The Army is faced with an ongoing war in Iraq and deployments have become repetitive and more and more stressful. Some argue that it isn’t really a war, but actually an occupation complicated by an ongoing civil war between two or three or four competing segments of the Iraqi population, depending on who’s doing the counting. The fact remains that it is combat, primarily of the urban type, which is most difficult and most stressful because each open door or window, each corner, each pile of trash offers the danger of ambush.
At one time the Army pinned great hopes on its Stryker armored vehicles, which it termed an “interim” vehicle.
The M1126 Stryker was always considered an “interim” vehicle, bridging the gap between the heavy-armor divisions containing M1A1 Abrams tanks and M2/M3 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles designed to fight WWIII against the Soviet Union, and the envisioned units planned for the Army’s Future Combat System.The Stryker was designed with a ceramic armor capable of defeating infantry munitions, such as 7.62 mm and 14.5 mm armor-piercing rounds. It was not designed to withstand anti-armor projectiles, such as RPGs. As it was being designed, there were serious weight considerations and changes had to be made.
The Stryker was a key component of Mr Rumsfeld’s transformational revolution in military affairs, the Army pinned great hopes on it. Because it wasn’t defensible against RPGs, some quick solutions were created, first in the field and then in follow up add-on packages supplied to the field.
The Army has lost quite a few Strykers in Iraq and avoiding loss of these vehicles and their crews in combat has become a skill to be handed on as each new unit deploys. The Army’s only Reserve unit equipped with Strykers, is in Pennsylvania’s National Guard, and it’s been training with the machines for two years, preparing for deployment in 2009.
[LTC Pat[ Mangin and Lt. Col. Mitch Rambin served 16 months in Iraq with an active Army brigade from Alaska. They are spending the weekend teaching about 160 leaders of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard the nuances of serving in Iraq with the Strykers. Mangin called their lessons “the Ph.D. of counterinsurgency.”The Strykers are the Army’s most sophisticated vehicle, capable of speeds up to 75 mph and outfitted with computers and GPS units. About 4,000 members of the Pennsylvania National Guard Stryker brigade, the only National Guard unit with Strykers, have been told they will deploy to Iraq early in 2009.
Prior to Iraq, replacements were fed into units on a piecemeal basis. They joined an experienced unit and it was up to unit members to train the FNGs on what to expect, how to avoid it, and how to get out of trouble when you found something unexpected. With the present system of wholesale replacement by unit, institutional memory is lost and too many companies and battalions have had to learn by experience, which is often tragically expensive. The Army’s seemingly eternal mission in Iraq is readily creating experienced active Army units as they go back for their third and fourth deployments. Reserve and NG units have a tough learning curve, however.
Mangin, of Palmyra [PA], is providing training support to the Guard troops as they prepare to deploy. He said the Strykers are useful in counter-insurgency operations and working directly with the people of Iraq. He served in Mosul, Tal Afar and Baghdad.“Our mission today is so much more humanitarian,” he said. “It’s not all about blowing stuff up. To win the hearts and minds, we must be out there as a presence 24/7.”
Mangin said the Stryker commanders made it a point to form relationships with the local police, Iraqi troops, mayors and other key players.
If an Iraqi citizen notifies the military of an insurgent holed up next door, for instance, a Stryker vehicle can be there in five minutes, according to Rambin.
“Hearts and minds” is the signature phrase of COIN warfare. It originated during the Viet Nam war, as the goal of combat, after grabbing them buy the balls. It didn’t work, then.
There are some who argue it will not work here, since the US is embroiled in a long-term occupation in the midst of a civil war being fought out by three or four groups battling for domestic political supremacy. Pessimists, who actually call themselves realists, argue that they are fighting to see which group will have the political authority to throw us out of their country.
Mr Cheney and his friends in Big Oil insist that's not going to happen in this century.
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