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Stryker Gun 'On Glide Path' To Production Decision

May-29-2004 » Filed Under: 3/2 SBCT

This article was sent to us via email, but we can't link to it because it is for subscribers only. We can't publish the entire story either, but an excerpt is provided below.

By Nathan Hodge, Defense Today

After ironing out kinks in the system, the Army this month successfully
concluded an important series of tests on the Stryker Mobile Gun System (MGS),
Defense Today has learned.

According to an Army source, the MGS is now "on a glide path" toward approval of low-rate production, a decision that is due in August or September.

The MGS is a variant of the Stryker wheeled armored vehicle made by General
Dynamics Corp. As envisioned by the Army, the MGS would mainly be an
infantry-support vehicle, providing bunker-busting capability with its 105 mm
cannon.

The first Stryker-equipped brigade currently is seeing service in Iraq. If
low-rate production is approved, the first MGS could be fielded as early as next
year.

However, the MGS experienced some hiccups in development, including a cramped
crew compartment, glitches in the ammunition-handling system and the "halo
effect"—a ring of overpressure and blast debris caused by firing the cannon,
which originally had a perforated muzzle brake at the end to lessen recoil.

The Army source told Defense Today that all of those problems long since have
been solved, allowing Limited User Testing, or LUT, to move forward. Those tests
were completed at Fort Knox, Ky., this month. Originally, the LUT was scheduled
for last year, but the testing was suspended while problems identified earlier
were remedied.

"The limited user testing was temporarily suspended back in October," the source
said. "... After that we went into about a sixty-day period, there were numerous
fixes implemented on the vehicle, and we started a series of user demonstrations
and exercises starting in the January time frame to validate these fixes before
we entered LUT."

Through these demonstrations, the source said, "the system performed
excellent[ly]."


Comments For "Stryker Gun 'On Glide Path' To Production Decision":

So when do we getr the MGS?

Posted by: Tom Balas | July 13, 2004 10:20 AM

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