THEN & NOW
of the enemy weapons that the Army’s future combat vehicles will need to defend Soldiers against.
ESSENTIAL CAPABILITIES Te Army is not starting from scratch in developing the Next Generation Combat Vehicle family. It will feature a number of combat-tested capabilities introduced to the current fleet through incremental upgrades, including the double-V hull, Coffman said.
Another technology that holds promise for future combat vehi- cles is the Stryker urban kit, basically a large cage on the vehicle designed to keep rocket-propelled grenades and thrown explo- sive devices from hitting the vehicle itself. Additional battle-tested technologies include see-through armor; jamming technologies to defeat enemy radio capabilities used to detonate bombs; and bomb-removal systems.
Size, weight and power are perennial concerns for combat vehi- cles. Current issues include:
• The engine must not only generate enough power for what the first model will do, but have sufficient excess capacity to allow the Army to add requirements as technology advances. Ditto for space in the vehicle. The reason the present-day Bradley cannot accommodate any more upgrades is that there is no reserve space, weight and power capacity left.
• The vehicles cannot run continuously on the battlefield, for reasons of stealth and fuel efficiency. The Bradley replacement, as well as other combat vehicles, will need to have a silent capa- bility in its power source, a battery backup allowing the crew to operate without running the engine.
• The vehicle’s power supply must fit the Army’s logistical needs. The Army is looking at a variety of power sources, including hybrids, pure hydrogen and pure electric. “What we really have to decide as an Army is which technology provides the logis- tics at range and the ready-now capability for our Soldiers that we want on the next battlefield,” Coffman said. “For instance, if you went totally electric, it takes time to recharge a battery. It takes about seven minutes to refuel a tank. So if you can’t recharge the battery in under seven minutes, I’m not sure that’s a technology that is going to make us better on the battlefield.”
PLAN NOW TO UPGRADE LATER Incremental upgrades are an established concept in combat vehi- cle development. Te Next Generation Combat Vehicle initiative is just taking it to a new level of planning.
“Now we’re going into it with a set plan, with both schedule and monies allocated,” Coffman said. “Rather than seeking every- thing that we desire on the first increment that is fielded to the force, through prototypes and incremental upgrades we’re able to identify those technologies that aren’t quite mature yet. We now have a plan to upgrade the systems through time to main- tain pace with technology and outpace our adversaries. And that is a new thing for the Army.”
Trough the five-year program objective memorandum, Army Futures Command can estimate spending for future upgrades.
“So we understand what the costs are, and if that funding remains as predicted, we absolutely have a plan to spend it. We also under- stand that things change … and we lay that out over time.”
A LIFESAVING UPGRADE
The double-V hull added to Stryker combat vehicles starting in 2011 deflects the force of explosive blasts away from the Soldiers inside. (U.S. Army photo)
Te Army is working with industry to plan ahead for upgrades in the design and development of the next generation of combat vehicles, Coffman said. “We need not only our [vehicles] capable of handling increased weights, but we need electrical upgrad- ability. As technologies advance and we want to put additional systems onto an existing vehicle, we have to have the reserve power onboard to be able to handle multiple electrical require- ments from these systems.”
Also necessary is “sufficient space to handle increased technol- ogies, because while we expect that as technology advances it
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