Project On Government Oversight (POGO),
New reports from Iraq again raise questions about shortcomings in the ability of Strykers to adequately protect the troops from roadside bombs, noting: “analysts have long questioned the wisdom of moving away from more heavily armored tracked vehicles like tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles to wheeled transports, like the Stryker.”
In 2005, POGO released a study from the the Center for Army Lessons Learned, which was reported on in the Washington Post, revealing that the Stryker Interim Armored Vehicle was “only 50 percent effective overall against Rocket Propelled Grenades during combat in Iraq.”
The Army responded by mounting a vigorous public relations campaign which even included a promotional video (need quicktime to watch) and an invitation for POGO to visit Fort Lewis.
In related news, pressure has been building at the Pentagon to accelerate and expand the purchase of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAPS) vehicles which are slated to replace the failed effort to uparmor Humvees. The Army now plans to buy 17,000 instead of 2,500. The announcement is good news for defense contractors in the running for the contract, including General Dynamics which built the Stryker. More importantly (but is often not the case) it may mean good news for the troops too.
