FJAG
Army.ca Legend
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There was no independent procurement for the MGS as such. The procurement process was a US$8.7 Billion contract (actually a series of contracts) to purchase a total of 2,131 vehicles (sufficient to equip 6 complete interim brigade combat teams (later Stryker BCT)) in what was to be eight production ready variants plus two additional variants which required further evaluation testing. The two variants which were still under evaluation were the MGS and the NBC recce vehicle. For the MGS there was a significant delay ( roughly 1 year) while they tried to make the autoloader function.Even the Germans in WWII learned that the not having an MG on assault guns/support tanks was a bad idea. The Stug and Hetzer was their first vehicles fitted with a RWS.
I am kind of amazed that the MGS got through the US procurement process which has effectively stopped the light tank program from giving birth. There are better versions of the idea out there. If we had extra funds left over after buying SPG's, new artillery, new ATGM's, etc, it would be nice to have a squadron of these at a training camp that armoured reservist could cycle through.
There's an interesting Governmental Accounting Office evaluation of the program for 2004 here.
There are now seven Active Army Stryker BCTs and two National Guard SBCTs (the 56th SBCT in Pennsylvania and the 81st in the Pacific NW) with roughly 360 Strykers per SBCT.