Built to Last: The Army's Failed Quest to Replace the Bradley Fighting Vehicle (BFV) - Army Modernization Efforts for Infantry Fighting Vehicles, Strategic Context, Requirements, and Cost

This excellent report has been professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction. On 25 January 2014, the Army Chief of Staff announced the cancelation of the Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV). The GCV's cancelation marked the US Army's most recent failure to design and field a new ground combat vehicle since fielding the Big Five weapon systems in the early 1980's. The Army has long expressed the need to replace the Bradley Fighting Vehicle (BFV) with a new ground combat vehicle. The Bradley, one of the original Big Five, was designed to fight a Cold War threat. Requirements have changed since then but the Army continues to use the BFV as its primary infantry-fighting vehicle.

Today, the Army believes that the BFV does not have the space, weight, or power needed on the modern battlefield. The persistent need for a replacement vehicle and the consistent record of failure to design a replacement strongly suggests there is a serious problem in the Army ground combat system development process. Since the Big Five systems will not last forever, it is important to identify why Army efforts to modernize have failed. However, given the variety of systems and related acquisition and development processes, it is not possible to provide a general explanation. Instead, the research focused on development of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle and its proposed successors, the Future Combat Systems and the Ground Combat Vehicle. These three weapon programs comprise the Army's concentrated efforts to create a new infantry-fighting vehicle and because of this, these three weapons programs provide the most relevant examples of Army ground modernization efforts.

By comparing the development dimensions of the FCS and GCV to the standard created by the Bradley, clear differences emerged. First, the strategic context of the FCS and GCV never reached a level of stability that supported the BFV. Second, the manner in which specifications changed for each weapon system led to the conclusion that the BFV, FCS, and GCV experienced requirement creep. Deeper analysis proved this notion wrong. The Bradley was unique since it based its requirements on lofty, yet tangible goals. In contrast, the FCS and GCV created specifications depending on immature and future technology that did not exist at the time of conception and were not achieved during development. Ultimately, the evidence suggests that if the Army intends to replace the Bradley with a new infantry-fighting vehicle, then it must develop more modest program goals at the start of system design and limit the list of new technologies to avoid criticisms of either design or cost.