Light tank prototypes arrive at Fort Bragg for soldier evaluation
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General Dynamics Land Systems Mobile Protected Fire Power entry features the AJAX chassis and a turret with the same fire control system as the M1 Abrams tank. (Photo courtesy of GDLS). |
UPDATE — This story has been updated to more accurately reflect the nature of the MPF turret on the GDLS offering and to include more details on the company’s prototype delivery progress.
WASHINGTON — Prototype candidates competing to be the new light tank for the U.S. infantry are being delivered to the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where soldiers will help decide which vehicle will prevail, the Army announced in a Dec. 11 statement.
“Soldiers of the 82nd Airborne will soon get the chance to do something no U.S. infantry soldier has done in 26 years — employ a dedicated mobile, direct fire vehicle platform against hardened positions, dismounted personnel and light armored vehicles,” the statement read.
The soldier vehicle assessment of two different Mobile Protected Firepower, or MPF, prototypes for infantry brigade combat teams will start Jan. 4, 2021, and run through June 2021.
BAE Systems and General Dynamics Land Systems were chosen in December 2018 to each build 12 prototypes of the Army’s future MPF vehicle identified in the service’s ground combat vehicle strategy published in 2015. Infantry brigade combat teams don’t have a combat vehicle that provides “mobile, protected, direct, offensive fire capability,” organic to those units and that is capable against near-peer and peer threats, according to the statement.
GDLS is building a vehicle that takes a new light-weight chassis driven by a high performance power pack and an advanced suspension and combines it with a turret featuring the same fire control system found in the Abrams main battle tank. The company will complete all 12 MPF preproduction vehicles by the end of December, according to GLDS. Ten of the vehicles have already been delivered to the Army.
BAE Systems’ design is an updated M8 Buford armored gun system with new capabilities and components.
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| BAE System will build an M8 Buford Armored Gun System with new capabilities for its prototype for the Army's Mobile Protected Firepower vehicle. (BAE Systems) |
“We are incredibly excited to see the MPF platform entering into this phase,” Brig. Gen. Glenn Dean, the new program executive officer for Ground Combat Systems, said in the statement. “MPF represents an innovative and aggressive approach to system acquisition. The beginning of our SVA in January illustrates how hard the teams are working to keep the major events of this program on schedule.”
The MPF will be “an integration of existing mature technologies and components that avoids development which would lengthen the program schedule,” the statement noted. “The priority has always been to field this new critical capability soonest, but the MPF will also be capable of accommodating additional weight and spare electrical power to support future growth.”
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