By B.C Kessner
Recent years of internal funding and Army-coordinated development has positioned BAE Systems to deliver production representative variants of M113 replacement vehicles ready for immediate testing, company executives said.
“If the Army said it wanted to pursue a conversion approach of systems already in production, we could quickly give them common vehicle platforms to go immediately into tests,” Rick Burtnett, Bradley Derivatives program manager at BAE, told Defense Daily yesterday. “These would not be prototypes; these are production representative articles that we are developing on our production line.”
BAE last year unveiled a common vehicle platform option for the Army to replace its M113 vehicles for the heavy brigade combat teams (HBCT) (Defense Daily, May 12, 2009). Since then, the company has continued to develop its Bradley Family of Vehicles aimed at balancing cost and capability to meet the near-term M113 replacement needs, including five derivatives of the Bradley A3 “father” vehicle that is going down the production line, Burtnett said.
The company is banking its positioning and investment on a view that the battle-proven Bradley could provide HBCTs with the mobility, survivability and mission effectiveness that the Army is seeking, in addition to a high level of commonality that would reduce supply chain and maintenance challenges.
“If that Army were to go with Bradley-based replacements for the 113 within the HBCT formation, you would have 77 percent commonality in that formation,” Burtnett said. “That would be a huge payoff for the Army in terms of logistics and cost [while] helping the Army sustain the fleet. One of the issues of having so many different kinds of vehicles is dealing with obsolescence and having to fund obsolescence programs for all those vehicles,” he added.
The Army continues to examine its overall modernization strategy to include its Tactical Wheeled Vehicle Strategy. There have been a number of examinations of replacing the M113 but no decisions have been made as the Army studies all the options.
BAE’s proposal offers a near-term option to provide updated and improved ambulatory, mortar, command and other capabilities for the HBCT.
The five vehicles include: a Bradley Armored Medical Treatment Vehicle, the company’s latest derivative that offers increased size as compared to the Army’s M577 treatment vehicle that serves as the nucleus of a battalion aid station, Burtnett said. The Bradley treatment vehicle can hold all of the equipment for a battalion aid station while offering the ability to treat wounded soldiers inside without having to set up an aid station. It has a complete combat emergency treatment suite including a surgeon’s lamp, operating table, suction and oxygen generation systems, ultrasound equipment, and a refrigerator for plasma, Burtnett said. The vehicle also has two litter lifts for emergency transport.
A second platform is the Bradley Ambulatory Medical Evacuation Vehicle, with the capacity for all the essential medical equipment needed for en-route treatment of four litter patients, eight ambulatory patients, or a combination of the two.
The third variant is the Bradley Mortar Vehicle, which removes the Bradley turret and replaces it with the existing M1064 Mortar system and mission equipment. This retains commonality in maintenance and training. The increased volume of the Bradley as compared to the M1064 allows for more stowed mortar rounds.
A fourth proposal is for a Bradley Command Post. With high power-generation capabilities and five networked workstations, the Command Post provides a platform under-armor HBCT command and control. Related to the Bradley Command Post is the Paladin Integrated Management (PIM) Operations Center Vehicle (OCV), which uses the same Bradley platform with a reconfigured PIM hull.
The final vehicle proposed is the Bradley General Purpose Vehicle designed to fulfill general purpose missions currently performed by the M113. The general purpose vehicle has a large internal volume and is adaptable to meet various HBCT needs.
The proposed Bradley derivatives could be a mix of remanufactured and new build vehicles. According to John Tile, director of Bradley Programs at BAE, there are two approaches. “The Army has a number of original ‘A0s’ they want to supply, so you would take those A0s run them through the remanufacture process and turn them into an A3 base derivative,” Tile said recently. When the company adds up what it foresees as a long supply requirement, there would also be the need for new hulls, he added. “We have that capability to do the new hulls.”
For the HBCTs, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle fulfills five missions: infantry fighting vehicle, cavalry fighting vehicle, fire support vehicle, battle command vehicle, and engineer squad vehicles. The newly proposed platforms, with common mobility, protection, hull and track can go anywhere on the battlefield a Bradley Fighting Vehicle can go.
“We’ve positioned ourselves so we can get that time to market,” Tile said. “It’s leveraging that M113 mission equipment platform experience…[and] the Bradley production experience and marrying them together. We believe we can get it quicker, one to two years we can get it out there.”