The M1126 Infantry Carrier Vehicle (ICV) is an
armored personnel carrier
An armoured personnel carrier (APC) is a broad type of armoured military vehicle designed to transport personnel and equipment in combat zones. Since World War I, APCs have become a very common piece of military equipment around the world.
Ac ...
and part of the
Stryker family of vehicles (derived from the Canadian
LAV III
The LAV III, originally named the Kodiak by the Canadian Army, is the third generation of the Light Armoured Vehicle (LAV) family of armored personnel carriers built by General Dynamics Land Systems – Canada (GDLS-C), a London, Ontario, base ...
/Swiss
MOWAG Piranha IIIH 8x8) used by the
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, ...
and
Royal Thai Army
The Royal Thai Army or RTA ( th, กองทัพบกไทย; ) is the army of Thailand and the oldest and largest branch of the Royal Thai Armed Forces.
History
Origin
The Royal Thai Army is responsible for protecting the kingdom's ...
. Models with the double
V-hull
The V-hull is a type of vehicle armor design used on wheeled armored personnel carriers (APCs), infantry mobility vehicles, infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) and MRAPs. The design originated in the 1970s with vehicles such as the iconic Cassp ...
upgrade are known as the M1256 ICVV.
General
The Infantry Carrier Vehicle provides protected transport and, during dismounted assault, supporting fire for the
infantry squad. The
Stryker is a full-time
four-wheel drive
Four-wheel drive, also called 4×4 ("four by four") or 4WD, refers to a two-axled vehicle drivetrain capable of providing torque to all of its wheels simultaneously. It may be full-time or on-demand, and is typically linked via a transfer ca ...
, selectively eight-wheel drive,
armored vehicle
Military vehicles are commonly armoured (or armored; see spelling differences) to withstand the impact of shrapnel, bullets, shells, rockets, and missiles, protecting the personnel inside from enemy fire. Such vehicles include armoured ...
weighing approximately 19t which carries an infantry squad with their equipment. On paved roads the vehicle can attain speeds of without a
governor
A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...
and with a governor.
The basic
infantry
Infantry is a military specialization which engages in ground combat on foot. Infantry generally consists of light infantry, mountain infantry, motorized infantry & mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, air assault infantry, and mar ...
carrier vehicle (ICV) provides armored protection for the two-man crew and a squad of nine soldiers.
Digital communications system
The vehicle's commander has a
Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Below (FBCB2) digital communications system that allows communication between vehicles through text messaging and a map network, as well as with the battalion. The map shows the position of all vehicles on the battlefield and the commander can mark the position of enemy forces on the map, which can then be seen by other commanders.
Armament
The M1126 ICV has a
Protector remote weapon station with a universal soft mount cradle, which can mount either a
.50 caliber
This is a list of firearm cartridges which have bullets in the to caliber range.
*''Length'' refers to the cartridge case
Case or CASE may refer to:
Containers
* Case (goods), a package of related merchandise
* Cartridge case or casing, a ...
M2 Browning machine gun
The M2 machine gun or Browning .50 caliber machine gun (informally, "Ma Deuce") is a heavy machine gun that was designed towards the end of World War I by John Browning. Its design is similar to Browning's earlier M1919 Browning machine gun, ...
, a
40mm MK19 grenade launcher or a
7.62×51mm NATO
The 7.62×51mm NATO (official NATO nomenclature 7.62 NATO) is a rimless, bottlenecked rifle cartridge. It is a standard for small arms among NATO countries.
First developed in the 1950s, the cartridge had first been introduced in U.S. service fo ...
M240 machine gun
The M240 – officially the Machine Gun, 7.62 mm, M240 – is the U.S. military designation for the FN MAG, a family of belt-fed, gas-operated medium machine guns that chamber the 7.62×51mm NATO cartridge.
The M240 has been used by t ...
. It is also armed with four M6
smoke grenade
Smoke grenades used at demonstrations in Paris, 2008
upBritish L83A1 Smoke Grenade manufactured in May 2008. This grenade has already been used.
A smoke grenade is a canister-type grenade used as a signaling device, target or landing zone mark ...
launchers.
Army officials plan to up-gun Stryker ICVs with a 30 mm cannon in a
Kongsberg Protech Systems' Medium Caliber Remote Weapons Station (MCRWS), which does not extend into the crew compartment and take up space and can be loaded from inside. Test firings occurred on a Stryker demonstrator on 19 February 2014, showing increased lethality and accuracy over the standard .50-caliber machine gun at ranges from 600-1,550 meters; the 30 mm cannon is capable of hitting targets over 2,000 meters away.
After comparative testing of the Kongsberg MCRWS mounted to Strykers, the U.S. Army approved on 22 April 2015 the equipping of 81 of the
2nd Cavalry Regiment's Strykers with 30 mm
Mk44 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% increas ...
cannons following a lethality upgrade request to increase lethality against other light armor vehicles while preserving its wheeled mobility advantages. The first upgraded ICV, designated XM1296 "Dragoon", was delivered for testing on 27 October 2016, with fielding to begin in May 2018. The first Infantry Carrier Vehicle - Dragoon (ICVD) was delivered to the 2CR in Germany on 8 December 2017.
In April 2019, the Army decided to add cannon armament to three additional brigades of Stryker DVH ICVVA1 vehicles.
Army to outfit Double V-Hull Strykers with 30mm firepower
''Defense News''. 1 May 2019.
Gallery
Image:Rws stryker interiorscreen.jpg, Interior control station for Protector M151 Remote Weapon Station in Stryker ICV
Image:Kongsberg Protector RWS on M1126.jpg, Remote Weapon Station on Stryker ICV
Image:Stryker 25th ID Iraq DF-SD-05-12693.JPEG, Stryker ICV on patrol in Iraq
Image:Dragoon at Hohenfels.jpg, An Infantry Carrier Vehicle Dragoon (ICVD) from Ghost Troop, 2nd Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment, over watches the engagement area from its battle position during the ICVD/Common Remote Weapons Station mounting a Javelin missile (CROWS-J) Operational Test at the Joint Maneuver Readiness Center (JMRC), Hohenfels, Germany
See also
* M2 Bradley
* GCV Infantry Fighting Vehicle
* Freccia IFV
The Freccia ( it, Arrow) is an Italian 8x8 wheeled Infantry fighting vehicle in use with the Italian Army. The first batch of 249 vehicles were ordered to replace Cold War VCC-2 armoured personnel carriers of the Mechanized Brigade "Pinerolo" ...
References
''This article incorporates work from https://web.archive.org/web/20080516205916/http://www.sbct.army.mil/product_icv.html, which is in the public domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired ...
as it is a work of the United States Military.''
{{Use dmy dates, date=June 2017
Armored personnel carriers of the United States
General Dynamics land vehicles
Wheeled armoured fighting vehicles
Post–Cold War armored fighting vehicles of the United States
Mowag Piranha