NEXT GENERATION ON TRACK


BATTLE LINES BEING DRAWN


The Next Generation Combat Vehi- cle Cross-Functional Team is preparing to develop five new vehi- cles to replace the current generation in the field, which include the Brad- ley Fighting Vehicle and the Armored Personnel Carrier. (U.S. Army photo)


Te conference kicked off a competition to identify and develop “the best concept or concepts to fill the future role of the follow-on Ml, M2 and M3.” Te Army chose four industry teams to evaluate technologies and trade-offs and produce detailed designs of the selected concepts. Also taking on the challenge was an in-house team.


A year later and after several in-progress reviews, the industry and in-house teams would present their final concepts of next- generation combat vehicles to TACOM for review. A team of experts from the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command and the Army Materiel Development and Readiness Command, the predecessor to U.S. Army Materiel Command, would then evaluate and rate the concepts.


The most promising of them would provide the framework for technology test beds with the objective of resolving


“critical issues in components, subsys- tems and total system concepts,” Bradley wrote. “Results of these test-bed evalua- tions and other supporting technologies will then form the technical basis for the specifications for the next family of future close-combat vehicles.”


If the process has a familiar ring to it, there’s a reason. Nearly 40 years later, the


122 Army AL&T Magazine Spring 2019


Army is emphasizing collaboration with industry and across the doctrinal, combat development, test and evaluation and Soldier-user communities as it modern- izes at unprecedented speed.


ON TO THE NEXT GENERATION Back to the present: Te Bradley’s 2026 replacement will not only have to domi- nate against enemy anti-access and area denial strategies, likely in an urban setting, but also defend itself against enemy attack. Gone are the days when the United States could count on neutralizing enemy forces with airstrikes to clear the way for ground troops to enter a relatively uncontested battlespace on open ground.


Weapon systems on the next genera- tion of combat vehicles will have to aim higher and lower than present combat vehicle-mounted guns—a characteristic known as elevate and depress—“so that you can fight the enemy in tall buildings or in basements,” said Coffman, whose first operational assignment was as an armored cavalry platoon leader in Oper- ations Desert Shield and Desert Storm; one of his most recent was as a heavy infantry battalion commander in Oper- ation Iraqi Freedom. “Our legacy fleet was designed to fight in Eastern Europe against a known enemy in known terrain.


Te elevation and depression was not as important,” he said.


Enemy capabilities will have matured, Coffman noted. “While we’ve been fight- ing wars over the last decade and a half, our potential adversaries have begun to modernize their equipment. And we must again not settle for parity, but seek over- match. Tat’s why this modernization effort is so important.”


Te Bradley replacement will be capable of


“an increased degree of engagement, as well as increasing effectiveness of munitions that [can] not just glance on buildings, but actually can engage and destroy the enemy … in these tall buildings,” Coff- man said. “So if the enemy fires something at a vehicle, the vehicle has a response that destroys that before it strikes the vehicle.”


Combat vehicles also must protect the Soldiers riding in them, as the U.S. mili- tary’s experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan have shown. Te rampant threat of impro- vised explosive devices and mines, for example, drove key innovations, includ- ing the double-V hull introduced in 2011 for the Stryker fleet. Te double-V hull deflects blasts away from the vehicle and the Soldiers inside. Rocket-propelled grenades and Russian RKG3 parachute- equipped hand grenades are just a couple


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