Retired General Slams Army For Failure To Release Armored Gun System
BY NATHAN HODGE, DEFENSE TODAY August 27, 2004
In an interview with Defense Today, retired Brig. Gen. David Grange said the Army needs to deliver the M8 Armored Gun System (AGS) to the 82nd Airborne, which wants an air-droppable light tank for "forced entry" operations such as airfield seizure and other missions."If they're not going to do this for the 82nd, it's a big mistake," Grange said. "The 82nd needs it." The 82nd Airborne, which is likely to rotate back to Iraq next year, wants the extra combat punch a lightweight armored gun would provide, and earlier this year, the division asked the Army to approve an operational requirement for AGS, which is made by United Defense, L.P. (UDLP) Equipped with an automatically loaded 105-mm cannon, the tracked AGS is designed for low-velocity airdrop, and can roll on and off of a C-130 Hercules tactical airlifter.
AGS was cancelled in 1997, but four complete vehicles were delivered. Delivery of those vehicles to the 82nd Airborne has remained on hold while the Army studies the feasibility of airdropping the Stryker Mobile Gun System (MGS), a wheeled vehicle made by UDLP rival General Dynamics. Grange, who now is executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation, a non-profit organization, said, "Airborne units and air-assault units need some type of a light tank, some type of a gun system. We should have had the Armored Gun System. We should have done that, [but] we never did-that program was cancelled."
During Operation Iraqi Freedom, elements of the 3rd Infantry Division, a heavy mechanized unit, captured Baghdad International Airport. According to Grange, airborne and air assault (helicopter-borne) units need extra firepower and protection for such critical operations. "I've been in airborne, air assault and Ranger units most of my life, and once you go in and secure an airhead, you're just keeping your fingers crossed as you're waiting for an armored link-up," said Grange.
As part of its effort to transition to a more rapidly deployable future force, the Army is investing heavily in the Stryker family of wheeled armored vehicles. Grange, who stressed that he has "zero relations" with defense contractors, suggested that those funds might be better spent upgrading light armored vehicles like the tracked M113, which has been in service since the 1960s.
"They're air-droppable, there's a version you can put a gun system on as well as a troop carrier, and we could have taken a lot of the light units and given them some mobility and protection," he said. "Not whole divisions-like the whole 10th Mountain and the 101st Airborne-but enough of them to give them some maneuverability and some punch."
The Stryker, Grange added, "I personally think was a waste of money because we had already so much stuff in the inventory we could have modified."
Stryker has been touted as a major success by Army leadership, which points to the deployment of the first Stryker Brigade Combat Team to northern Iraq as evidence of their capability. Proponents of the Stryker say the vehicles, which run fast and quiet, offer superb situational awareness and stealth, traits especially critical in urban combat.
However, Stryker has come in for criticism recently, particularly after a Government Accountability Office report suggested that the vehicles were too heavy for effective transport by C-130 aircraft. Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), the chairman of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, has pledged to hold a hearing on the issue.
The Stryker MGS, part of the Stryker family of wheeled armored vehicles, has not been airdrop certified, although the service recently airdrop tested a surrogate vehicle that was weighted down to simulate the MGS. The surrogate, a Stryker Engineer Support Vehicle, was dropped from a C-17 Globemaster III, a larger, more powerful airlifter than the C-130.
Grange suggested that Stryker variants are not practical for airdrop and rapid deployment missions if they can only be delivered by C-17. "The [C-]130 is intra-theater," he said. "C-17s are great, if you have enough of them. But as you know, there's a finite number of them. And they are more inter-theater instead of intratheater."
One member of Congress, Rep. Robin Hayes (R-N.C.) been lobbying the Army for the delivery of AGS to the 82nd Airborne, which is based in his home district. "He's trying to do everything he can for the 82nd Airborne in a timely manner," said a press aide to Hayes. "They'll probably be going back to Iraq. And he wants to make sure that they have the systems they need."
Master Sgt. Pam Smith, a spokeswoman for the 82nd Airborne, said the division still has a need for the AGS. "We do have [a requirement] but we have not been told a date that we're supposed to receive it," she said. "We'd love to have that system." The four AGS vehicles currently are warehoused in Pennsylvania. A UDLP source said a full complement of AGS parts and a "combat spare" also are available.