US Defense Procurement Examined via Bradley IFV and CFV

[John Kettler]

Believe this is from "Pentagon Wars," but that's immaterial. What it does is tellingly show how discombobulated our procurement process is, and the representation here is understated! I know, because I used to work in the belly of the beast for over 11 years. Have seen requirements creep, missions creep, added capabilities demanded but not funded, problems postponed or hidden, etc. Moreover, I have a now-retired brother, George, who was in Scouts and had to live with the consequences of the very design decisions shown in the clip. He sent me the loadout for a Bradley CFV, and you would NOT believe how much stuff they had crammed in there. Sleeping in it was a miserable experience. The points about its unsuitability as a recon platform were more than borne out when I got to see the roaring, black smoke billowing, size a of a house monster in the motor pool at Ft. Benning, where it made so much racket you could scarcely fear the M1s at all from a few tens of feet! He told me they wanted the German Luchs (modernized 8-rad design al la SDKfz 234) instead, but the Germans wouldn't swap. They wanted no part of it. Had no control over label in keyframe, so sorry about that! This was on FB on a public thread.Nor can I get rid of the duplicate.
 

 

Regards,

John Kettler

[JoMac]

Oh, and I believe it for sure with all the stories I have read on the Bradley...There were far more developmental problems with the Bradley before it got fully implemented on the Field, compared to the M1 Abrams.

Edited May 1, 2018 by JoMc67

[General Jack Ripper]

The video you're looking for is here: