Many of you will look at the above pic and think..Ok, the Army is moving forward with an air defense variant of the Stryker. Many more of you will say about time.
I'm not so sure.
Defense News has an excellent article on this and I'm wondering if they should have upgraded beyond the Stryker to a more modern design. Check this out...
The Army went through a selection process through the Department of Defense Ordnance Technology Consortium to determine the best collection of vendors to build prototypes.Story here.
A Boeing-GDLS team was a front-runner for an interim SHORAD mission package, unveiling before any other vendor a solution in August 2017 at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama.
Using an Avenger system on top of the Stryker, which was the team’s solution, sought to take what was already in the Army’s inventory to create a system.
And a SHORAD demonstration at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, last September saw more possibilities for the interim solution including Rafael’s Iron Dome and South Korean defense firm Hanwha’s Flying Tiger.
But a dark horse emerged at the Association of the U.S. Army’s Global Force Symposium, also in Huntsville, in March. Leonardo DRS showed an unassuming small-scale mock-up of its concept at its booth at the symposium that featured its partner Moog’s Reconfigurable Integrated-weapons Platform.
The platform would provide a choice of sites, direct-fire weapons and missiles, Ed House, DRS Land Systems’ business development manager, told Defense News at the show. The system would be able to integrate both Stinger and Longbow Hellfire missiles, requirements for the service’s IM-SHORAD solution.
It also would come equipped with a complement of direct-fire weapons and sites to include the M230 chain gun and the 7.62mm coaxial machine gun. But the solution also has non-kinetic defeat capabilities and Rada’s onboard multimission hemispheric radar.
And that dark horse has won the opportunity to provide the mission equipment package for the IM-SHORAD prototype program.
The system will also have Hellfire rails as well as an onboard sensor, according to Worshim.
The Army decided to choose DRS to provide the mission equipment package because of the flexibility of its reconfigurable turret, which allows for growth opportunities should the threat change or something else change that requires a new interceptor or another capability, Worshim said.
The solution also posed less intrusion to the existing Stryker platform, he added, and provided an increased level of protection as the crew reloads ammunition, which can be done under armor.
While the Avenger solution was deemed technically acceptable and met requirements, one of the reasons the Army decided against using the Avenger on Stryker as the solution was because the government felt it would require major modifications to the Stryker, according to Worshim.
The Army has a desire to keep the Stryker as common across the fleet as possible, Worshim said.
Did you read the entire article? Did you focus on the part that I highlighted?
It's all reasonable and troubling at the same time. Reasonable because they're doing the best they can with what they have.
Troubling because much better vehicles are out there yet the Army is going to ride into the future on the wheels of the Stryker and its now affecting how they procure new equipment.
Do we need a heavier weight anti-air system that can keep up with maneuver forces (heavier as in more ready to launch missiles)? In my opinion yes. Should that system be available for use on the JLTV up to the Stryker and beyond?
Yeah in my opinion it does.
The interim vehicle that Shinseki sole sourced is the future of the Army...and its limitations are affecting how it buys gear.
This ain't good.
