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Next Generation Bradley demonstrator


Ivanov

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On October 4, 2016 at 7:48 AM, kinophile said:

Definitely makes sense to continuously upgrade a proven, familiar and very capable platform (despite its flaws). 

Bit misleading as it is not an upgrade for existing Bradley's, but rather the current turret on a new hull, the same developed for the the M113-replacing AMPV program (the tracked ambulance seen next to the next-gen Brad above is one variant).  So a very conservative approach to a new vehicle, but one that would maintain commonality with the new AMPVs and M109A7s in the Armored BCT.  I would expect future iterations to include a new turret with firepower upgrade.

Also at the same show, GD showed off a tech demonstrator for the Army's tentative Mobile Protected Firepower program, basically a light tank for Infantry / Airborne BCTs.  It combines an Abrams turret in a lightweight aluminum shell (turret is identical internally), the XM360 120mm cannon, and the hull from the UK's Ajax scout vehicle.

Screen-Shot-2016-10-03-at-5.58.41-PM-102

Edited by akd
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Re: Bradley

The Ground Combat Vehicle program leaned really heavily on two things the Bradley was bad at:

a. Carrying capacity

b. IED/Mine protection

The Bradley will never be able to handle more troops without a massively stretched bay, or by recruiting sub 5'5 mechanized infantrymen.  But in light of the massive cluster fornicate that was the GCV, someone is likely thinking a super-Bradley that answers one of those questions might be more attractive than watching the BAE Sandcrawler show off against the Northrup-Grumman Terrordrome.

As far as fighting the last war, the Bradley is actually not the worst for near peer threats, or at least it certainly does pretty well for an IFV.  And it'd be really awesome to get ABCTs down to basically two tracked vehicle families (or at the least, tanks and a closely related set of vehicles)

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Oh no I absolutely think the Bradldy ( luckily from its developmental issues.. cof pentagon wars cof cof ;)   )

- is the best or in the top 3 in the world for ifvs.

If i had to choose any ifv tank combo ina war id surely go bradleys and abrams.. provided it was under an american flag with the logisitical support and training that comes with that vs say cmding a platoon of saudis ( id desert )

I also absolutely think the military is right in upgrading our hardware instead of acquiring new multibillion projects. Just look at the  JSF. My god. We.d be better off upgrading all our F22s, f15s and f16s and ditching the JSF even at this late point.

As far as the B21 raider I dont know enough about it to say if I think its a waste of time. However if they continue the program when they have literal proof the product is $hit like the JSF well.. ill have my answer. 

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41 minutes ago, TheForwardObserver said:

They've got plenty more good years in them.  The seats though.  There have been some brilliant advances in seat cushion technology since the Bradley's introduction and more could be done to leverage these advances.

I thank god that in all my limited Bradley time, I was only obligated to actually get in the back all of once, and I was by myself.  I think this is common with all APC/IFV designs, but all the same, you'd think there was at least a way to do it less worst.  

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21 minutes ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

I thank god that in all my limited Bradley time, I was only obligated to actually get in the back all of once, and I was by myself.  I think this is common with all APC/IFV designs, but all the same, you'd think there was at least a way to do it less worst.  

Alone is the best way to ride in the back.  Splay out some rucksacks and pusspads on the floor for bedding, add a little ambiance with some glow-stick lighting, open up some MRE boxes and get to pilfering.

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1 hour ago, TheForwardObserver said:

Alone is the best way to ride in the back.  Splay out some rucksacks and pusspads on the floor for bedding, add a little ambiance with some glow-stick lighting, open up some MRE boxes and get to pilfering.

You must be talking about the M2A3s with the bench seating. Try spending most of the Desert Storm ground war stuffed into the old M2A2 seating arraignment. Talk about sardines in a can!

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45 minutes ago, Splinty said:

You must be talking about the M2A3s with the bench seating. Try spending most of the Desert Storm ground war stuffed into the old M2A2 seating arraignment. Talk about sardines in a can!

We did actually have the horrible old seating.  The ridiculous folding seat consoles.  I think we removed a fair number of them at the time to save space and preserve sanity.

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1 hour ago, TheForwardObserver said:

We did actually have the horrible old seating.  The ridiculous folding seat consoles.  I think we removed a fair number of them at the time to save space and preserve sanity.

We tried to rearrange them and took out the one between the turret shield and the hull, but any space we saved just got taken up by ammo and gear. Definitely a no-win situation. 

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Re: Bradseats

I lucked out, it was merely an absolutely ancient M3A2 (not ODS), so I got to ride on the old school seats on a fork (the seats were basically mounted on what looked like a truncated tuning fork, with as much ammo and TOW missiles as was possible was loaded to your left and right).  The newer M3s are superior sleeping accommodations as they still have pretty major floor space, and they've moved the seats to a baby bench seat for two on the side.

Re: Light tanks

We're in a weird era for tanks. The old standbys for cheap MBTs are either totally obsolete (T-55s, M48s), increasingly nearly obsolete (M60, T-72), or for some other reason, no longer readily available (the old West German pool of Leo 2s is increasingly accounted for).  There's a lot of military forces going to their motorpools and seeing a need for a tank-like thing, but lacking the budget for most new tank offerings (as even T-90s are pretty steep, let alone M1s, new Leo 2s, etc, etc).  Many countries don't need something that can take on large armored forces, they need something that'll not explode when shot at with older anti-tank weapons, and with more firepower than an APC/IFV.  

Further in terms of more conventional forces, we're going back to a more conventional focus, and a lot of folks are realizing there's a tankish shaped hole in many of their lighter formations (see Sheridan/XM8 for the US, ERC-90's persistence in service for the French).   

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