"Bring enough gun" has been around a lot longer than Springfield Armory has used it as an ad slogan. The Army has taken that sage advice to heart by upgunning its Strykers, replacing the .50 caliber machinegun with an armored turrent featuring a 30mm cannon. How sweet is that?
Now, if they would just put a "Stryker" dealership within driving distance of my house!
From Breaking Defense:
Today, after 18 months of urgent work, the Army rolled out its first upgunned Stryker vehicle, nicknamed Dragoon. The armored eight-wheel-drive troop transport, built by General Dynamics and normally armed with no more than a 0.50 calibre (12.7 millimeter) machinegun in an unprotected mount, has been rebuilt with an armored turret containing a 30 mm quickfiring cannon.
That’s enough firepower, the Army computes, to dispose of other lightly armored vehicles like the Russian BMP troop carrier. If the Russians invade the Baltics, the Stryker Dragoon can’t stop their heavy tanks, but it can thin out their scout vehicles and transports, allowing American M1 tanks to focus their 120 mm firepower on the heaviest targets.
Currently, the heaviest US force stationed permanently in Europe is the 2nd Cavalry Regiment, aka the 2nd Dragoons, mounted in Strykers. The other unit is the 173rd Airborne Brigade, a light infantry unit with no armored vehicles at all — although the Army’s Mobile Protected Firepower program is feverishly developing a light tank to support the light infantry. No heavy tank formations are home-based in Europe at all, though brigades now rotate through on a regular basis to deter the Russians.
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