GDLS will showcase a modified Pandur 6×6 vehicle at Global Force 2025 with the same turret as the Army’s Styker-based Sergeant Stout. (GDLS)
GLOBAL FORCE 2025 — General Dynamics Land Systems is rolling out a modified version of its European built Pandur 6X6 combat vehicle, outfitted with a short-range air defense (SHORAD) turret currently in the US Army’s arsenal.
“The intent behind the Pandur is to start looking at how it can fit into the light infantry and the joint forcible entry requirements and operations that the Army has,” Ray Moldovan, the company’s manager for US business development, told Breaking Defense this week. “And currently they don’t have a short-range air defense capability that would basically give that formation the protection that it needs.”
In mid-2024, the service released a notice calling for ideas for potential air defense solutions to protect dismounted maneuver forces, under its Maneuver-SHORAD (M-SHORAD) Increment 4 program. Specifically, the Army was interested in cheaper, smaller options than its Stryker-based “Sergeant Stout” M-SHORAD system, with the new systems able to down unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) groups 1-3, and rotary wing and fixed wing aircraft.
Since GDLS is under contract for Sergeant Stout, it decided to use the same configuration of Moog’s Reconfigurable Integrated-weapons Platform (RIwP) turret for the smaller Pandur vehicle. That turret includes two Raytheon Stinger Vehicle Universal Launchers (SVULs) with each one carrying four surface-to-air missiles suited for faster, lower flying threats. Northrop Grumman’s XM914 30 mm Bushmaster Chain Gun, and an M240 7.62 mm machine gun is also on the turret.
Ray Moldovan, also working on US business development for the company, estimated that the Pandur configuration tips the scales around 40,000 lbs, or roughly 20,000 lbs lighter than the fielded Stryker variant.
“We’re looking at lighter weight and greater inter-theater and intra-theater transportability,” Moldovan said.
While the modified vehicle is making its debut at the upcoming Association of the US Army’s Global Force symposium, the company is preparing to transport it to Fort Sill, Okla. for the Maneuver and Fires Integrated Experiment (MFI) where it will be operating alongside the SHORAD version of the Tracked Robot 10-ton (TRX).
“We will show those systems operating as a system of systems in that experiment,” Moldovan said, noting that the SHORAD Pandur variant has room robotic vehicle operators in the back to operate the TRX.
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