Upgrade Time? The ARMY Wants the Bradley Fighting Vehicle to Take on Tanks
Key point: The Bradley would need more armor and a bigger gun to fight tanks. But is that worth the cost and increased weight?
The M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle is nominally used to carry infantry into battle, but is frequently misidentified by journalists as a tank. This is understandable, as the tracked vehicle currently tips the scales at thirty-three tons from all the add-on armor it has received, and bristles with both a twenty-five-millimeter Bushmaster automatic cannon and a TOW antitank missile launcher.
Oddly, critics of the vehicle have sometimes complained that the Bradley’s sheer firepower often makes the infantrymen it carries onboard an afterthought. In theory, the onboard mechanized infantry squads are supposed to dismount in denser terrain to scout out enemy positions and ambushers, maintain defensive perimeters, and flush adversaries out of buildings and other built-up areas that the Bradley can’t reach.
However, a notable limitation of the M2 as a troop transport is that it can carry just seven dismounts—in earlier models, just six—while a mechanized infantry squad currently has nine men. Each mechanized infantry platoon therefore has to divide three squads between four Bradleys, meaning that all the members of squad are not able to ride in the same vehicle.
