New 30mm Stryker Gun Changes Infantry Combat

By Kris Osborn

Infantry vehicle armed with a more lethal, longer-range 30mm cannon as compared with the currently installed .50-cal machine guns.

The upgraded Stryker vehicle will be known as the Dragoon, the name of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment. The prototype also features a new fully-integrated commander’s station, upgraded driveline, componentry and hull modifications, according to statements from the Army’s Program Executive Office Ground Combat Systems.

Called the Stryker Enhanced Lethality Program, the effort was implemented as a rapid-development acquisition program to better equip 9-man infantry units with combat arms to support their missions, maneuvers and ground-attacks.

“It is really about mobile protected fire power for the Infantry Brigade Combat Team. In the Combat Vehicle Modernization Plan it talks about every vehicle having an organic blend of those capabilities… mobility, protection and firepower,” Maj. Gen. David Bassett, Program Executive Officer, Ground Combat Systems, told Scout Warrior in an interview at an Army symposium last year.

General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS), which builds and engineers the new enhanced lethality Stryker vehicles, is delivery the first eight prototype vehicles in December of this year, Wendy Staiger, Stryker Program Director, GDLS, told Scout Warrior in an interview.

Compared to an existing M2 .50-cal machine gun mounted from Strykers, the new 30mm weapon is designed to improve both range and lethality for the vehicle. The new gun can fire at least twice as far as a .50-Cal, Tim Reese, Director of Strategic Planning, General Dynamics Land Systems, told Scout Warrior in an interview.

“It shoots at a rapid rate of one, three or five-round bursts when you pull the trigger,” Resse explained.