The [United States Army] has mostly lost its planned heavily armored infantry carrier of the future, the ground combat vehicle (GCV), which saw its funding for fiscal 2014 cut from $580 million to $100 million, relegating it to a technology study, program industry sources have said.
At the same time, however, the Maneuver Center for Excellence released a sources-sought notice on Jan. 22 looking for an ultra-light combat vehicle that can carry a full squad of nine soldiers, sport a “medium caliber” gun, be transportable inside a CH-47 or air-dropped from a C-17 or C-130.
The service also said it wants any potential design to feature superior off-road mobility, and instead of carrying bulky armor packages, it should be able to “avoid enemy contact.”
The stupid just won't die.
Granted, the whole GCV infantry fighting vehicle just boggled my mind with the weight, tipping the scales at 70 tons--or more, for other versions.
Yet I consoled myself that at least the Army accepts that armor matters. Apparently not.
Are we really going to pretend now that passive protection is obsolete like we did after Desert Storm? Only to learn in Operation Iraqi Freedom that heavy armor is not obsolete?
Remember, if you assume that armor is pointless because a vehicle can't have enough armor to defeat the worst threats, pretty much any threat will defeat that lightly armed thing.
And God help me, is the solution to the firepower versus protection problem really to "avoid enemy contact?"
Seriously? I mean, really, this is the protection? Forget armor. Don't be seen by the enemy?
Are we so used to battlefield victory that we are forgetting the minor detail of fighting on that battlefield?
Is the stupid really thicker than the armor we want on our fighting vehicles these days?
