stryker mgs.

my father-in-law sent out a great email this afternoon about his involvement in the creation of the army's stryker series. and since i'm FINALLY feeling myself again after 10 days of unrelenting sickness, i thought i'd celebrate by posting a tribute to this fine piece of machinery. it really does deserve to skip my long queue of well-intentioned retroactive posts...sigh. for those who don't watch the military channel as much as our household, you're in for a treat.

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Dear Friends,

In 1999, I had the privilege of working with a team of some of the Army's best colonels to develop the requirements for the Stryker Family of Armored Vehicles in order to fulfill General Shinseki's vision of a rapidly deployable brigade combat team that could go anywhere in the world and fight with lethality, manueverability and sustainability while affording the infantryman a degree of protection. We designed the Stryker and a totally new brigade combat team organization optimized to fight this weapons system. Shortly thereafter, I was named the TRADOC Systems Manager for the Stryker and the Future Combat System and had the opportunity to see the Stryker through the source selection process and into the fielding of the first Stryker BCT. Today we have 6 Stryker BCTs in the Army and they have performed magnificently in Iraq.

The Mobile Gun System is the last of 10 Stryker variants to be fielded. It has a stabilized turret, auto-loader, crew of 3 Soldiers and fires High Explosive, Armored Piercing, Bee-Hive Anti-personnel, and a new bunker/concrete busting round. The main gun is a 105 mm cannon with auxilliary machine guns. All the crew sit below the turret line for increased protection. It still has some bugs to be worked out but this completes the journey we began in 1999.

The video is pretty impressive. Hooah!

Joe