The contract has a total potential value of $326.5 million including initial funding of $145 million.

Work will be performed in Anniston, Ala.; Sterling Heights, Mich.; Lima, Ohio; Scranton, Pa.; Tallahassee, Fla., and London, Ontario, Canada, and is expected to be completed by February 2010.

The Stryker MGS variant is a direct-fire infantry assault platform with a 105mm cannon mounted in a low-profile, fully stabilized, “shoot-on-the-move” turret and integrated into the Stryker chassis. It carries 18 rounds of NATO-standard 105mm main gun ammunition; 400 rounds of .50 caliber ammunition; and 3,400 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition. It destroys vehicles, equipment and hardened positions with its bunker and wall-breaching capability.

Stryker is a family of eight-wheel-drive combat vehicles that can travel at speeds up to 62 mph on highways, with a range of 312 miles. It operates with the latest C4ISR equipment as well as detectors for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. In addition to the MGS, Stryker vehicle configurations include: the nuclear, biological and chemical detection vehicle; anti-tank guided missile and medical evacuation vehicles; and carriers for mortars, engineer squads, command groups, and fire-support teams. The MGS has more than 70 percent common components with the rest of the 310 Strykers that comprise a brigade combat team, which eases the unit’s training and logistics burden.

Since being deployed to combat in 2007, the MGS vehicles have logged 79,000 miles, fired 600 main gun rounds, thousands of coax rounds and survived numerous insurgent attacks and improvised explosive device (IED) detonations.

The Army has seven Stryker Brigade Combat Teams. Stryker is the Army’s highest-priority production combat vehicle program and the centerpiece of the ongoing Army Transformation. Significantly lighter and more transportable than existing tanks and armored vehicles, Stryker fulfills an immediate requirement to equip a strategically deployable (C-17/C-5) and operationally deployable (C-130) brigade capable of rapid movement anywhere on the globe in a combat-ready configuration. Stryker Brigade Combat Teams have operated with “historically high” mission availability rates in Iraq since October 2003, demonstrating the value of a force that can move rapidly as a cohesive and networked combined-arms combat team.