3 ms·

I agree with what you said as one possible path to "why", but one look at the history of the Bradley Tank shows how meaningless time/money can be in large orgs.

I agree with what you said as one possible path to "why", but one look at the history of the Bradley Tank shows how meaningless time/money can be in large orgs. Especially political ones. Couple this with big name/external validation, and the fact that the best and brightest techs don't flock to the military (too dogmatic)... The F35 is the new Bradley tank, and how much was spent? Anyhow, you're probably correct, but I take exception to the reasoning being how much the military spent, or how long they worked at it. (note: In times of war, all the political jockeying ends, disappears, and the military becomes lean and efficient. In times of peace, politics exist, including funding games.)

p_l 6y ago
The difference is that the Bradley was actually a good design - the main source of bad PR about the project is also the person responsible for significant portion of the cost overruns and problems.
- tomatotomato37 6y ago
  The Bradley was such an atrocious design for it's intended purpose (an APC) that it managed to invent a new category of vehicle which turned out to be useful as a modern day cavalry.
  - p_l 6y ago
    Except by the time Bradley design was finalizing towards prototypes, the new category was already defined. It was never supposed to be just another APC, because M113 was already known to be deficient, and the long and tortured process happened because Army didn't know the goal yet - and thus required exploratory work. And then BMP-1 kicked the anthill.
- i80and 6y ago
  I'm interested in hearing more about this: I greatly enjoyed The Pentagon Wars of course, but I haven't heard a defense of the Bradley's development process yet
  - p_l 6y ago
    Some good material to follow, beyond the publicly accessible history of the project (which is long, since the fact that M113 was deficient was known before the final direction of the replacement was figured out), using somewhat popular formats: https://old.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/erpmjm/having_just_watched_the_pentagon_wars_how_has_the/ https://old.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/erpmjm/having_j... https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/truth-to-the-pentagon-wars-and-the-bradley-ifv.20319/post-198881 https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/truth-to-the-pentag... And finally a bit on the background of the Fighter Mafia member who wrote the black PR book that was used as basis for the movie (PhD thesis on the Fighter Mafia/Reformers and their influence in decision making in both USAF and elsewhere): https://krex.k-state.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2097/38768/MichaelHankins2018.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y https://krex.k-state.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2097/38768/...

p_l 6y ago

The difference is that the Bradley was actually a good design - the main source of bad PR about the project is also the person responsible for significant portion of the cost overruns and problems.

tomatotomato37 6y ago
The Bradley was such an atrocious design for it's intended purpose (an APC) that it managed to invent a new category of vehicle which turned out to be useful as a modern day cavalry.
- p_l 6y ago
  Except by the time Bradley design was finalizing towards prototypes, the new category was already defined. It was never supposed to be just another APC, because M113 was already known to be deficient, and the long and tortured process happened because Army didn't know the goal yet - and thus required exploratory work. And then BMP-1 kicked the anthill.
i80and 6y ago
I'm interested in hearing more about this: I greatly enjoyed The Pentagon Wars of course, but I haven't heard a defense of the Bradley's development process yet
- p_l 6y ago
  Some good material to follow, beyond the publicly accessible history of the project (which is long, since the fact that M113 was deficient was known before the final direction of the replacement was figured out), using somewhat popular formats: https://old.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/erpmjm/having_just_watched_the_pentagon_wars_how_has_the/ https://old.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/erpmjm/having_j... https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/truth-to-the-pentagon-wars-and-the-bradley-ifv.20319/post-198881 https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/truth-to-the-pentag... And finally a bit on the background of the Fighter Mafia member who wrote the black PR book that was used as basis for the movie (PhD thesis on the Fighter Mafia/Reformers and their influence in decision making in both USAF and elsewhere): https://krex.k-state.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2097/38768/MichaelHankins2018.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y https://krex.k-state.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2097/38768/...