AFV Club AF35370 M1128 Stryker Mobile Gun System 1:35

The M1128 Mobile Gun System (MGS) is an eight-wheeled assault gun of the Stryker family, mounting a 105 mm tank gun, based on the Canadian LAV III light-armored vehicle manufactured by General Dynamics Land Systems for the U.S. Army.

The MGS program emerged after the 1996 cancelation of the Army’s M8 Armored Gun System, the service’s planned replacement for the M551 Sheridan light tank.

The MGS was procured in limited numbers. It will be retired by the end of 2022 due to design and operational deficiencies

Following the end of the Cold War some theorists believed that the existing suite of U.S. armored vehicles, designed largely to fight Soviet mechanized forces in Europe, were not well suited to the lower-intensity missions U.S. military would be tasked with.[citation needed]

This led to the development of a new armored fighting vehicle designed for lower-intensity combat, rather than large-scale battle.

By 1992, the Armored Gun System emerged as a top priority procurement program for the Army. The Army requested proposals for a 20-ton air-droppable light tank to replace the M551 Sheridan. The Army sought 300 AGS systems to go to the 82nd Airborne Division and the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment. Four competitive bids emerged.

In June 1992, the Army selected the FMC Close Combat Vehicle, Light proposal.[10] This was later type-classified as the M8 Armored Gun System. In 1996, the Army canceled the AGS due to the service’s budgetary constraints

In May 2021, the Army announced they would divest all Mobile Gun Systems by the end of 2022. The decision was made following an analysis that found its autoloader had become expensive to maintain and that the M1128 had not been upgraded with a Double V-Hull. It was more efficient to eliminate the platform and focus on firepower improvements such as equipping Strykers with 30 mm cannons and CROWS-J mounts, providing better distributed lethality capabilities that will not be lost from removing the MGS