Stryker Update

While there might not be any formal criteria for earning the "ubiquitous" moniker, the Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBCT) has certainly become a familiar presence in U.S. military operations. As of this writing, the Stryker family of vehicle variants within the SBCT are on their 15th theater deployment and will be fielded next year to a ninth brigade, based at Fort Hood, Texas.

Speaking in conjunction with the AUSA Annual Meeting and Exposition in October, David Dopp, project manager, Stryker Brigade Combat Team, provided a historical outline of program history as well as an update on recent and pending activities surrounding the 10 different variants in the Stryker vehicle family.

Dopp noted two primary groupings within the 10 Stryker variants. The first eight are: infantry carrier vehicle (ICV), reconnaissance vehicle (RV), mortar carrier (MC), command vehicle (CV), fire support vehicle (FSV), engineer squad vehicle (ESV), medical evacuation vehicle (MEV) and antitank guided missile (ATGM) vehicle. This group is currently in production. *The remaining two variants - nuclear, biological and chemical reconnaissance vehicle (NBCRV) and mobile gun system (MGS) - are still in lowrate initial production.

"We took our first deliveries back in February of 2002," Dopp said. "Since then we have had a number of milestone decisions or other acquisition milestones largely having to do with the NBCRV and the MGS. That was until we got to the 2010-11 time frame, when we introduced the Double-V Hull [DVH], which provides a tremendous improvement in survivability. And we are fielding those as we speak."

A full-rate production review for NBCRV was scheduled for December, he said, adding, "The MGS is a little bit different twist. At this point in time we are not going forward into full-rate production with that."

Turning to the DVH design, Dopp referenced an initial acquisition decision memorandum (ADM) for 450 vehicles with a second ADM to build an additional 292, which were received in late September and early October.

"We needed to deliver 150 of the Double-V Hulls by the middle of May in order to deploy the first ones to Afghanistan," explained Mike Cannon, senior vice president for ground combat systems at General Dynamics Land Systems. "We actually delivered 177."

Offering the industry side of the Stryker program at the AUSA Annual Meeting, Cannon quantified, "There are now 200 on the ground and 189 in the hands of soldiers - and saving lives."

Contrary to assumptions based on name alone, the DVH includes a number of system enhancements in addition to a new hull design. While the hull typically protects from overblast or ballistic penetration of the crew space, other survivability features include energy-attenuating seats, opposing seat foot rests, reinforcing bars/stiffeners that eliminate crush space in the crew area, suffer brackets to hold heavy components in place, and the addition (of fuel distribution shutoff and manual fire suppression switches in the rear crew compartment.

"The Army has now agreed to buy two [DVH] brigade sets worth of theater-provided equipment," Cannon said. "We have 115 of that second brigade on order right now, and 177 have been approved in reprogramming through Congress, Those should be on contract by the end of October [for a total of the 292 identified by Dopp in the second ADM]. So that's another 292. They don't need ail 330 [number of Strykers in an SBCT] because of the 450 in the original order. So that makes up the two full brigade sets of theater-provided equipment with training assets, battle damage replacement assets and floats."

Plans call for the two brigade sets of DVH Strykers to remain in theater with units "falling in" on the equipment.

"In order to be able to reset them, because of the harsh conditions in Afghanistan, they felt they needed a second brigade set, even though they will only have one unit fall in on a brigade set at a time," Cannon said, "but this way they will have a free flow of fresh vehicles in the fight."

Cannon noted that the company had recently offered the government a bundling deal that would consolidate a number of pending production activities and additional DVH conversions with resulting savings "as high as $60 million."

Asked about possible new Stryker variants such as the notional medical treatment vehicle prototype. Cannon acknowledged that "there is an operational need statement at U.S. Army Central Command right now that asks for 12 of them to go with the next deploying unit.

"They want them to be Double-V. We'll see. We could do the conversion on that as well since there are some medical evacuation vehicles that don't have a home and are still available.

"Basically it is just a kit to change the medical evacuation vehicle to a medical treatment vehicle. We would do the [DVH] conversion and add the kit at the same time. But we would need to get started soon if they want them to be available for their deployment."

Another potential variant expansion could include a 105 mm mobile Stryker artillery system. General Dynamics has been testing and received man-rating on a prototype in South Africa.

"It's a basic Stryker hull with a Dene! turret/gun system on it," he noted. "We are able to fire ranges equivalent to current 155 mm howitzers, and with the kind of ammunition that is now available for 105s you can get nearly the same kill radius as with a 155. So we have talked to the Artillery School. We know that the Stryker brigades would rather have that vehicle over towing around an M777. But we'll have to see how that works out."

The company has also developed and displayed a prototype Stryker recovery vehicle variant, although no acquisition efforts have resulted to date.

"We are also strongly pushing Stryker as the AMPV vehicle of choice [armored multipurpose vehicle - replacement for the M113]/' Cannon concluded, "because we don't think you have to do anything to a Stryker in order to replace 113s. And that's why we have three vehicle designs here on the floor at AUSA 2011 : a medical evacuation vehicle, the best ambulance in the world; an infantry carrier vehicle, which would be the M113 utility; and a command variant, which would be the M577 equivalent."

[Sidebar]

A U.S. Army Stryker armored vehicle prepares to engage in a live-fire training exercise during Exercise Key Resolve/ Foal Eagle 2008 in South Korea.

General Dynamics displayed this Doublet Hull Stryker variant at the 2011 AUSA Annual Meeting and Exposition in October.