It was the end of an era Thursday for the sometimes contentious Stryker Brigade in Hawaii, with the speedy eight-wheeled vehicles blasting away, likely for the last time, at targets at a big Schofield Barracks range ahead of an Army plan to move the vehicles out of the state to cut costs, officials said.

Strykers lobbed 120-mm mortars, fired machine guns and disgorged soldiers during the exercise to showcase the 25th Infantry Division’s ability to act as a contingency response force.

In this case it was a simulated deployment to help the country Atropia, which was attacked by Donovia. The demonstration was tied into Tropic Lightning Week, which also recognized the division’s 74th birthday and the 50th anniversary of its entry into Vietnam.

But for the 320 Strykers it’s the end of the road in Hawaii. The 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, which uses the vehicles, already is transitioning to an infantry brigade that eventually will have fewer soldiers.

“We’re doing maintenance (on the Stryker vehicles). They are not being used for training, and we’re prepping for them to be shipped out,” said Capt. Richard Barker, a 2nd Stryker Brigade spokesman.

When that will happen still has to be determined, Schofield officials said.

When troop cuts were announced in July at installations around the country, U.S. Army Pacific at Fort Shafter said a proposal was made to transfer the Hawaii Stryker equipment to the National Guard’s 81st Armored Brigade Combat Team in Washington state.

Capt. Joseph Siemandel, a spokesman for the Washington National Guard, said Thursday the timeline for receiving the Strykers is a decision being made by the Department of the Army. The Guard is still awaiting confirmation on the number of Strykers as well, he said.

The more than 4,600 soldiers in the 2nd Stryker Brigade will be reduced to about 3,400 soldiers, but those troop cuts haven’t taken place yet, Barker said.

As part of its “force restructure” announcement in July, the Army said it was dropping to 450,000 soldiers from 490,000, with all the cuts to be completed by the end of fiscal 2018.

At Thursday’s demonstration, Stryker variants including the 105-mm Mobile Gun System were on display for military families and veterans. Artillery guns fired a distance of more than 2 miles, while Strykers with mortars in the back fired just under that into the impact area that backs up to the Waianae Mountain Range on Schofield.

Other Strykers raced in to take “Objective Foley” while Black Hawk helicopters and a Chinook swooped overhead, including a medevac chopper that picked up a simulated casualty.

Lt. Col. Neal Mayo, commander of the 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry “Wolfhounds,” whose soldiers were taking part in the exercise, said while the Stryker and its capabilities “won’t necessarily be here on the island anymore, it’s really about the soldiers that you saw during the demonstration today.”

“Those soldiers aren’t going anywhere,” he added. “And while we’ll possess some different capabilities in the future, we will still be prepared to execute any mission we’re asked to across the Pacific or anywhere else in the world.”

With the transformation, Schofield Barracks will have two infantry brigades — the 2nd and 3rd — along with an aviation helicopter brigade that now includes Black Hawks and Chinooks, and will include Apache attack helicopters in the future.

Barker, the 2nd Brigade spokesman, said the soldiers were used to riding in and carrying their gear in the 19-ton Strykers.

“But now they are going to be carrying everything on their backs,” he said. “So we started walking a lot more.”

The gun system was usually fired at Pohakuloa Training Area on Hawaii island. The cost of getting Strykers there — and to the National Training Center in California for high-level practice — was among the reasons the Army decided to move the Strykers out.

Critics said the $1.5 billion Stryker Brigade, one of the largest Army projects in Hawaii since World War II, was not a good fit for Hawaii, in part because the state doesn’t have easily accessible, wide-open spaces to drive on.

Several Hawaiian and environmental groups sued, but the Army won the right to go ahead in 2005.

The Washington Guard’s Siemandel said it has a partnership with Joint Base Lewis-McChord, which houses a Stryker “center of excellence,” and it can work with Stryker units on the base as well as the Yakima Training Center, which has 327,000 acres.

The range that the Strykers drove on Thursday at Schofield, the Battle Area Complex, was built for the Strykers at a cost of $43 million, the Army said.

Lt. Col. Rob Phillips, a 25th Infantry Division spokesman, said the “BAX,” as it’s known, is a multipurpose range for company- level, combined-arms fire that “will continue to support training to ensure our soldiers and Marines are ready for their missions.”