The Alvis Stormer is a military armoured vehicle manufactured by the British company Alvis Vickers, now

BAE Systems Land & Armaments BAE Systems Platforms & Services is a wholly owned subsidiary of BAE Systems Inc. and is a large provider of tracked and wheeled armored combat vehicles, naval guns, naval ship repair and modernization, artillery and missile launching systems, ad ...

. The Stormer is a development of the

CVR(T) The Combat Vehicle Reconnaissance (Tracked), abbreviated CVR(T), is a family of armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs) developed in the 1960s and is in service with the British Army and others throughout the world. They are small, highly mobile, air ...

family of vehicles (

Scorpion Scorpions are predatory arachnids of the order Scorpiones. They have eight legs, and are easily recognized by a pair of grasping pincers and a narrow, segmented tail, often carried in a characteristic forward curve over the back and always end ...

Scimitar A scimitar ( or ) is a single-edged sword with a convex curved blade associated with Middle Eastern, South Asian, or North African cultures. A European term, ''scimitar'' does not refer to one specific sword type, but an assortment of different ...

Spartan Sparta (Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, ''Spártā''; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, ''Spártē'') was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (, ), while the name Sparta referred t ...

etc.), essentially a larger, modernised version with an extra road-wheel on each side.

Variants

Like most modern AFVs, Stormer can be produced in several different configurations for different battlefield roles. It is marketed by BAE as being available in several configurations, such as a two-person turret armed with a 25 mm cannon, air defence (with guns or missiles), an engineer vehicle, a

recovery vehicle A tow truck (also called a wrecker, a breakdown truck, recovery vehicle or a breakdown lorry) is a truck used to move disabled, improperly parked, impounded, or otherwise indisposed motor vehicles. This may involve recovering a vehicle damaged ...

, an ambulance, a mine layer, an 81 mm or 120 mm mortar carrier, a command and control vehicle, a bridge layer, and a logistics vehicle. Optional equipment includes a nuclear-biological-chemical protection system, an amphibious kit, passive night-vision equipment, and an air-conditioning system. Specific types are:

Stormer HVM

The

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

use Stormer equipped with High Velocity Missile (HVM) – the

Starstreak Starstreak is a British short-range surface to air missile that can be used as a man-portable air-defence system (MANPADS) or in heavier systems, manufactured by Thales Air Defence (formerly Shorts Missile Systems), in Belfast, Northern Ireland. I ...

and

Martlet (missile) Martlet is a lightweight air-to-surface, surface-to-air, and surface-to-surface missile developed by Thales Air Defence for the United Kingdom. It is named after a mythical bird from English heraldry that never roosts, the martlet. Developed as ...

aka Lightweight Multirole Missile for short-range air defence. Under the

Army 2020 Army 2020, was the name given to the restructuring of the British Army, in light of the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review. Background The British Government gave an indication of its proposals for the future structure of the Army in ea ...

plan for the British armed forces, Stormer HVM was to equip three regular and two reserve artillery batteries. The reserve batteries have since all been converted to HVM Lightweight Multiple Launcher (LML) to reduce the training burden. There are reports the Stormer HVM is being supplied on Ukraine. Six had arrived by July 24, 2022, according to the Ukrainian army.

Flat bed Stormer

A transport version of the Stormer with a flat load bed is used to carry the

Shielder minelaying system The Shielder minelaying system was used by the British Army to create anti-tank barriers quickly. The system was based on the American Alliant Techsystems Volcano mine system. It was ordered in 1995 and first deployed in 1999. The system consist ...

Stormer 30

Stormer 30 is a development of the Stormer chassis as a tracked reconnaissance vehicle. It is a turreted version of the Stormer. It is armed with a 30 mm

Bushmaster II The Mk44 Bushmaster II is a 30 mm chain gun manufactured by Northrop Grumman. It is a derivative of the 25 mm M242 Bushmaster, and uses 70% of the same parts as the M242 while increasing the firepower by as much as 50% with the 20% increase ...

automatic cannon. A

TOW missile The BGM-71 TOW ("Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided") is an American anti-tank missile. TOW replaced much smaller missiles like the SS.10 and ENTAC, offering roughly twice the effective range, a more powerful warhead, and a greatly ...

launcher can be fitted to either turret side. The cannon and turret can traverse through 360°. The elevation is from -45° to +60°. The rate of fire of the cannon is from single shot to a maximum of 200 rounds per minute. The cannon has a double selection ammunition feed system with 180 rounds of ammunition ready to fire. The vehicle remains in the prototype stage and it is unclear when it will enter service. The vehicle will be fully air transportable by

Lockheed C-130 Hercules The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is an American four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft designed and built by Lockheed (now Lockheed Martin). Capable of using unprepared runways for takeoffs and landings, the C-130 was originally design ...

used by the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

aircraft as well as the Sikorsksy CH-53 helicopter currently in service with NATO allies and other nations across the world.

Stormer Air Defence

The Stormer Air Defence was a prototype air defence vehicle built in the late 1980s. This variant was to mount a dual

Stinger A stinger (or sting) is a sharp organ found in various animals (typically insects and other arthropods) capable of injecting venom, usually by piercing the epidermis of another animal. An insect sting is complicated by its introduction of v ...

launcher, as well as either a 25 mm GAU-12/U or 30 mm GAU-13/A cannon.

Specifications

*Crew: 3 + 8 *Armament: 1 x 7.62 mm machine gun standard but depends upon version *Engine:

Perkins Perkins is a surname derived from the Anglo-Saxon corruption of the kin of Pierre (from Pierre kin to Pierrekin to Perkins), introduced into England by the Norman Conquest. It is found throughout mid- and southern England. Another derivation com ...

T6.3544 six-cylinder diesel *Length: *Width: *Height: *Max speed: 80 km/h *Range: 650 km

Operators

Current operators

* - 40 * - 25 (retired) * - 4 * - 151 * - An unspecified number of Stormer vehicles (at least 6), including Stormer HVM vehicles, were sent from the UK to Ukraine during the 2022 Russian invasion. Ukrainian soldiers were trained in the UK to use armoured vehicles of various types that were supplied.

In popular culture

* A flat bed Stormer was used by Lucasfilm to serve as the basis for the fictional TX-225 GAVw "Occupier" combat assault tank seen in the film '' Rogue One: A Star Wars Story''. * The Stormer HVM appears in the game Project Reality (PRBF2) with the British Army ''

Project Reality ''Project Reality'' is a series of combined arms tactical first-person shooter video game modifications which aim to create a realistic combat environment where the core gameplay encourages teamwork and coordination. The original version, ''Proj ...

''. *The Stormer HVM appears in the video game ''

War Thunder ''War Thunder'' is a free-to-play vehicular combat multiplayer video game developed and published by Gaijin Entertainment. Announced in 2011, it was first released in November 2012 as an open beta with a worldwide release in January 2013; it had ...

'' with the British ground forces.

Notes

External links

Stormer - Light Armoured Vehicles - Jane's Land Forces
{{ModernUKAFVsNav, style=wide Armoured fighting vehicles of the United Kingdom Reconnaissance vehicles of the United Kingdom Alvis Stormer HVM Stormer