New Stryker Variants Gear Up for Testing

General Dynamics Land Systems in Sterling Heights, MI received a $24.5 million contract for spare parts that are unique to the two newest Stryker variants: the M1128 Stryker Mobile Gun System (MGS) and the M1135 Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Reconnaissance Vehicle (NBCRV). This contract funds procurement of initial unique spares for the first-time fielding of these two variants, and has a total potential value of $50 million if all options are exercised.

So, how does this fit into the evolution of the USA's Stryker vehicle family, and future production plans?

The Stryker MGS and NBCRV variants entered low-rate initial production (LRIP) in December 2005. General Dynamics will deliver 17 of the Stryker NBC Reconnaissance Version and 72 of the Mobile Gun Sysytem variants during low-rate initial production. The vehicles will be used for various tests and user evaluations through Q4 2007, and the Milestone C decision to begin full-rate production of both variants is also slated for the fourth quarter of 2007.

The M1128 Stryker MGS variant is meant as a direct-fire infantry assault vehicle with a 105mm cannon mounted in a low-profile, fully stabilized, "shoot-on-the-move" turret. It's intended to provide firepower support for Stryker Brigade Combat Teams, primarily for engaging hardened positions but also for dealing with enemy vehicles as required. It will also be used by the Canadian Armed forces.

Stryker MGS has had a rocky development history, with widespread reports of problems with the recoil of its gun and center of gravity. DID's photo up top would even appear to indicate a support bracket for firing tests, though a specific inquiry to General Dynamics Land Systems, we received this response:

As you can see from the photo the recoil is not a problem firing the gun for the vehicle.... in the past critics have made the claim that you could not fire over the side but the photo proves you can. What you identified in the red box is the instrumentation cables used to manual fire the gun and collect data. Other photos show the same cables as well.

Recoil was not an issue it was the pepper-pot muzzle break on the earlier vehicles that was used to let gas escape and lesson the recoil. When we lowered the gun turret to allow loading in C-130 Hercules the gas from firing was too close to the vehicles front end. We returned to a standard 105mm cannon without the pepper pot muzzle break and adjusted for the recoil in the mechanism.

The M1135 Stryker NBCRV, meanwhile, provides the U.S. Army's Stryker Brigade Combat Teams with the Department of Defense's newest nuclear, biological and chemical detection equipment in a Stryker chassis. The core of the NBC RV is its on-board integrated NBC sensor suite and integrated meteorological system. An NBC positive overpressure system that minimizes cross-contamination of samples and detection instruments, provides crew protection, and allows extended operations at MOPP 0 (i.e. without protective clothing for its occupants).

The MGS and NBCRV have a high level commonality with the rest of the 310 Strykers that comprise a Stryker Brigade Combat Team, easing the unit's training and logistics burden. The Army is slated to have six Stryker Brigade Combat Teams by 2008, and some of them have already served in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Work will be performed in Sterling Heights, MI (73%), London Ontario, Canada (15%), Tallahassee, FL (10%), and Scranton, PA (2%), and is expected to be complete by July 31, 2007. This was a sole source contract initiated on Dec. 9, 2003 by the Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command in Warren, MI (DAAE07-02-C-B001). See also corporate release.

If you read through the O&O for the different BCT they all are relying more and more on aviation assets to take the place of large caliber direct fire weapons in urban and open terrain. Nothing beat the ability the M551 had in Panama City to pop a 152mm HEAT round into the window with a sniper. Gets their attention real fast.

That'd be great, if the M551 was still available to those clearing cities of snipers and other unfriendlies, particularly wire or laser-guided ones...which Noriega's *Dignity Battalions* did not have available, good thing for us. Given the current vehicles/launch systems available, an inexpensive unguided round for the TOW launcher with a HE or HESH warhead rather than a HEAT charge would seem to be the next best thing. You could even fire a M551 with the turret turned 90º to the side without recourse tooutriggers or engineer-prepared firing positions, though it wasn't the happiest experience in the world. I never saw it done with one of the Shillelagh missiles, however, and suspect that would have been a maintenance-intensive event.

During the closing days of the Second World War, 1944-'45, Patton's Third Army claimed the best tool for mopping up those urban areas that couldn't be bypassed as per Third Army SOP was the 155mm self-propelled howitzer, at that time most commonly found mounted on a Sherman tank chassis. 120mm mortars carried aboard Strykers seem an unlikely replacement for that role, though there are some Soltam and Tampella direct-fire mortars available just right for fitting on a wheeled transporter chassis.

Too, it might be possible to fit an M551 turret on a Bradley chassis as a fire support vehicle, but that wouldn't satisfy the transformational trackless tyrants. Of course, there's also the stretched M113 chassis the Finns have developed for the AMOS twin-mortar system...and there IS an *AMOS FIN* single-barrel variant mounted on an 8-wheeler.

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