Strykers in Afghanistan
Strykers in Afghanistan
1st Battalion,
17th Infantry Regiment in Kandahar Province 2009By Kevin M Hymel DOD
A staggered line of ten Stryker Infantry Carrier Vehicles moved across the Afghan desert at 20 miles per hour, kicking up dust as they closed on the town of Buyana in Shah Wali Kot District. On 18 August 2009, US leaders had discovered that Taliban insurgents were gathering in the small town located about 25 miles north of the city of Kandahar. AmericanSoldiers, with their rifles and grenade launchers at the ready, stood in the Strykers’ air guard hatches. They could see insurgents firing their weaponsfrom rooftops and around corners. The center vehicle stopped at the town’s western corner, while other vehicles rolled up to form a “V” Formation.The men inside the Strykers fired their mounted heavy machine guns andautomatic grenade launchers, pouring rounds into the buildings while Stryker ramps lowered and teams of Soldiers dismounted to engage theenemy. Others stayed in the hatches, adding their fire to the mounted heavy weapons. The overwhelmed insurgents quickly fled the town. They had not anticipated such a quick attack. The assault marked the first timeStrykers were used in conventional operations in Afghanistan.1
At the dawn of the 21st Century, the US Army adopted a new vehicle for infantry mobility, one designed to carry more Soldiers than either the M113 armored personnel carrier or the M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle, protected by better armor, adaptable as a weapons platform, capable of a variety of missions, and yet light enough to deploy by aircraft. The new vehicle was the M1126 Stryker Infantry Carrier.2 Born of Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki’s vision for Army transformation, the eight- wheeled Stryker with medium armor, could deliver nine infantrymen tothe battlefield. It was armed with the remote operated weapons systemmounted with either a M2HB .50 caliber machine gun or a MK 19 40-mmautomatic grenade launcher, allowing the gunner to fire from within thevehicle. Air guard hatches in the rear and a commander’s hatch in the frontallowed the passengers to fire their weapons while mounted.
A Stryker could carry two more Soldiers than the tracked Bradley, weighed approximately 10 tons less, and could travel 25 miles an hour faster on open roads. The Stryker could also switch from two-wheeldrive to eight-wheel drive, saving fuel in urban areas or flat terrain. The Stryker’s armor could protect its passengers from small arms fire andartillery bursts, while add-on slat armor—a grid of hardened steel bars surrounding the Stryker like a cage—protected it from rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). In addition to the infantry carrier, the Army developed a number of variants of the vehicle including a mortar carrier, an engineer vehicle, and the Mobile Gun System (MGS) that was equipped with a 105
1
mm gun for direct fire support.3 All versions of the vehicle could fit in theAir Force’s C-130 Hercules aircraft for rapid deployment. Strykers were designed to be part of a new medium combat formation that could deliver a brigade anywhere in the world in 96 hours, a division in 120 hours andfive divisions in 30 days. These brigades would provide more firepowerand maneuverability than light infantry forces and more mobility in urban areas than heavy armored forces.4
Figure 1. A Mobile Gun System Stryker fires its 105mm cannon.Photo courtesy US Army
While the Stryker provided an array of advanced systems to enhance situational awareness, the concept of delivering infantry quickly to thebattlefield was not new. In World War II, halftracks—open-top trucks withcaterpillar tracks instead of rear tires—accompanied tanks and delivered infantry to the battlefront. Fully-tracked vehicles replaced the half-track as infantry carriers during the Cold War and culminated in the Bradley, a new class of carrier known as an “Infantry Fighting Vehicle.” Strykers returnedto an all-wheel design and could provide a base of fire for dismounted infantry in a close fight, either from the Infantry Carrier Vehicle’s mounted weapons or the MGS’s 105mm cannon. By providing a base of fire againstenemy positions, dismounted squads could maneuver and retain the initiative. Once the troops dismounted, Strykers could be left in place, displace to another location, or move to a laager site to be called upon for linkup.5
Stryker brigades consisted of six battalions and five separatecompanies. The battalions included a reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition (RSTA) squadron; an artillery battalion; a support battalion; and three infantry battalions. Separate companies included
anti-tank, engineer, military intelligence, and signal, as well as a brigade headquarters and headquarters company. Each infantry battalion consistedof three rifle companies, each of which had 14 Strykers, an MGS platoon,a mortar section with 60mm mortars, and a sniper team. The battalion’s headquarters and headquarters company consisted of a scout platoon, afire support platoon, a mortar platoon equipped with four 81mm mortars,a sniper squad, and a medical platoon.6
Many soldiers in the Stryker brigades were also equipped with the Land Warrior system, a battery-powered ensemble worn by key leaderswith battlefield communications, situational awareness and command and control. A lens attached to the helmet flipped down over one of thewearer’s eyes to provide real time maps. A thin cable connected the lens to batteries on the Soldier’s back. Using a toggle switch—a pistol grip device with thumb-operated cursor—that hung underneath the wearer’s armpit, Soldiers could plot enemy and friendly locations, or mark a trail on the map, by dropping virtual markers on certain locations—red for the enemy, blue for friendly forces and yellow for trails. Other Soldiers using Land Warrior could see the dropped makers in their helmet lenses and act accordingly.
Figure 2. Major Ryan O’Connor checks the locations of the battalion’s dismounted units with his Land Warrior system. He also wears a PSV14 night vision device over his left eye.
