Sunday, December 31, 2017

The Future Bradley

The Army is upgrading the Bradley Fighting Vehicle (and Bradley Cavalry Vehicle, I assume):

The Army is working on a future Bradley Fighting Vehicle variant possibly armed with lasers, counter-drone missiles, active protection systems, vastly improved targeting sights and increased on-board power to accommodate next-generation weapons and technologies.

Also designed to be lighter weight, more mobile and much better protected, the emerging Bradley A5 lethality upgrade is already underway - as the Army works vigorously to ensure it is fully prepared if it is called upon to engage in major mechanized, force-on-force land war against a technically advanced near-peer rival.

This is interesting:

At one point, Bassett told Warrior that, in the future, virtually all armored vehicles will have an ability to be tele-operated, if necessary.

Could we start with just some of the weapons before the full crew is removed?

I'd like to see a variant that sees if Remote Weapons Stations mounted on the rear right and left sides operated from battalion headquarters could work.

The cavalry version that only has a couple dismounts rather than the 6 or 7 of the infantry version seems like the best option to test this "reachback for the squad" because this could augment firepower without reducing the dismounts carried.