2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry
A long wait for Stryker Mobile Gun System (MGS) crews of the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division ended in July 2006. The 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry, received its complement of MGS vehicles after more than a year of waiting. They were the first vehicles to be fielded in the Army. It gives the infantry a whole new dimension of what they can do. Armor and infantry have kept each other at arm’s length for years and years. Each infantry company received three vehicles, though crews don't expect to operate together except on rare occasions.
The vehicles carry crews of three, and are equipped with a 105 mm main gun and a state-of-the-art fire control system. The MGS also has an onboard coaxial machine gun that’s fire controlled. The 105 mm is capable of firing four types of rounds: SABOT, a depleted-uranium armor-piercing round; HEAT, high-explosive anti-tank; HEP, high-explosive plastic; and a canister round. The rounds are loaded using a hydraulic auto-loader in the rear of the vehicle.
The HEP and canister rounds give Stryker units new capabilities, especially in urban areas. The HEP can blow holes in reinforced concrete walls, but unlike the rounds from an Abrams, won’t continue through the target and into surrounding buildings. The canister provides as effective anti-personnel capability. The vehicle’s basic role is to support the infantry. It’s not there to take on tanks or go toe-to-toe in the wide-open desert like the Abrams. Its primary function is blowing a hole in the wall or blowing up bunkers.
The MGS also comes equipped with training software that allows Soldiers to train on various engagements in their own vehicles, instead of going to a simulator somewhere else. Once the 4th Bde. completed training, instructors from General Dynamics Land Systems moved on to equip and train Soldiers in Hawaii and Pennsylvania. Training for those units may change according to lessons learned here, but the vehicle itself is expected to remain mostly unchanged.
The 23d Infantry was constituted 3 May 1861 in the Regular Army as the 1st Battalion, 14th Infantry. It was organized 8 July 1861 at Fort Trumbull, Connecticut, and redesignated 30 April 1862 as the 2d Battalion, 14th Infantry, and reorganized and redesignated 21 September 1866 as the 23d Infantry. It was assigned 22 September 1917 to the 2d Division (later redesignated as the 2d Infantry Division). The 23d Infantry was relieved 20 June 1957 from assignment to the 2d Infantry Division and reorganized as a parent regiment under the Combat Arms Regimental System. It was withdrawn 21 January 1983 from the Combat Arms Regimental System and reorganized under the United States Army Regimental System.
