Specs on the Bradley Fighting Vehicle (flipped over by explosion in Iraq)

[underpants]

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/www/256.htm



CHARACTERISTICS
Length: 20.5 feet
Width: 10.5 feet
Height: 9.7 feet
Weight: 24.8 tons (M2) 24.7 tons (M3)
Speed: 41 miles per hour
Range: 300 miles
Crew: 3
Passengers: 6 (M2) 2 (M3)
ARMAMENT
Primary: 25-mm. cannon
Secondary: 7.62-mm. machine gun
TOW missiles (two launch tubes)


The M2 and M3 Bradley fighting vehicles are designed to operate in combat with the same speed as the M1A1 Abrams and with a greater degree of protection than the M113 armored personnel carrier. The M2 provides infantry squads with a light armored fighting vehicle. The M3 provides scout and armored cavalry units with a vehicle for reconnaissance, screening, and security missions. The infantry version has firing ports for modified M16 rifles. Other modifications include enhanced armor. In addition to the M2 and M3 configurations, the A1 and A2 versions of both models were deployed to Southwest Asia.

[wtmusic]

1. those have to be some big-ass bombs

I think they're getting the MO down :(

[NNN0LHI]

2. Here is what it looked like afterwards

Iraqis view a bomb crater on a rural road north of Baghdad, near the town of Taji, after a fatal blast destroyed a U.S. Army Bradley fighting vehicle, January 17, 2004. Guerrillas killed three U.S. soldiers and two Iraqi civil defense officials in a bomb attack as Washington insisted it would hand over political power in Iraq (news - web sites) in mid-2004 as scheduled. Photo by Ali Jasim/Reuters

An Iraqi man and boy hold pieces of a destroyed US Bradley fighting vehicle after three US and two Iraqi soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb blew apart their armored vehicle. Two US soldiers were also injured in the early morning attack on a convoy of US Bradley and Humvee vehicles which had been patrolling near the town of Mashahidah, 30km north of Baghdad, looking for landmines.(AFP/Mauricio Lima )

Iraqis view a bomb crater on a rural road north of Baghdad, near the town of Taji, after a fatal blast destroyed a U.S. Army Bradley fighting vehicle January 17, 2004. In the attack, a huge roadside bomb set a Bradley armored vehicle on fire and killed five inside, said Lieutenant Colonel William Macdonald of the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division. REUTERS/Ali Jasim

[underpants]

3. GOOD LORD! I hit an old tank w/ an actual TOW missile & it didn't do that!

Man that was one hell of an explosion.

Okay now I feel worse (gut wrenching) than I did before.

[buycitgo]

4. the Bradley is a HUGE boondoggle....a massive POS

I remember all the controversy when it was coming down the pike:

underarmored, undergunned for starters

huge, gigantic cost overruns

a total fiasco

they even did an HBO (IIRC) movie about this joke of a 'weapon'

wingnut fave from Cheers starred in it

someone will come up with the details, but the Bradley is one of the WORST pieces of junk ever foisted on our military

you'll see

[solinvictus]

5. Bradley IFV

This is a prime example of pork and cronyism getting our troops killed. It's been understood since day one that Bradley's are dangerous and offer little protection in a modern combat envioronment. Initially, the rear doors would not open or have crushed soldiers by closing too soon. Contractors re-engineered that flaw, only to find that they will not ford shallow water and sink. These things are deathtraps.

[buycitgo]

6. see? just wait

[EDT]

7. They're at least a step up from an M113-

Though the M113 was alot cheaper, RPG's punch right through them.

Have heard alot of people poo-pooing the new Stryker combat vehicle. Have to agree with one observers comments who said rubber wheels are bad as they can be disabled by a Molotov cocktail.

[PSR40004]

8. It was hit on the soft side...

I doubt many things would of taken a hit like that from the underside.

[solinvictus]

9. M113

Hell, a Browning .50 could take out an M113. All they were was a beer can built around a Detroit Diesel engine.

[underpants]

12. You and buycitgo are dead on

See my post below about the movie on the tracked pork product.

The thing that we (scouts) couldn't understand was the incredible amount of noise these things made. Screaming Banshees we called them.

10 years after spending about a year out of three in Germany in one my ass is STILL sore, I have tinnitus, and frost bite on all my fingers and half my toes (never had heat).

[buycitgo]

10. a brief description of the Bradley saga follows:

You all remember the absolute fiasco that the Pentagon made of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, right? A made for TV movie, "Pentagon Wars", was made about it, in fact, although not a lot of the people I spoke to in the following days had bothered to watch it (no blood or breasts involved and a plot that needed to be followed confused them, I suppose).

In any event, the military designed this weapon and, after the vehicle failed every single test that it was put through, the military simply altered the parameters of the tests so that there was absolutely no way that the vehicle could fail. Of course, by engaging in this massive cover-up, the military was dooming tens of thousands of American soldiers to horrible, fiery deaths since the tank's armor plating had to be nearly completely removed in order to make the vehicle even somewhat amphibious, a deletion that would allow nearly any weapon larger than a handgun penetrate the meager shielding. Basically, every single spec that the vehicle was meant to adhere to was ignored rather than allowing a cancellation of the order to expose the military's ineptness and legendary stupidity in its upper ranks. An admission of failure would have made it far more difficult for the involved brass to retire from the military and to then immediately be hired by the very same defense contractors who had so horrible screwed up the Bradley in the first place.

Only one officer had the courage to stand up for the soldiers who would die should the vehicle be produced in mass for the military. This single person probably saved tens of thousands of American lives but, in doing so, had to accept the fact that he would no longer have a career in the military. He made this sacrifice, anyway, but who in America remembers his name?

this is in the context of the similar, but hugely more expensive boondoggle being currently foisted upon us.....the missile shield

http://www.anotherperspective.org/advoc307.html

[underpants]

11. Was that the movie with Kelsey Grammer in it?

I can't remember the name of the movie but it is a depiction of the pork project that the Bradley is/was.

The original plans were for a longer faster APC (armored personnel carrier) than the 113 but they kept adding and adding parts made in certain congressmen's districts. For more firepower a turret and 25MM gun and hey while we are at it lets put some TOW missiles on it for tank killing.

As a friend of mine who is a engineer for the Navy once said to me,"TOW missiles we still have those?!?!??!"

[buycitgo]

13. yeah.....mind blanked out there

[underpants]

14. I think it was supposed to be a comedy

but it turned out to just be sad. The guy who starred in "The PRincess Bride" was in it too.