The driver’s compartment of General Dynamics Corp.’s revamped Stryker combat vehicle, designed to protect troops against roadside bombs, is “not suitable” for long missions on Afghanistan’s rugged terrain, according to Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon’s director of operational test and evaluations. The U.S. Army plans to start using the redesigned Stryker, with a double V-shaped, blast-deflecting hull, in Afghanistan as early as June. The Army should first fix the seat release latch, used to evacuate an incapacitated driver, Gilmore said in testimony prepared for a House Armed Services Committee hearing Wednesday. Gilmore also said the Stryker’s small driver’s compartment restricts movement and leads to fatigue during long missions, and the Army should redesign it “as soon as feasible.”

The seat release latch “is extremely difficult to use,” Gilmore said. It took a Stryker crew twice as long to evacuate a driver in an emergency than it took to do the same in a previous version of the Stryker, outfitted with survivability kits for Afghanistan, he said.