M1126 Stryker
Wheeled armoured fighting vehicle · 2002
The Stryker is the US Army's family of eight-wheeled armoured fighting vehicles, derived from the Canadian LAV III and, further back, the Swiss Mowag Piranha. Built by General Dynamics Land Systems in London, Ontario, it was the vehicle around which the Army built an entirely new kind of formation — the Stryker Brigade Combat Team, light enough to be flown in, heavy enough to fight on arrival.
On roads it is far faster, quieter and cheaper to run than any tracked carrier: 97 km/h, 500 km of range and a fuel bill a fraction of a Bradley's. The trade is protection and cross-country grip, which is why the hull is wrapped in bolt-on ceramic armour and, in Iraq, in the slat cages that became the vehicle's signature silhouette.
Some twenty variants share the same hull — infantry carrier, mortar, engineer, medical, command, the 105 mm Mobile Gun System and the Stryker Dragoon with its 30 mm cannon — and more than 4,900 have been built. It is named for two unrelated Medal of Honor recipients: Stuart S. Stryker and Robert F. Stryker.
