A previously unseen version of the Stryker armoured vehicle with Hellfire weapons able to destroy enemy drones, aircraft and incoming attacks was displayed at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama, this week.

The new vehicle is a Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense Launcher integrated on Stryker vehicle. Boeing and General Dynamics Land Systems have teamed up to equip the U.S. Army’s Stryker armored fighting vehicle with missiles, guns to bring offensive and defensive fire-power close into the fight where armored Strykers can operate more effectively than tactical vehicles.

According to the scout.com, General Dynamics Land Systems has engineered the vehicle, called a Stryker Mobile SHORAD (Short-Range Air Defense) Launcher – or Stryker MSL – to address an Army urgent operational need for closer-in air defenses in mechanized or asymmetrical combat scenarios.

The emerging prototype Stryker MSL platform, which uses a three-man crew, is able to fire a Hellfire missile, AIM-9X or Longbow Hellfire, Land Systems developers said.

General Dynamics engineers designed the vehicle by removing parts of the back of a Stryker to create a platform with a Boeing-built Avenger turret mounted onto the chassis, Kendall Linson, Business Development Manager, Stryker and Specialty Wheeled Vehicles, General Dynamics Land Systems, told Scout Warrior in an interview.