Photo courtesy of Major Ryan O’Connor, US Army
To further enhance battlefield awareness, Stryker vehicles wereequipped with communications packages which automatically sensed and displayed friendly forces locations in real time. The system providedevery vehicle commander with a common picture of the battlefield, text
messaging, and downloadable maps with varying degrees of resolution.7
Conceptually, Strykers made sense, but they still had to provethemselves in the field. During a 2002 exercise at the US Army’s NationalTraining Center at Fort Irwin, California, Stryker performance exceeded expectations. One Army study reported, “Soldiers of the National Training Center’s Permanent Opposing Force, the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, noted that the Stryker went places at greater speeds and with less noise and more agility than any vehicle they had previously encountered. The vehicle’s digital communications suite also permitted it to quickly call fora lethal array of supporting fire.”8
Strykers first saw combat when the 3d Stryker Brigade, 2d InfantryDivision (3/2 Stryker), deployed to Iraq in December 2003. The brigade completed its trek from Kuwait to Iraq’s Sunni Triangle without the useof the semi-trucks and flatbed heavy equipment transports used to moveM1 Abrams tanks or Bradley Fighting Vehicles over long distances. Next assigned to Mosul, elements of the brigade conducted night raids and trained the Iraqi army. With violence growing south of Baghdad, a Stryker battalion was attached to a 1st Infantry Division brigade and sent to thecity of Najaf. The enemy ambushed the convoy en route and five RPGsslammed into a Stryker, yet it drove out of the kill zone and completed the journey. When insurgents tried to choke off Baghdad by attacking logistic convoys, Strykers were assigned to provide convoy security. For two months Strykers escorted convoys, losing only four supply trucks to ambushes, compared to eighty-eight trucks prior to the escort mission. In the city of Tal Afar, west of Mosul, Strykers came under increasingRPG fire from insurgent forces, but the vehicles’ slat armor defeated mostrounds. When insurgents shot down an OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopter, Stryker troops raced to the area, secured the helicopter and its injured pilots, and fought off repeated attacks until the helicopter was removed.9
In Iraq, Soldiers in Stryker units came to appreciate the vehicle’s quiet engines which allowed them to stealthily approach targets. The vehicle also held a greater load capacity and provided better protection than the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV or Humvee). While the 3d Brigade lost 13 Soldiers to combat during its deployment,none were killed inside Strykers that ran over IEDs or came under fire. One Stryker battalion officer reported, “The Soldiers gained a lot of confidencein their vehicles when they realized they had a platform that could take a lot of punishment.”10
While Stryker units performed well in Iraq, a new battlefield called.On 16 February 2009, the Obama Administration ordered two combat brigades to Afghanistan to provide security for the country’s upcoming national election in the fall. One of those units was the 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBCT), 2d Infantry Division (5/2 Stryker), which was preparing to deploy to Iraq. Instead, it was reassigned to Kandahar city and the surrounding area where Major General Mart de Kruif of the Royal Netherlands Army, the commander of the International Security AssistanceForce (ISAF) Regional Command-South (RC-South), lacked sufficienttroops to deal with an enemy who seemed to be surging in Kandahar and its environs.11 General de Kruif needed more boots on the ground. “I actually didn’t care whether these troops were Marines, light, medium or mechanized infantry,” de Kruif later wrote, “as long as they brought these boots with them.”12
While Kandahar City was de Kruif’s priority, he also wanted to disrupt the enemy’s lines of communication that ran from Pakistan through Kandahar to central Helmand Province. To do this, he planned to deploy a brigade-size US Marine Expeditionary Unit in Helmand Province, the 5/2 Stryker in Kandahar Province, and use Afghan National Security Forces within Kandahar City. De Kruif knew that widely-accepted counterinsurgency doctrine called for deploying forces where the bulk of the people lived, but the lines of communications, tribal politics and his understanding of the local insurgency led him to this unique deployment. “It was clear that there was a strong political will to hand over the lead in counterinsurgency to the Afghans as soon as possible,” explained de Kruif, who wanted to take the long-term approach. “The priority for the deployment [in Kandahar City] of forces should be on indigenous forces, and not the ISAF.” 13
The 5/2 Stryker, commanded by Colonel Harry Tunnell IV, arrived in Kandahar in the summer of 2009 to secure the city’s approaches. He deployed his four maneuver battalions in and around the city. The 2d Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment (2-1 IN) was retained under RC-South as the Regional Reserve Force in Kandahar; Task Force Zabol, which included the 4th Battalion, 23d Infantry, and the Romanian 280th Battalion, deployed to Zabol Province along the Pakistani border to secure the routes leading southwest from that province into Kandahar; the 8th Squadron, 1st Cavalry (8-1 CAV) deployed to the south of the city; and the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment (1-17 IN) secured the northern approaches into the city through the verdant Arghandab River Valley and mountainous Shah Wali Kot districts.
Figure 3. Map of Kandahar Province.Source: author/CSI generated
Figure 4. The city of Kandahar and surrounding districts.Source: author/CSI generated
Each of the brigade’s battalions operated in difficult terrain againstenemy forces determined to prevent any Coalition gains in the region. In the Arghandab Valley and the Shah Wali Kot District, however, 1-17 IN faced complex landscapes that had become well-established insurgent bases. In the middle of August 2009, just two weeks after their arrival in Afghanistan, Coalition commanders directed the battalion to conduct BUFFALO STAMPEDE, a major operation to secure polling sites for the presidential election. Once the elections were complete, 1-17 IN immediately launched OPPORTUNITY HOLD to clear the enemy from the west bank of the Arghandab River Valley and establish two combat
outposts for future operations. In both missions, Soldiers maneuvered on roads and pathways sown with lethal Improvised Explosive Devices(IEDs), engaged experienced and committed insurgent forces in fields,orchards, and villages, all in temperatures that exceeded 100 degrees Fahrenheit. This book recounts the actions of the 1-17 IN in these two operations that tested the Stryker unit’s organization and equipment as well as the resolve of it Soldiers.