The U.S. Army has awarded delivery orders for a total of 109 Stryker wheeled combat vehicles from General Dynamics Land Systems, a business unit of General Dynamics. These three recent orders are valued at $155 million and increase the Army's fiscal year 2006 Stryker procurement to a total of 518 vehicles.

Work will be performed in US and Canada, by existing General Dynamics employees. Work is expected to be completed by October 2008. Stryker, a family of eight-wheel-drive combat vehicles that can travel at speeds up to 62 mph on highways with a range of 312 miles, is the Army's highest-priority production combat vehicle program and the centerpiece of the ongoing Army Transformation. Stryker operates with the latest C4ISR equipment and an integrated armor package protecting soldiers against improvised explosive devices, rocket propelled grenades, and a variety of infantry weapons. Stryker's current combined fleet operational readiness rate is 96 percent with more than 6 million miles accumulated through two completed Operation Iraqi Freedom rotations. To date, General Dynamics has delivered more than 1,780 Strykers of the 2,691 included in the U.S. Army's plans for seven Stryker Brigade Combat Teams.

Significantly lighter and more transportable than existing tanks and armored vehicles, Stryker fulfills an immediate requirement to equip a strategically deployable (C-17/C-5) and operationally deployable (C-130) brigade capable of rapid movement anywhere on the globe in a combat-ready configuration. Stryker Brigade Combat Teams have operated with "historically high" mission availability rates in Iraq since October 2003, demonstrating the value of a force that can move rapidly as a cohesive and networked combined-arms combat team.

Sergyi Way
06.10.2006

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