The Stryker Brigade Combat Team just has soldiers’ small arms, Javelin ATGMs, and .50cal or 40mm automatic grenade launchers on CROWS II mounts…limited firepower for an infantry brigade on 8x8 Strykers (not including the FMTVs, HMMWVs, and JLTVs and other tactical trucks).
Hence the call for 30mm Dragoon Strykers with a Kongsberg remote weapon station for added punch. The Kongsberg RWS doesn’t interfere with the nine-soldier infantry squad. The US Army wanted nine soldiers in the Stryker and hence it didn’t have the 25mm turret like the LAV GEN 3 or USMC LAV-25 because the 25mm autocannon turret basket sits in the hull and doesn’t allow for nine soldiers to fit in the passenger compartment.
Thus, the poor firepower of CROWS II (before CROWS-Javelin) and before 30mm Dragoon necessitates the need for the 105mm Mobile Protected Firepower (winner: M10 Booker Combat Vehicle) to provide better armor protection and to break through resistance that 40mm grenades and 12.7mm bullets cannot. Javelin ATGM can be used as a bunker-buster, but it’s heavy and expensive to transport via foot. Now Dragoon and IM-SHORAD Air Defense Strykers can use their 30mm as well. TOW can be used as a bunker-buster as well, but most times TOW ATGMs are reserved for the anti-tank HMMWV section.
Also, the 82nd will be riding in HMMWVs, JLTVs, and open and unarmored Infantry Squad Vehicles (ISV). While GM Defense has an ISV guntruck variant, there is no indication that the US Army will make the ISV into a FAV, and that is not the primary role of the ISV to begin with.