Stryker Mobile Gun System enters Army testing

26 February 2003

The Stryker Mobile Gun System entered U.S. Army product qualification testing this week at Aberdeen Test Center, Maryland. Successful completion of product qualification testing is a prerequisite to entering low rate initial production, which the Army is expected to authorize for the gun system in the fourth quarter of 2003.

General Dynamics delivered seven pre-production Stryker Mobile Gun Systems to the U.S. Army between July and December 2002; an eighth mobile gun will be delivered this month. These are part of a $4 billion order awarded in November 2000 to a joint venture between GM Defense and General Dynamics Land Systems to equip the Army�s new Stryker Brigade Combat Teams with 2,131 Stryker armored vehicles. In December, General Dynamics announced its intention to acquire GM Defense; that acquisition is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2003.

The Army will have six Stryker Brigade Combat Teams by 2008. Stryker is the Army�s highest-priority production combat vehicle program and the centerpiece of the ongoing Army Transformation. Significantly lighter and more transportable than existing tanks and armored vehicles, Stryker fulfills an immediate requirement to equip a strategically deployable (C-17/C-5) and operationally deployable (C-130) brigade capable of rapid movement anywhere on the globe in a combat-ready configuration.

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