement for all units to complete prior to deployment.
Right now, AGTM 0086 General Lee is carried on the Army’s inventory as an available vehicle. It will be covered under the 5/2 SBCT’s property book once the vehicle is issued to the brigade.
This should be the last time PM Stryker issues General Lee to a new brigade as a newly fielded system.
In late May when the renewed General Lee is issued to the soldiers of its new unit, it will be the culmination of the hundreds of hours and the efforts of hundreds of people from various organizations coordinating in many locations.
And, maybe in passing, some of the soldiers who knew General Lee when it was with 3/2 C Company will see it as it moves around post.
General Lee is only one of the hundreds of thousands of vehicles the Army has repaired and reset, a process that goes on every day.
Editor’s note: This story is the third installment of a series on the General Lee.