The Alvis Stormer is a military armoured vehicle manufactured by the British company

Alvis Vickers Alvis PLC was a British motor vehicle manufacturer. It was created when United Scientific Holdings plc acquired the Alvis division of the nationalised vehicle manufacturer British Leyland in 1981. United Scientific maintained its own name un ...

, now

BAE Systems Land & Armaments BAE Systems Platforms & Services is a wholly owned subsidiary of BAE Systems Inc. and is a large provider of tracked and wheeled armored combat vehicles, naval guns, naval ship repair and modernization, artillery and missile launching systems, ad ...

. The Stormer is a development of the

CVR(T) The Combat Vehicle Reconnaissance (Tracked) (CVR(T)) is a family of armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs) developed in the 1960s and is in service with the British Army and others throughout the world. They are small, highly mobile, air-transportab ...

family of vehicles (

Scorpion Scorpions are predatory arachnids of the Order (biology), order Scorpiones. They have eight legs and are easily recognized by a pair of Chela (organ), grasping pincers and a narrow, segmented tail, often carried in a characteristic forward cur ...

Scimitar A scimitar ( or ) is a single-edged sword with a convex curved blade of about 75 to 90 cm (30 to 36 inches) associated with Middle Eastern, South Asian, or North African cultures. A European term, ''scimitar'' does not refer to one specific swor ...

Spartan Sparta was a prominent city-state in Laconia in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (), while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement in the valley of Evrotas river in Laconia, in southeastern Pe ...

etc.), essentially a larger, modernised version with an extra road-wheel on each side.

Variants

As with most modern

armoured fighting vehicle An armoured fighting vehicle (British English) or armored fighting vehicle (American English) (AFV) is an armed combat vehicle protected by vehicle armour, armour, generally combining operational mobility with Offensive (military), offensive a ...

s, the Stormer can be produced in several different configurations for different battlefield roles. It is marketed by BAE as being available in configurations such as a two-person turret armed with a 25 mm cannon, air defence (with guns or missiles), an engineer vehicle, a recovery vehicle, an ambulance, a mine layer, an 81 mm or 120 mm mortar carrier, a command and control vehicle, a bridge layer, and a logistics vehicle. Optional equipment includes a nuclear-biological-chemical protection system, an amphibious kit, passive night-vision equipment, and an air-conditioning system.

Stormer HVM

The

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

uses Stormers equipped with

Starstreak HVM Starstreak is a British short-range surface-to-air missile that can be used as a man-portable air-defence system (MANPADS) or used in heavier systems. It is manufactured by Thales Air Defence (formerly Shorts Missile Systems) in Belfast, Northe ...

Martlet A martlet in English heraldry is a mythical bird without feet that never roosts from the moment of its drop-birth until its death fall; martlets are proposed to be continuously on the wing. It is a compelling allegory for continuous effort, expr ...

missiles for short-range air defence. Under the

Army 2020 Army 2020 is the restructuring of the British Army in the early and mid-2010s, in light of the Strategic Defence and Security Review 2010. The plan, as its name suggested, was intended to be completed by 2020, though most of its reorganisations ...

plan for the British armed forces, Stormer HVM was to equip three regular and two reserve artillery batteries. The reserve batteries have since all been converted to HVM Lightweight Multiple Launcher (LML) to reduce the training burden.

Flat-bed Stormer

A transport version of the Stormer with a flat load bed was used to carry the Shielder minelaying system.

