The Bradley Fighting Vehicle made its operational debut with the U.S. Army 45 years ago. Critics said it would fail. The vehicle spent 17 years in development at a cost of approximately $14 billion. The Pentagon Wars — a 1998 HBO film starring Cary Elwes and Kelsey Grammar — mocked its development process. Then it went to war. During Operation Desert Storm, the M2 Bradley destroyed more Iraqi tanks than the M1 Abrams main battle tank. In the current Russia-Ukraine war, Ukrainian Bradley crews have destroyed Russian armor — including at least one T-90M. The Bradley remains in active service 45 years after its debut. The Army’s attempts to replace it (most recently the M10 Booker) have all failed.
The Bradley Fighting Vehicle Won’t Stop
Aerial drone image of Bradley Fighting Vehicle crews from the 1st Armor Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, conducting Table XII gunnery at Fort Stewart, Ga. December 7, 2016.
Troopers with 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division firing the 25mm canon on a Bradley fighting vehicle in order to zero the vehicles weapons systems at a range in Poland. Ranges such as these familiarize troopers with the vehicles systems in order to ensure combat readiness.
Forty-five years after making its operational debut with the U.S. Army, the Bradley infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) keeps fighting on.
Named for the beloved General Omar Bradley, (“the G.I.’s General”), this hardy war machine has demonstrated its effectiveness in the crucible of combat time and time again.
From Operation Desert Storm, during which the M2 variant of the IFV ended up destroying more of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s tanks than the vaunted M1 Abrams main battle tank, to the current Russia-Ukraine War, during which there is at least one recorded instance of a Ukrainian Bradley crew destroying one of Russia’s ultramodern T-90M MBTs.
However, there was a time when it looked as though the Bradley IFV wouldn’t last 5 years, let alone 45. Initially, it was hated and maligned.
Bad Blood for the Bradley Part I: Birthing Pains
The initial bad tidings for the Bradley IFV started before it was even born. Kenneth Merchant, who served as an armor officer in the U.S. Army from 1983 to 1992, sums it up pretty bluntly in a 2019 Quora post:
“At the time the Bradley was introduced there was a cottage industry in the US media dedicated to killing US military procurement programs. I noticed it first in 1985, when the M-247 Sergeant York air defense system was unceremoniously killed after a disastrous report on ABC’s 20/20 program featuring Geraldo Rivera.”
Merchant lists several other examples of battle-proven and time-honored weapons systems that observers excoriated back then:
-The F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jet.
-The Abrams MBT
-The Multiple Launch Rocket System
-The AH-64 Apache helicopter gunship
-Unspecified “newer Navy warships of the day too.”
Merchant continues:
“And Geraldo Rivera took on the Bradley fighting vehicle in another 20/20 hit piece. He criticized the profile, the fact that the Bradley couldn’t survive a hit from a tank main gun round, that the driver could get wet when it forded streams (and he left his hatch open). The basic line of attack was that if the Bradley couldn’t do everything perfectly (whether it was designed to do it or not) it wasn’t worth pursuing at all. That is the message I took away from ‘The Pentagon Wars’ too (an HBO product as I recall, just like that anti F-16 movie). … I remember after the first Gulf War marveling that all of these systems had performed better than anyone had expected. And I realized that if ABC, CBS, HBO and their fellow travelers had had their way we would have had none of them for that war.”
Deeper Dive: The F-35 of Armor for the U.S. Army?
In other words, journalists couldn’t seem to understand that even the best weapon systems go through teething issues, especially when they’re new on the scene and the troops in the field are still figuring out how to minimize the weaknesses and maximize the strengths of the new tools.
Instead, reporters paint gloomy pictures of technologies yet to be proven. (The F-35 Lightning II is a perfect present-day example.)
In fairness, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle project did stall in development hell for 17 years at a running cost of $14 billion to the U.S. taxpayers.
However, like other weapons systems, the IFV eventually proved it could deliver plenty of bang for taxpayers’ hard-earned bucks.
About “The Pentagon Wars”
The Pentagon Wars was a movie made in 1998, seven years after the Bradley had already finally proven the doubters wrong.
Though it’s a comedy, it is based on a 1993 non-fiction book by retired U.S. Air Force Colonel James G. Burton fully titled The Pentagon Wars: Reformers Challenge the Old Guard.
IMDb summarizes the film’s plot line thusly:
“An officer in the United States military becomes a whistleblower and pushes for survivability testing after corrupt generals in the Pentagon attempt to cover up glaring safety problems with the new Bradley Fighting Vehicle.”
The whistleblower is a thinly fictionalized and embellished version of then-Lieutenant Colonel Burton, played by Cary Elwes. Burton’s chief antagonist is the corrupt U.S. Army Major General Partridge, portrayed by Kelsey Grammar.
About the Author: Christian D. Orr, Defense Expert
Christian D. Orr is a Senior Defense Editor. He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He is also the author of the newly published book “Five Decades of a Fabulous Firearm: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Beretta 92 Pistol Series.”
