The Army Is Ditching All of Its Stryker Mobile Gun Systems
A Stryker equipped with a mobile gun system fires a round of high explosive ammunition July 26, 2011 at Yakima Training Center, Wash. (Mark Miranda/U.S. Army)
12 May 2021
The Army announced Wednesday that it is planning to divest all of its Stryker Mobile Gun Systems by the end of fiscal 2022.
The service said in a news release it had decided the time has come to retire the M1128 Stryker Mobile Gun System after a study showed it is obsolete, and its out-of-date cannon and automatic loader have systemic issues. Decisions on when it is best to divest a system currently in the force are not taken lightly, Lt. Gen. James Pasquarette, the Army s deputy chief of staff for programs, said in the release. The Army has done its due diligence to ensure lethality upgrades will remain intact to provide our Stryker formations the capabilities they need in the future.
15th April 2021 - 19:00 GMT | by Gordon Arthur in Christchurch RSS
The Ordnance Factory Board has developed a 155mm truck-mounted howitzer. (Gordon Arthur)
The Indian Army makes moves to select its first ever truck-mounted howitzers, plus it recognises the need to protect its T-90S tank fleet.
Earlier this year, Larsen & Toubro (L&T) concluded production of 100 K9 Vajra-T SPHs. Now the Indian Army has manifested a desire for additional 155mm L/52 SPHs via an RfI issued on 1 April.
The RfI for a Mounted Gun System does not equivocally state that it should be tracked or wheeled platform, but a careful reading of the document indicates that a truck-mounted howitzer is being sought.
Elbit, an up-and-coming company in Israel, is specifically bringing the same 8×8 configuration used by the Israeli Defense Force, nicknamed “Iron Sabre.” (There’s a strange fad of Israeli of naming weapons systems “Iron [Whatever]”; a saber made of ordinary iron, as opposed to quality steel, would be brittle and dull).
Why so many foreign systems? Well, a
wheeled self-propelled howitzer is something a lot of other armies use, but the US military hasn’t wanted until now. Many other nations – Russia, France, and Israel itself come to mind – rely heavily on wheeled armored fighting vehicles, which are generally much cheaper to buy and maintain than tracked ones.