The Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO) has completed testing with its two hybrid-electric Bradley vehicle prototypes, with the office’s leader adding the effort has yielded “good data.”
Lt. Gen. Robert Rasch, the RCCTO director, told attendees at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama earlier this month the Army is now analyzing the results of the demonstration and will use the data to inform further hybrid-electric prototyping opportunities.
“This isn’t about [going] green. This is about operational warfighting capability. This is about operational effectiveness. And so, if you imagine, the ability to close on an enemy in a silent tank or a silent Bradley,” Rasch said during his keynote remarks. “And then you turn around and you see this big behemoth of a tracked vehicle behind you, it’s kind of unnerving. And those are the type of capabilities that I, from a soldier perspective, am focused on.”
The Army RCCTO awarded BAE Systems a $32.2 million deal in July 2020 to integrate hybrid electric drives (HEDs) on two Bradley test vehicles, as the service looks to prove out new electrification technologies for its combat vehicle fleet (Defense Daily, July 16 2020).
BAE Systems said at the time of award it was working with QinetiQ on the project, with the latter providing the electric cross drive transmission for the hybrid-electric drives.
“Now, the Army’s not necessarily looking at Bradley as the first system. If you’ve been paying attention to the news, we’re actually replacing the Bradley. But Bradley was a great surrogate vehicle given the size constraints of that platform and the engine compartment. So we can test it there and then export [those lessons] to other [platforms],” Rasch said.
For the XM30 program, the Army’s Bradley replacement effort, the Army recently selected hybrid-electric offerings from General Dynamics Land Systems [GD] and American Rheinmetall Vehicles to move forward onto the detailed design and prototype build phases (Defense Daily, June 26).
“[XM30’s] hybrid-electric powertrain will reduce fuel consumption, extending the operational reach of the formation through less frequent refueling stops and enabling silent watch like we’ve never had before,” Brig. Gen. Geoff Norman, director of the Army’s Next-Generation Combat Vehicle Cross-Functional Team, told reporters at the time.
Along with the two Bradleys, Rasch noted RCCTO has plans to prototype with two hybrid-electric Humvees, three Joint Light Tactical Vehicles and four Strykers, and will transfer lessons learned to the Army’s Program Executive Office for Ground Combat Systems.
BAE Systems told reporters in late March it’s now planning to design a hybrid-electric version of the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV), the replacement for the Army’s legacy M113 armored personnel carriers (Defense Daily, April 10).
“The [Bradley hybrid-electric vehicle] approach we’ve taken is scalable. We’re moving it to AMPV. So we have an [AMPV hybrid-electric vehicle] program that we’re starting to design right now, which is moving this to AMPV. And [we’re] talking to the Army about when and if we do that next. So we’re pretty excited about that,” Jim Miller, BAE Systems’ vice president of business development for combat mission systems, told reporters during a briefing at the Association of the United States Army’s Global Force Symposium.
The Army recently approved BAE Systems’ AMPV for full-rate production (FRP), with the first FRP production contract for the program expected at the end of August (Defense Daily, Aug. 7).