Report finds Stryker vehicle too heavy

By Thomas E. Ricks
The Washington Post

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"The Stryker's average weight of 38,000 pounds — along with other factors such as added equipment and less-than-ideal flight conditions — significantly limits the C-130's flight range and reduces the size force that could be deployed," said the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the watchdog arm of Congress.

Indeed, the report said, a C-130 with an average-weight Stryker wouldn't be able to take off from higher elevations in Afghanistan, such as Bagram or Kabul, during daylight hours in summer.

The findings support claims of critics that the eight-wheeled Stryker — now in use in Iraq — won't meet the original goal of being able to roll into a C-130, be flown 1,000 miles and leave the plane immediately able to engage in combat. When 2,000 pounds of associated equipment such as ammunition is loaded into the aircraft with the typical Stryker vehicle, the report said, the C-130's range is about 500 miles — and much less if heavier equipment is loaded. The report noted that the Army subsequently has dropped that 1,000-mile range requirement for the system.

The first Stryker brigade was assembled at Fort Lewis and headed off to Iraq in the fall of last year. That deployment was planned months in advance, with the vehicles sent to the Middle East by sea.

The Stryker program — expected to have a total cost of about $8.7 billion for acquiring about 1,800 vehicles — is the centerpiece of the Army's controversial attempt in recent years to move away from heavy, tank-oriented forces and become more agile, both in reaching the battlefield and in maneuvering on it. Critics, however, worry that the Stryker is too vulnerable to enemy fire, and that attempts to strengthen it would decrease its ability to be deployed.

Indeed, two years ago, those critics had gained so much attention that the Army put on a demonstration in which four of the combat vehicles were airlifted to Andrews Air Force Base. Before an audience that included one leading skeptic, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., a C-130 pulled up in front of a hangar, dropped its ramp, and off-loaded a Stryker and all its gear, plus two crew members and nine infantrymen, in less than 10 minutes.

But the GAO report found that the weight of the Stryker and its gear and crew make such a scenario unlikely in a real combat deployment, because it probably would be necessary to move much of the "equipment, ammunition, fuel, personnel and armor on separate aircraft." After being unloaded from the C-130s, the Strykers then would be outfitted with armor and prepared for combat, a time-consuming task.

Asked what he now thinks of the October 2002 demonstration at Andrews, in light of the GAO findings, Gingrich was bitterly critical of the Army, calling it "a cheap stunt."

"It was a nice piece of public deception," Gingrich said. "The senior Army deliberately misled the Congress and the secretary of defense about air transportability."

An Army spokesman didn't have immediate comment on the GAO report, released when the Pentagon was all but closed on a Friday in August.
 
The GAO findings are especially troubling for the Army because fighting in Iraq over the past two years has resulted in changes to the Stryker that make it even heavier, such as protection against rocket-propelled grenades, which have been a major danger to U.S. forces.

The report also said that some variants of the Stryker, such as the Mobile Gun System, are heavier than the average version, and so are "probably too heavy" to be transported very far via C-130.

Seattle Times staff reporter Hal Bernton contributed to this report.