AUSA 2012 : GDLS Introduces ‘Tracked Stryker’ Concept

Among the programme initiatives highlighted by General Dynamics Land Systems at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) 2012 annual meeting was a new ‘Tracked Stryker’ medium tracked concept vehicle. 

Dubbed ‘Stryker+Tr’, the concept vehicle features the Stryker Double-V Hull vehicle and targets the US Army’s emerging Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV) requirement to replace its aging M113 series family of vehicles.

‘Initially we chose the Stryker “Double-V” to be our offering as the M113 replacement, primarily because of fuel efficiency,’ explained Mike Cannon, senior vice president for Ground Combat Systems at GDLS. 

‘The Stryker DVH is the lowest combat vehicle we have from an operational cost standpoint – between $17 and $18 a mile. That compares to an M113, which is the second lowest, at about $48 per mile.

‘Now, emerging army requirements said that they may want a tracked vehicle,’ Cannon added. 

‘So about five months ago we decided that it was really looking like it was going that way so we had better see if we can come up with a tracked solution that we could call non-developmental. We chose the Stryker as the basis because it has great commonality with 4,000 [Stryker] vehicles already fielded and it has the Double-V Hull so that it has underbelly survivability. And we decided to see if we could put tracks on it to make it an M113 replacement vehicle. And we have done that.

‘It’s going to be quite a good offering for us,’ he added. ‘And even if it doesn’t go as the AMPV solution we still believe that we needed a medium weight tracked vehicle in our portfolio. And this will be our first one…And it’s pretty slick looking.’

Because of the significant weight differences between wheeled and tracked vehicle designs, the new ‘Stryker + Tr’ features a 675 horsepower engine.

‘We sized [the vehicle concept] up to 84,000 pounds versus 54,000 pounds for a fully up-weighted [wheeled] Stryker,’ Cannon said.

The current concept design also uses a Diehl track design employed on several international M113 designs. However, GDLS developers were quick to note that work is continuing on an objective design that would feature a wider track and additional road wheels.

Other obvious differences in the concept vehicle hull include relocation of the driver’s position further to the rear to provide room in the forward vehicle area for the track drive subsystem.