This Week at War: Why Don't Stryker Brigades Work in Afghanistan?

What the four-stars are reading -- a weekly column from Small Wars Journal.

BY ROBERT HADDICK | NOVEMBER 6, 2009

Was it a mistake to send a Stryker brigade to Afghanistan?

On July 5, the U.S. Army's 5th Stryker Brigade arrived in Kandahar province for a year-long tour of duty. The brigade was equipped with 350 Stryker combat vehicles, an eight-wheeled armored infantry carrier that has proven successful in Iraq and is popular with soldiers. It was the first time the Army had deployed Strykers to Afghanistan, but the country has proven unforgiving to the brigade. Thus far they have lost 21 of their Strykers to improvised explosive devices (IEDs), at a cost of two dozen killed and more than 70 wounded. On Oct. 27, seven soldiers died during the bombing of a single Stryker vehicle.

Why are Strykers seemingly more vulnerable to improvised explosive attack in Afghanistan than they were in Iraq? Iraq has a much more developed road network than Afghanistan. A denser road network provided U.S. mission planners with more routes to choose from, complicating the enemy's roadside bombing effort. In Afghanistan by contrast, U.S. forces may be lucky to have one usable road to get from an assembly area to an objective. The standard counter-IED strategy is to constantly observe such roads for insurgent bomb-planting activity. Fewer roads would mean less for the Americans to observe, in theory making it easier to find the insurgent bomb-planters. But the level of surveillance assets in the 5th Brigade's area might not be at the same density that U.S. units have enjoyed lately in Iraq. In fact, Col. Harry D. Tunnell IV, the brigade commander, has called for more surveillance help.

The best solution to the problem of IEDs is to infiltrate, attack, and destroy the insurgent organizations that plant them. While that effort progresses, coalition forces can reduce the IED threat by 1) staying off the roads and 2) dispersing by putting fewer troops in a greater number of vehicles. Obvious solutions, but often impractical to implement.

Given Afghanistan's vast distances and low population density, movement by vehicles is essential. Helicopters bypass the roads but are expensive, few in number, and have their own risks. Off-road movement by heavy vehicles laden with troops and supplies in impractical. A new all-terrain mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicle (M-ATV) may be promising for Afghanistan. An M-ATV carries five soldiers compared with the Stryker's 13 and may have better off-road capability. Compared to the Stryker, M-ATV would disperse soldiers in more vehicles and avoid some of the risks of being on Afghanistan's roads. 

Watching for bomb-planters, avoiding unwatched roads, using helicopters, dispersing into more vehicles, and taking alternate routes across the country will all help with the IED problem. But the real solution lies with offensive action against the IED networks. This will require aggressive patrolling, raiding, and the interrogation of captured suspects, actions that hopefully are not yet out of fashion.

ROMEO GACAD/AFP/Getty Images

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Robert Haddick is managing editor of Small Wars Journal.

ITONLYSTANDSTOREASON

5:27 PM ET

November 9, 2009

Sacrifice vehicles

How about creating remote-controlled trucks that can clear the way and get blown-up at low cost an no sacrifice in troops? Put two or three in front of each convoy. And don't we have electronic countermeasures against radio-controlled remotes yet?

 

CWDUKE2001

4:10 AM ET

November 10, 2009

First off, the US military

First off, the US military has many countermeasures for the radio-controlled IED (RCIED) threat and the RCIED threat is all but defeated in both Afghanistan and Iraq. So RCIED's are not our main concern. Although i have yet to go to Afghanistan I am sure the main threat is victim operated and command wired IEDs. If it that is the case then our guys need to dismount and walk in order it identify the command wire or pressure plates or crush wire, whatever the current enemy tactic is.

One other thing I have heard is that 5th BDE is not allowed to drive off the roads with the strykers even if the terrain is suitable for travel. I think if they were able to drive off road on the open terrain this would make it difficult for enemy to find the best spot to emplace the IED's. By making US forces drive only on the roads you canalize their movement and make it easy to emplace an IED in a spot that will result in an effective attack.

Finally, I think you have to consider the stryker brigade they chose to send to Afghanistan. 5th Brigade only recently has been stood up and has only been operating as fully functional brigade for about a year and half to two years. Many of the soldiers have deployed before with other units but they have never deployed as 5th Brigade. There were other more seasoned Stryker brigades that could have been chosen instead, most notably 3rd or 4th brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division.