From TransFormaTion To CombaT The First stryker brigade at War

need for spare parts to a minimum within the brigade, the entire family
used an engine common to fourteen different cargo and support vehicles
that had entered Army service in the early 1990s.
The Mobile Gun variant still faced major engineering challenges.
Its proposed M68A1 105-mm. cannon, a high-velocity weapon also
mounted on the initial version of the M1 Abrams main battle tank,
sought to house a complex autoloader and stabilization system in an
unmanned low-profile turret. While it helped to dramatically reduce the
overall size and weight of the vehicle, a configuration of this sort was
unique to the Stryker. As a result, a number of technical problems soon
emerged. While engineers pursued solutions, the brigade temporarily
substituted an antitank version firing the TOW–2b antiarmor missile
from an elevated launcher. The Mobile Gun System would remain the
most complex member of the medium-weight armored vehicle family
and required a much longer period of testing, evaluation, and modification
than other variants.
During this entire process, the soldiers of the brigade continued to
train using Canadian LAV IIIs and substitute vehicles. Their efforts
culminated in mid-April 2001, when they conducted a combined field
training and deployment exercise at Fort Lewis that tested the strategic
mobility of the brigade. First, several C–5 transport aircraft uploaded
the unit’s vehicles at nearby McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma,
Washington, and flew them 120 miles eastward to a satellite runway
at Moses Lake. Then, lighter C–17 aircraft moved them directly from
Moses Lake to the Yakima Regional Airport. On 4 May, after two weeks
of maneuvers at the Army’s Yakima Training Center, the unit and its
vehicles reversed the flow and returned by air to McChord. Overall,
the exercise demonstrated the brigade’s ability to deploy and maneuver
using vehicles that approximated those the Army had selected as its
permanent equipment.
By rotating the limited number of Canadian LAV IIIs between the
various battalions, the brigade conducted platoon and company-level
live-fire exercises throughout the year. These maneuvers—including a
full-scale, combined-arms, live-fire exercise that the 1st Battalion, 23d
Infantry, conducted in the spring of 2001—furthered the development of
individual and small-unit skills. By then, the brigade possessed much of
its new digital command and control equipment, allowing its soldiers to
gain familiarity with the systems. They also had the benefit that autumn
of a two-cycle, brigade-wide Battle Command Training Program that
pitted unit commanders and their staffs against human opponents in a
computerized war game. The brigade’s officers and enlisted soldiers
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