Pentagon Wars 4.0
 

The Army Is Trying To Replace the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. Again.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/mil...h-replacement/

Undeterred by its most recent failure, the U.S. Army announced a new effort to replace the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle. The Army is rebooting the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle, a vehicle meant to fight with or without a human crew, but is finally making hard decisions about how well protected the vehicle is, one that will drive other considerations including how it reaches the battlefield.

The M2 Bradley was first introduced in the 1980s as a complement to the then-new M1 Abrams main battle tank. The M2 was an infantry fighting vehicle, a relatively new concept in mechanized warfare designed to carry troops directly into battle rather than dismount them at the outset and force them to fight on foot. The M2, carrying a total of nine troops across deadly battlefields needed to be heavily armored and capable of engaging light armored vehicles and even tanks. The M2 has served ever since, progressively upgraded to the new M2A3 standard deployed across armored and infantry formations across the U.S. Army and National Guard.


The Army has tried three times to replace the M2, first in the 2000s with the Future Combat System of vehicles, then the Ground Combat Vehicle, then the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle (OMFV). Each time it has failed, with at least $18.5 billion spent without a single vehicle procured.


Now, three months after Army canceled OMFV, it's about to restart the effort. This time it’s announced a list of priorities the new vehicle should reflect, something it didn’t do before. The OMFV, the Army has announced, should above all else be a survivable platform that can carry troops across the battlefield to victory.
Today’s Bradley incorporates a number of new technologies, including attachments for reactive armor, antennas, steel track protection, and a commanders independent thermal viewer.

The original Bradley fighting vehicle weighed 33.6 tons, utilizing high laminate 7000 series aluminum as a lightweight armor. The Bradley -A2 variant improved armor protection with spaced laminate belts and steel side skirts to protect the tracks. Finally, the -A3 version incorporates so-called reactive armor, shoebox-sized panels of explosives attached to the outside of the vehicle designed to defeat the shaped charge warheads of anti-tank rockets and missiles.

Today, nearly four decades after joining the U.S. Army, the M2 is showing its age. The Army has gradually piled on new tech, in many cases bolting it to the outside of the vehicle. One improvement it hasn’t been able to pile on, however, is armored protection. Passive armor, in the form of steel, aluminum, composites, ceramics, or even depleted uranium has weight to it. Weight increases stress to the vehicle’s transmission and makes it more sluggish.

The new OMFV’s first five priorities are survivability, mobility, growth, lethality, and weight. That line of priorities virtually ensures the new vehicle will be larger and heavier than the M2 Bradley. The OMFVs will carry more passive protection (physical armor) and almost certainly incorporate an active protection system designed to shoot down incoming rockets and missiles. OMFV will, like a Timex watch, take a licking and keep on ticking.


One example of an OMFV-type vehicle already in service is Israel’s Namer IFV. Namer, based on the Merkava IV tank, weighs 60 tons, carries nine infantrymen (three more than the M2), and is protected by the Trophy Active Protection System. Namer’s armor level is classified but it is almost certainly the best protected infantry fighting vehicle in existence. Namer is equipped with an unmanned turret armed with a 30-millimeter gun and two Spike MR anti-armor missiles.

OMFV will be an absolute unit, an armored vehicle so heavy the Army is resigned to moving it by ship. Ideally OMFVs will be in place before a war starts, particularly against heavily armored threats such as the Russian Army. If a crisis requires rapidly deployable U.S. Army forces, there are always the Stryker brigades, light infantry, paratroopers, and mountain troops to send instead.

It seems increasingly likely the OMFV won’t be for every crisis, just ones involving the Russians.



Should just buy the outlander max 6x6 with a half trac in the rear and slap armor on it so the infantry can keep up with the tanks.

FOR.FUCK.SAKE.

"....Ideally OMFVs will be in place before a war starts..."

I would say something pink but......

Exactly.

They need to make sure that it can swim and they had better put a bigger gun on it to kill tanks after they shoot off all their AT missiles. And this time around they need to get it right so that the soldiers inside can fire out as they go onto the objective. They didn't get that right with the M2.

How is this thing going to deal with air threats? I didn't read anything about that. It definitely needs to be able to protect itself from aircraft too.

Man, they really need to think this thing through a little better.

I think as long it comes with antenna mounting points and an “independent commander’s thermal viewer.” It should be good to go!

It sounds from the description that mine and IED protection is not needed in future wars (if one of those things were to happen - with Russia?)

(Did I ever mention that I was one of the first recipients of a Brand Spanking New BIFV on/about 1987 in the 2nd Battalion, 36th Infantry, 3rd Armored Division, Kirch Göns (aka Ayers Kasern “The Rock”) Germany.)

Armor was the King of Battle for WWII
But after the world designed & built lightweight shoulder-fired thermal rockets, things have gone downhill for the guys in tracks.

Add helo-gun ships firing stand-off GPS & thermal guided bottle-rochets,, Some Bad Ju Ju, FM'er :mad:

Well c'mon man. You know the retired general that's on the board of directors for whatever company has thought about that....right????

Thought it through all the way to the contract..:eek:

You didn't see? Angelina Jolie had those all picked up & thrown away.

The OMFG fighting vehicle computerized electronic systems will quite likely be susceptible to...



wait for it....













waaaaait for it................
























...a Chinese computer virus

I heard from a politician wiping it down with a cloth or something that has bleach bit on it gets rid of a virus.

I was in the 3rd I.D. when we transitioned from the M-113 to the Bradley. It was a nice improvement, but I was a heartbroken young 11B at the time, having been relegated to the mechanized Infantry. :(

Yeah, it was a big jump in size and weight from 113s. I was a TC for the Company CO at the time but doubled as the gunner. My transitions from 1980 to 1988 was 11B (Mech M-113, although I spent that whole time driving an M-151A2 Jeep,) later on after a special assignment in the Pershing Brigade as 11B I returned to Mech Infantry as an 11H (M901 ITV,) then back to M-113, and the M-2 BIFV changing MOS once again to 11M. Followed up by a Green Beret and a pair of Jump Boots and other comfortable boots made for walking the next 13+ years. (I have (had) a DL to drive an M-1 Abrams back then that was very cool!)

Only missed out on being an 11C :lifter

As usual you bring the issue to a succinct conclusion with as few words as possible! A true talent you have! :D

Super Computer on Tracks
 

The string of three words sums it up best.

I started as a 12B in West Germany. By the time I left in 1992, they were already figuring out how to use the Bradley instead of the 113 at squad level.

The unit went from ten to twelve man squads, down to a five or six man “squad” to fight dismounted. From three to two line platoons in a company. From four line companies to three. And on and on.

The Bradley had more fancy gadgets and equipment; needing more maintenance, resulting in less availability.

Somewhere, all those Generals are smiling at their consulting salaries.