On Tuesday, 25 November 2025, the Argentine Ministry of Defense announced the unloading at the port of Zárate in Buenos Aires Province of the Treasure, a Ro-Ro (Roll-on/Roll-off) class car carrier sailing under the Liberian flag, which delivered the first batch of 8 M1126 Stryker ICV wheeled armored personnel carriers.
Photo: Argentine Ministry Of Defense
Earlier, on 20 November, the Ministry of Defense reported the completion in the United States of the training program for driver-mechanics from the 10th Mechanized Brigade of the Army (Ejército Argentino, EA), which will be the operator of the vehicles. The training took place from 11 November at the Joint Base Lewis–McChord in the state of Washington, and the organizer of the theoretical and practical course for four non-commissioned officer drivers and one officer was the Stryker manufacturer, General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS).
The official presentation of the Argentine Army’s newest vehicles will take place on 3 December of this year during a ceremony at the Boulogne Sur Mer barracks in Buenos Aires, which also houses the 601st Transport Battalion, among others.
It’s worth noting that on 2 July of this year, during the visit of Argentine Minister of Defense Luis Alfonso Petri to Washington, an intergovernmental agreement was concluded with the U.S. Department of Defense for the delivery of the first batch of M1126 Stryker ICVs.
Eight Stryker ICV wheeled armored vehicles in the baseline M1126 configuration were ordered, representing the first of three stages of the procurement program. Earlier, on 6 July 2020, the U.S. Department of State approved the sale to Argentina of up to 27 vehicles of this type in a package with associated equipment valued at up to 100 million USD. However, the entire program is intended to include a total of 207 vehicles.
Initially, it was reported that the first batch would consist of two vehicles, but in the attached photographs four can be counted (the press release does not specify the number – editor’s note), which is consistent with the number of trained NCO drivers.
The Argentine Army (Ejército Argentino, EA) operates several types of U.S.-made equipment, including 134 vehicles from the HMMWV family (in the M988, M1025A2, and M1097A2 variants) and 499 M113A1/A2 tracked armored personnel carriers (as well as 28 M548A1 cargo carriers). The introduction of modern Strykers will make it possible to initiate the technical modernization program of the mechanized forces.
So far, the Stryker has not achieved major export success, having been delivered mainly to Thailand (130 units, all of which have already been delivered), and, when exported, currently produced by General Dynamics Land Systems–Canada (GDLS-C) in Ontario, Canada – a subsidiary of the U.S. company General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) – for North Macedonia (initially 54 units, later reduced to 42 in 2024) and Bulgaria (183 units), with deliveries yet to begin. The vehicles have, however, been sent to war-torn Ukraine as U.S. military assistance (over 400 delivered, of which around 80 have been destroyed, damaged, abandoned, or captured). This type of vehicle is also being considered in Chile as a replacement for the Mowag Piranha I and for potential licensed production in India, although the New Delhi government abandoned its procurement plans, according to information from July of this year. The Stryker has also been unsuccessfully offered to Canada, Israel, and Lithuania.
On 9 November of this year, information emerged that several weeks earlier the Polish Ministry of National Defense had sent a Letter of Request (LoR) to the United States regarding the potential acquisition of Strykers for Poland, to fill the gap left after hundreds of BWP-1 IFVs and Rosomak APCs were supplied to Ukraine. The Americans reportedly proposed transferring a batch of vehicles free of charge under the EDA (Excess Defense Articles) procedure, in connection with plans to restructure U.S. forces in Europe.
