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WASHINGTON — Soldiers of the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division had so little time between deployments to Iraq they had to cram more than a year's worth of training into four months.

Some had only a few days to learn how to fire their new rifles before they deployed to Iraq — for the third time — last month. They had no access to the heavily armored vehicles they will be using in Iraq, so they trained on a handful of old military trucks instead.

Some soldiers were assigned to the brigade so late that they had no time to train in the United States at all. Instead of the yearlong training recommended prior to deployment, they prepared for war during the two weeks they spent in Kuwait, en route to Anbar, Iraq's deadliest province.

As the Pentagon prepares to boost troop levels in Iraq by 21,500 people, such logistical and training hurdles are emblematic of the struggles besieging a military strained by unexpectedly long and grueling commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"It's happening just about to all the units now," said Lawrence Korb, who oversaw military manpower and logistics as assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration. "No unit is completely combat ready."

Members of the House Armed Services Committee plan to question Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about troop readiness on Wednesday.

The lack of overall preparedness, in both training and key equipment, is underscored by a recent Pentagon survey, statements by military leaders and interviews with defense experts.

"A typical soldier shows up in Iraq without the knowledge of the language, without the knowledge of the people," said Loren Thompson, defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, a centrist think tank in Arlington, Va. "If he also isn't experienced with his unit or with his weapon, that maximizes the potential for disaster."

A survey conducted by the Defense Department Inspector General's Office last spring found that U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan lack sufficient armored vehicles, heavy weapons, devices designed to jam signals used to detonate roadside bombs and communications equipment.

Instead of the newer, better-protected Humvees, for example, the 1st Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division, based at Fort Stewart, Ga., will use the older version of heavily armored Humvees left behind by the 1st Armor Division, said Lt. Col. Doug Crissman, commander of the brigade's 2-7 infantry battalion.

Upgrading Humvee armor, which involves shipping the vehicles to the U.S., "takes the better part of a year, and meanwhile, the threat has morphed," Thompson said. "We never get ahead of the threat."

The main reason for the equipment crunch is that the Pentagon had not expected the war in Iraq to last so long, said Korb, now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a senior adviser to the Center for Defense Information.

"They thought they'd be down to 30,000 troops by the end of (2006), so they didn't start accelerating equipment purchases," Korb said.