Bradley Lives On to Fight With New Guns, EW, Lasers & Anti-Tank Missiles

By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

(Washington DC) Meet the Bradley Fighting Vehicle: The Army is surging forward with its Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle, a next-generation infantry carrier described as a Bradley replacement for the future.

The OMFV, as it’s called, is being designed to deliver a nine-man squad into combat under armor using advanced, AI-enabled computing, new levels of autonomy, manned-unmanned teaming, and a new generation of weapons to include firepower and the ability to launch and recover drones.

The Life of Bradley Fighting Vehicle

The OMFV efforts are showing promise and demonstrate great importance to the Army, yet at the same time, the service is still operating upgraded variants of its classic, combat-tested, decades-old Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

There is a paradoxical quality to the Army’s continued Bradley upgrades, as there are both massive improvements and limitations that drive the need for the OMFV. Essentially, a legacy platform such as the Bradley can only be upgraded to a certain extent before “size, weight and power” constraints limit upgrade possibilities. Future combat vehicles, for example, will need new levels of onboard electrical power, electronic weapons (EW), and space for soldiers and ammunition. The Bradley has, over the years, been upgraded so many times that it has essentially “maxed out” and reached its limit.

Some survivability enhancements needed to counter threats in Iraq wound up maxing the Bradley’s weight and on-power capacity. For instance, Army developers explain that equipping the Bradley with new suspension, reactive armor tiles, and APS can increase the vehicle’s weight by as much as 3,000 pounds.

However, this is not to say the most cutting-edge Bradley variants are not extremely useful and impactful. As recently as several years ago, the Army purchased 473 of the most modern Bradley M2A4 and M7A4 vehicles, platforms with new computing, weapons sights, digital processors, and long-range sensors.

Army weapons developers have told Warrior Maven that the newest Bradley A4s include upgrades to the engine and transmission, cooling system modification, electrical system upgrades, and the introduction of vehicle diagnostics. The upgrades, as explained by Army weapons developers, “bought back” some of the lost mobility and added the technical infrastructure sufficient to accommodate new weapons and sensors. Electronics and communications systems as they emerge.