“The M1 was excellent in Desert Storm, completely unmatched. The world has changed. We need to revamp our forces first.”
Sure agree with that. Just out of curiosity I did a little reading on the Russian T-14. It’s an interesting concept; on the path toward an autonomous battlefield. But, the Russians are not even close to putting this tank into operation. First of all Russia doesn’t have the money and won’t have for the foreseeable future if we continue to be self sustaining with petroleum. But, agree we need to develop new platforms for the battlefield of the future. A good forward thinking post. Thanks.
There are plans for modernizing the force with new systems and/or complete redesigns of legacy systems.
A lot of the technology that was under development for the Future Combat System is being integrated into the legacy systems to not only recapitalize mobility lost due to weight increases, but also to provide better situational awareness and lethality.
The Bradley is going through ECP1 and ECP2 (Engineering Change Proposal) to create the M2A4/M3A4.
The next generation of the Abrams will be lighter, faster, and more lethal than the current M1A2SEPv3. A proposal for the next Abrams is to give it the ability to receive targeting data from drones to be able to hit targets beyond line of sight.
One thing that we completely beat the Russians at, and also likely the Chinese at, is logistics though. Defense procurement can be a clunky, bureaucratic process, but when we get it right, we get it right. Case in point, the proposal to put 30mm on Strykers to beef up their firepower instead of having just a .50 cal went from a whiteboard idea to actually installing 30mm turrets on 2nd Cavalry Regiment in like 18-24 months and having them conduct gunnery in them. JLTV, the HMMWV replacement, I think will be another success story in due time; it’s built on tried and true MRAP technology, taking the existing MATV and making a few tweaks to make it lighter for air transport and for mass production.
As far as logistics when it comes to supply, it may not seem like it sometimes, but we’re light years ahead of the competition. We have prepositioned stock all over the world that deploying troops can fall in on in case of a crisis. We don’t even touch it on Iraq/Afghanistan rotations. It’s purely in case of emergency.