So a Bradley replacement is dead, again. A brief history and some surface observations. 
1999 - the Army began the Future Combat Systems (FCS) programme, a grand plan to replace Abrams, Bradley and M109 (+ others) with a new common family. It was an impressive plan, the sort of harmonised common fleet we all dream of.
IOC would be 2015 and included manned vehicle (recce, tank, howitzer, mortar, ARV, IFV, APC, medical evac & treatment, C2, mine clearance, logs) as well as UGV, UAV, Comms, & a range of sensors and weapons.
As OIF/OEF appeared the lightweight ethos of FCS clashed with the new single minded COIN mindset, as well as technical and management failures, the result was cancellation in 2009. Sunk cost - 10 years and $21.4 billion.
2010 - major attempt #2, Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV). Now just an IFV to replace the canceled efforts of the XM1206 Infantry Carrier Vehicle under FCS, the service hoped for a simpler and easier acquisition.
IOC would be 2018/19 with a total acquisition of 1,450 vehicles. BAE and GDLS were down selected for the TD phase, given $450m and £440m respectively.
GD kept to their enduring trend of being pretty opaque and revealing very little of their design or plans. They were keen on hard kill APS, noteworthy for the time, but otherwise had little to say.
BAE were more open, showing design renders and detailing a few interesting design features including a v-shaped hull, soft kill APS and most significantly the E-X-Drive hyrbid electric propulsion.
Big issue was size & weight. GCV was huge, BAE offering was baseline 54t with a GVW of 75 w/b-kit. Notional Army planning showed GVW of up to 85 tons. Issue was requirement to carry 9 pax rather than the usual 6 in an IFV, as well as mandating v high protection levels.
An analysis of alternatives looked at Namer, Puma and just upgrading existing Bradley versus the notional GCV. It assessed COTS solutions against the GCV requirements, but was accused of being a flawed study by officials.
It concluded; on the basis of CBO’s primary metric, Puma would be the most capable, both it & upgraded Bradley would be significantly more capable than GCV. Fielding Puma or upgraded Bradley would cost $14bn & $9bn less than GCV and pose less risk of cost overrun & schedule delay
Ultimately "GCV relied on too many immature technologies, had too many performance requirements, and was required by Army leadership to have too many capabilities to make it affordable." Cancelled in 2014 at a cost of 4 years and $1.5 billion.
2015 saw the Future Fighting Vehicle (FFV) programme which sought to be cautious programme seeking to understand what was viable rather than try to push industry to deliver the impossible as FCS and GCV had at least in part done.
FFV was tweaked and renamed Next Generation Combat Vehicle (NGCV) in 2018. NGCV sat under the larger Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle (OMFV) programme that included additional unmanned vehicles (RCV Light/Medium/Heavy) and the Decisive Lethality Platform to succeed M1.
Keen to progress the programme, now 3 years past the planned IOC of the original FCS effort, the Army sought to use rapid prototyping to skip straight to EMD and shorten the acquisition.
Initially there were 3 public bidders (vs Army's hope for 5-7) - BAE (CV90 MkIV), GD (new design) and Rheinmetall/Raytheon (Lynx). BAE withdrew in June 2019 citing technical and programme schedule problems.
Rheinmetall withdrew its Lynx in August, however were persuaded to rejoin, before being disqualified for a scheudle violation just 2 months later in October, leaving GDLS as the sole bidder.
And this brings us broadly to today, with the Army admitting a sole source competition for one of the Army's most important platforms, offering a vehicle reportedly experiencing a range of developmental issues, is not a sensible approach.
Clearly something needs to change. The US has experienced major issues across its recent vehicle acquisitions - FCS, GCV, EFV, PIM, AMPV, JLTV all experienced significant delays, cancellations and cuts at various points.
These included PAC-3 at 17 years late, JLTV 4 years, EFV 10 years at cancellation, THAAD 10 years. ACV pushed right to 2035 and replaced with a gap capability. It goes on.
Solutions are much more complex discussion, but interesting to illustrate a worst-in-class case study. 21 years ago the Army started trying to replace Bradley. Very optimistically they are 10-15 years from success if they get cracking again today and don't repeat past mistakes.
The one thing you can give them is that Bradley has had a ceasless train of upgrades and mods under Bradley MOD programmes, and is not as obsolete as some Western IFV due for replacement. For the forseeable future, Bradley will have to endure. /end