Stormer 30

Stormer 30 was a development of the Stormer chassis as a tracked reconnaissance vehicle. It was a turreted version of the Stormer. It was armed with a 30 mm

Bushmaster II The Mk44 Bushmaster II is a 30 mm chain gun manufactured by Northrop Grumman. It is a derivative of the 25 mm M242 Bushmaster, and uses 70% of the same parts as the M242 while increasing the firepower by as much as 50% with the 20% increase ...

automatic cannon. A

TOW missile The BGM-71 TOW ("Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided", pronounced ) is an American anti-tank missile. TOW replaced much smaller missiles like the SS.10 and ENTAC, offering roughly twice the effective range, a more powerful warhead, ...

launcher could be fitted to either turret side. The cannon and turret could traverse through 360°. The rate of fire of the cannon was from single shot to a maximum of 200 rounds per minute. The cannon had a double selection ammunition feed system with 180 rounds of ammunition ready to fire. The vehicle remained in the prototype stage and did not enter service. The vehicle was to be fully air transportable by

Lockheed C-130 Hercules The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is an American four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft designed and built by Lockheed Corporation, Lockheed (now Lockheed Martin). Capable of using unprepared runways for takeoffs and landings, the C-130 w ...

used by the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...

aircraft as well as the

Sikorsky CH-53 The CH-53 Sea Stallion (Sikorsky S-65) is a family of American heavy-lift transport helicopters designed and built by the American manufacturer Sikorsky Aircraft. The Sea Stallion was originally developed in response to a request from the Unite ...

helicopter currently in service with NATO allies and other nations across the world.

Stormer Air Defence

The Stormer Air Defence was a prototype air defence vehicle built in the late 1980s. This variant was to mount a dual

Stinger A stinger (or sting) is a sharp organ found in various animals (typically insects and other arthropods) capable of injecting venom, usually by piercing the epidermis of another animal. An insect sting is complicated by its introduction of ve ...

launcher, as well as either a 25 mm GAU-12/U or 30 mm GAU-13/A cannon.

Operational history

United Kingdom

The UK deployed Stormer HVMs to Iraq during the 2003

Iraq War The Iraq War (), also referred to as the Second Gulf War, was a prolonged conflict in Iraq lasting from 2003 to 2011. It began with 2003 invasion of Iraq, the invasion by a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition, which ...

, but they did not see combat.

Ukraine

The UK donated Stormer HVM systems to Ukraine to support its war effort following the

Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

. Six systems had arrived by 24 July 2022. Ukrainian personnel were trained on the systems in the UK. Two Russian

Orlan-10 The Orlan-10 () is a reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) developed by the Special Technology Center (STC) in Saint Petersburg for the Russian Armed Forces. The Orlan-10 features a composite fuselage that reduces its radar signature. Dr ...

drones were downed by Stormer HVMs in August 2022. In February 2023, footage emerged of the system downing an Iranian-supplied Shahed 13x-series drone. On 11 March 2023, the Russian Ministry of Defense released video footage showing a Stormer HVM being destroyed by a Russian

ZALA Lancet The ZALA Lancet (official designation: ''Item 52/Item 51'') is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and loitering munition developed by the Russian company ZALA Aero Group (part of Kalashnikov Concern) for the Russian Armed Forces. It was first unvei ...

loitering munition. In May 2023, footage emerged of another Lancet destroying a Stormer HVM. The six Stormer vehicles donated to Ukraine are expected to be replaced in UK service by 12

URO VAMTAC The URO VAMTAC () is a Spanish four-wheel drive military vehicle manufactured by UROVESA. Externally it is similar in appearance and design to the Humvee of the United States Military due to similar requirements. More than 2,000 of the vehicles hav ...

vehicles equipped with

Lightweight Multirole Missile Martlet or the Lightweight Multirole Missile (LMM) is a lightweight air-to-surface, air-to-air, surface-to-air, and surface-to-surface missile developed by Thales Air Defence for the United Kingdom. It is named after a mythical bird from Englis ...

Operators

Current

* – 40 * – 4 purchased in 1993 * – An unspecified number (at least 6), including Stormer HVMs, were sent from the UK to Ukraine during the

. * – 64

Former

* – 25 (retired)

Notes

External links

Stormer – Light Armoured Vehicles – Jane's Land Forces
{{ModernUKAFVsNav, style=wide Armoured fighting vehicles of the United Kingdom Reconnaissance vehicles of the United Kingdom Alvis Stormer HVM Stormer