Stryker not up to speed in some areas, soldiers claim.

• Author: Tiron, Roxana

The Arm/s new eight-wheel drive vehicle appears to meet the service's overall expectations, but soldiers who participated in recent exercises pointed out several shortcomings in the Stryker that, they said, need to be fixed.

Some of problems the soldiers cited include discomfort caused by intense heat inside the vehicle, the lack of full-color sensors and the high rate of tire damage.

During the Millennium Challenge experiments in the Mojave Desert this summer, soldiers oftentimes operated in temperatures of 100 degrees and above, without any kind of air conditioning system inside the Stryker.

"It is a lot hotter inside, because the metal retains all that heat and it is 120-124 inside, so driving around the vehicle it is pretty hot," said Spc. Jeremy Blackwood, with the first Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBCT) at Fort Lewis, Wash.

The soldiers' "first request is an environmental control unit inside the Stryker," said Lt. Col. Michael Gray, who works in the Stryker fielding office at Fort Lewis. "That is something we need to look at. I think that is their biggest concern right now, moving from point A to point B in the desert."

The vehicle not only gets hot, but it also has limited space for the crew. "Space is one of the inconveniences that we have to get used to and work on," said Blackwood. "We have a lot of guys and a lot of equipment to put in, lot of ammunition, a lot of guns, and all these we have to confine in a very small space."

The remote weapons system (RWS) is a useful capability, but it "needs some work," said Staff Sgt. Mitchell Elwood, from Fort Lewis.

"The thermal sensors need to be upgraded," he told National Defense. "It needs to have a cool thermal system with a wide field of view and a narrow field of view where you can scan an entire area and then zoom in and detect various types of targets.

"I just feel that this generation thermal has isn't up to speed with what the Army could give us," he noted. Also, he added, the day-vision sensor images are in black and white. "It has an excellent zoom-in capability, but I think it needs to be in color, because sometimes it is hard to distinguish what kind of enemy you have with just a white-and-black screen," said Elwood.

The RWS should be stabilized, he said, "like the weapons system would be on a tank or a Bradley where you can scan and still be moving at the same time, instead of having to stop, try to find out what you have and then move again.

"It makes you more vulnerable...