ARTICLE

October 2004

Bradley Vehicle Improvements Reflect War Lessons

by Roxana Tiron

Responding to needs born out of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the U.S. Army is charging ahead with quick fixes to its Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

But while the service is paying for a limited number of upgraded vehicles, concerns remain on whether the Army will have enough modernized Bradleys to equip future brigades.

The Bradley Fighting Vehicle, like the Abrams tank, is poised to stay in the force until 2030, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker told lawmakers. That ultimately means that it would have to receive necessary upgrades until the service transitions into the Future Combat Systems, the Army’s banner transformation program and communications network.

The problem does not lie in a shortage of Bradleys—which first entered the service in 1981—but in the funding to refurbish those available.

The Army has a total of 6,712 vehicles, “considerably more than the Army needs,” said Ron Kuykendall, technical advisor to the Army for Bradley and Stryker light armored vehicles at Fort Benning, Ga. No new Bradleys are coming off the production lines, he added.

About 62 vehicles are projected for each future brigade, called “unit of action,” meaning that a sizeable number of vehicles will need an overhaul.

In coming years, the Army would need to refurbish up to 400 Bradleys every 12 months to satisfy the chief of staff’s plan to field 43 to 48 brigade units of action, said an Army source.

Bradleys currently in the force include the original M2A2, the M2A2 Operation Desert Storm—an upgrade to the A2 introduced after the 1991 Persian Gulf War—and the M2A3, the most advanced version available. The Bradleys come in infantry and cavalry variants.

Initially, 1,107 Bradleys were supposed to be refurbished into the A3 configurations. But budget constraints caused that number nearly to be halved to 595, Kuykendall said.

The A3 is a remanufactured A2 or A2 ODS Bradley, he said. The contractor “would basically take the vehicles down to the hull and rebuild them,” he said in an interview. “It’s actually not very important what variant comes in the door.”

The A3 now is deployed with the 1st Cavalry Division and the 4th Infantry Division, minus three infantry battalions, said Kuykendall.

The A3 can travel at a maximum speed of 38 miles per hour. Its turret has a 360-degree continuous traverse ability. The A3 features dual target tracking, automatic gun target adjustment and a driver’s day and night vision, according to United Defense LP, the prime contractor.

Because the Bradley will support the Army “for some time to come, we are still faced with the challenge to modernize the fleet or maintain the fleet,” Kuykendall said. “There is a delta between the 1,107 and 595, so we have to do something with that.”

The options are either to maintain the current level for some years or “take advantage of the funding that is available” to give them the upgrades the soldiers in the field requested, he said.

The Army favored the latter scenario, which resulted in the design for the Bradley OIF. “What was identified was a desire to have an integrated [Force XXI Battle Command, Brigade-and-Below] FBCB2 system,” he said.

The next item was the desire to be able to see out to the maximum effective range of its weapons systems, and the next was an accurate navigation system.”

Ultimately, the Army’s goal is to have a combined fleet of A3 and OIF Bradleys, said Kuykendall.

United Defense this summer was awarded a $191.1 million contract to remanufacture and upgrade 131 older Bradleys to an M3A2 (cavalry) configuration. It incorporates the latest enhancements based on the Army’s lessons learned during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

As part of the same contract, United Defense will deliver 31 M7 Bradley Fire Support (BFIST) vehicles and provide 40 Bradley A2 Operation Desert Storm (ODS) kit set. The company also received $19.8 million for spare parts for Bradley A3 vehicles and the Bradley A2 OIF versions, and $7.1 million to provide blue force tracking kits for Bradley A2 ODS vehicles.

United Defense received a separate $42.9 million contract in August for additional modification work. That contract includes an option worth $3.8 million to integrate the enhanced 25 mm main gun used on the Bradley M3A3 into the M3A2 vehicles.

Work on the Bradley OIF is scheduled to start in late 2005, and the vehicles are to be delivered by August 2006.

“Until then, [units] will have to deal with what they have,” Kuykendall said. Still, “the concern is that you still want to give the soldiers the things that they have asked for,” he added.

The Bradley OIF includes the base features of the Bradley A2ODS and integrates the Bradley A3 improved Bradley acquisition system, second generation forward-looking infrared, improved inertial navigation system, and FBCB2 command and control.

The upgrades “can get complicated,” said Kuykendall. “The vehicles that we are looking at doing these modifications to are the Bradley A2 and the Bradley A2 ODS,” he said. “The A2 has no navigation system, and we have to do modifications to append the FBCB2 system to the A2 and the ODS.”

It is more affordable to upgrade existing Bradleys to the OIF version than build the A3 vehicles, which are fully digital and therefore very expensive, said Kuykendall. Digital enhancements will be added to the OIF vehicle without building it from the wheels up, which would be the case with the A3, he said.

“The Bradley A2 and ODS are analog vehicles, whereas the A3 is all-digital,” he said. “What we are doing is that we are adding the main components—the navigation, the sights and the FBCB2—onto an analog vehicle, so this is sort of a hybrid.”

Kuykendall said the first OIF Bradleys are slated to go to the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment to respond to an immediate need. Meanwhile, Bradley recapitalization, after the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, will benefit from the $114 million allotted for fiscal year 2005, along with another $34 million to initiate the Bradley integrated modernization program. Bradley sustainment efforts also received almost $245 million in the 2005 defense appropriations bill.

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