The 5th Battalion, 4th Air Defence Artillery Regiment, a subordinate unit under the 10th Army Air-and-Missile Defence Command, in Ansbach, Germany, is the first to receive the vehicles and will continue to test the M-SHORAD system.
The M-SHORAD includes a mission equipment package designed by Leonard DRS. It is integrated into a Stryker A1 combat vehicle. The mission equipment includes Raytheon’s Stinger vehicle missile launcher. The primary integrator is General Dynamics Land Systems. The company received a $1.2 billion contract to build and deliver the system in October 2020.
A prototype of the IM-SHORAD vehicle was unveiled at the 2019 Annual Meeting & Exposition of the Association of the US Army (AUSA) held in Washington.
The system in Europe will be consisted of 32 vehicles and will be operational by September 2021. The Army will field 144 systems to four battalions beginning this year.
The M-SHORAD capability is designed to defend against unmanned systems as well as rotary- and fixed-wing threats.
The service received the requirement to build the system in February 2018.IM-SHORAD will also offer protection against artillery, rockets and mortars to protects Patriot and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system.
