Pentagon tester says GDs' new Stryker needs fixThe driver's compartment of General Dynamics Corp.'s revamped Stryker combat vehicle, designed to protect troops against roadside bombs, is "not suitable" for long missions on Afghanistan's rugged terrain, according to Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon's director of operational test and evaluations.
https://washingtonexaminer.com/news/business/2011/03/p-entagon-tester-says-general-dynamics-new-stryker-needs-fix
The U.S. Army plans to start using the redesigned Stryker, with a double V-shaped, blast-deflecting hull, in Afghanistan as early as June. The Army should first fix the seat release latch, used to evacuate an incapacitated driver, Gilmore said in testimony prepared for a House Armed Services Committee hearing Wednesday. Gilmore also said the Stryker's small driver's compartment restricts movement and leads to fatigue during long missions, and the Army should redesign it "as soon as feasible."
The seat release latch "is extremely difficult to use," Gilmore said. It took a Stryker crew twice as long to evacuate a driver in an emergency than it took to do the same in a previous version of the Stryker, outfitted with survivability kits for Afghanistan, he said.
"We will have the problem that Mr. Gilmore referred to fixed on the Stryker Double-V Hull in time for the unit's deployment in Afghanistan," said Peter Keating, vice president for communications at General Dynamics Land Systems, based in Sterling Heights, Mich. The goal of the new Stryker is to give troops the same protection they get in the Army's Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicles, known as MRAPs. "Everyone's testing agrees that we have achieved that," he said.
Oshkosh Corp., of Oshkosh, Wis., and Navistar International Corp., of Warrenville, Ill., are the two large makers of MRAP trucks.
The Stryker vehicle is being upgraded because the roadside bombs in Afghanistan are larger than those encountered during operations in Iraq, according to the Army's 2011 posture statement. The wheeled Stryker troop transport has a crew of two, a driver and commander, and can carry a nine-soldier squad.
The V-hull design distributes a bomb blast and also lifts the bottom of the vehicle higher off the ground. The Army plans to buy 450 of the V-hull shaped Strykers, or SDVH.
The Army has been testing the new variant at the Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona and the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif.
As part of live-fire and protection testing of the double-hull Stryker, the Army found that the vehicle "meets and in some cases exceeds" its requirements for protecting the troops, Gilmore said.
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