Hellfire, Stinger and Javelin missiles will deploy with new drone-killing, counter-air
mission possibilities now that the Army is sending its first Stryker M-SHORAD vehicles
to ukraine.
In development for several years, M-SHORAD Strykers are armed with a first-of-its-kind
drone, fixed wing and helicopter-killing counter air ability as part of the Army’s broader
push to prepare the force for massive land war on the European continent against a great
power adversary like Russia.
The Stryker is a family of eight-wheeled armored fighting vehicles derived from the Canadian
LAV III.
Stryker vehicles are produced by General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada for the United States
Army in a plant in London.
In continuing efforts to revitalize and update the U.S. Army’s Air and Missile Defense
forces and systems, the 5th Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, a subordinate
unit under the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, is the first battalion in the Army
to test, receive, and field the Mobile Short Range Air Defense M SHORAD system.
The M-SHORAD, which integrates existing guns, missiles, rockets and sensors onto a Stryker
A1 vehicle, is the Army’s newest addition in a variety of modernization efforts.
The system is designed to defend maneuvering forces against unmanned aircraft systems,
rotary-wing and residual fixed-wing threats.
The addition of the Stryker-based M-SHORAD system will provide better protection of maneuver
forces at increased ranges and with improved mobility, allowing a stronger defense of U.S.
forces, Allies and partners against adversary air threats.
The prospect of firing HELLFIRE or Javelin anti-tank missiles from a moving Stryker vehicle
introduces particular implications with respect to the Pentagon’s vigorous push toward multi-domain
attack operations.
Not only will M-SHORAD offer advancing infantry a new ability to destroy enemy drones and
helicopters, but it will also protect them from incoming artillery, rockets and mortar
fire as they maneuver to “close with an enemy.”
A possibility to intercept or counter incoming enemy rockets from the ground while on the
move certainly brings a new dimension to modern Combined Arms Maneuver which increasingly
needs to conduct operations with a specific mind to newer kinds of air threats such as
precision-guided enemy artillery, attack drones and longer-range weapons.
Yet another key dimension of this is that the Army report explains that “laser”
interceptors will soon be incorporated into M-SHORAD, an extremely significant tactical
change greatly improving the speed and scalability of on-the-move counter drone operations.
The operational concept is to bring short-range air defense back to ground war, as it is something
senior Army leaders say “atrophied” to a certain extent during years of counterinsurgency
missions during which enemies presented little or no air threat.
The need for short range air defense was considered crucial during the Cold War years, and now
it has returned.
The prospect of firing HELLFIRE or Javelin anti-tank missiles from a moving Stryker vehicle
introduces particular implications with respect to the Pentagon’s vigorous push toward multi-domain
attack operations.
Incoming air threats such as enemy munitions or drones could be identified by friendly
surveillance assets or even air attack platforms such as fighter jets in a position to network
targeting and threat details to advancing land units.
This kind of “meshed” or networked combat could prove extremely key in the event that
an attacking Army mechanized ground force did not have air superiority or close air
support.
Drone defense is fundamental to M-SHORAD as Pentagon planners have been expending considerable
technical, scientific and even operational energy focused upon identifying new ways to
counter drone attacks such as swarming explosives or high-speed, missile armed enemy drones.
Firing HELLFIRE missiles, or lasers into the air against fast-approaching enemy air threats
introduces an unprecedented defensive combat tactic when it comes to high-speed, multi-domain
joint warfare.