• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

	Director, Operational Test & Evaluation
FY97 Annual Report

BRADLEY FIGHTING VEHICLE SYSTEM-A3
(BFVS-A3) M2A3/M3A3 PROGRAM

	Army ACAT IC Program 1602 systems Total program cost (TY$) $5664.1M Average unit cost (TY$) $3.166M Full-rate production 2QFY00 Prime Contractor United Defense, Limited Partnership

SYSTEM DESCRIPTION & CONTRIBUTION TO JOINT VISION 2010

The M2A3 and M3A3 Bradley Fighting Vehicle Systems (BFVS) are improved versions of the M2A2 and M3A2 BFVS. The BFVS-A3 includes enhancements intended to improve lethality, mobility, survivability, and sustainability. Additionally, these enhancements are intended to provide increased situational awareness and digital command and control capabilities necessary to provide information superiority to the dominant maneuver force. The Bradley Fighting vehicle and the Abrams Tank are the two central components of the dominant maneuver digital force.

The mission of the BFVS is to provide mobile protected transport of an infantry squad to critical points on the battlefield and to perform cavalry scout missions. The BFVS will also provide overwatching fires to support dismounted infantry and to suppress or defeat enemy tanks and other fighting vehicles. BFVS-A3 enhancements include

• a vehicle control and operation system to control and automate many crew functions and to enhance situational awareness by transmitting, receiving, storing, and displaying digital messages. This digital capability is to be compatible with all components of the combined arms team.

• the improved Bradley acquisition system (IBAS) and commander's independent viewer, both 2^nd generation FLIR's, to improve target acquisition and target engagement.

• a position navigation system with GPS receiver to enhance situational awareness.

In March 1994, the Army awarded a contract to United Defense, Limited Partnership, to begin the engineering and manufacturing development phase. In June 1997, the Army approved the first LRIP for 35 systems with an FY98 option for an additional 18 systems. A subsequent LRIP decision is scheduled for FY99 for 78 systems. The IOT&E for the BFVS-A3 is scheduled for 3/4QFY99. This IOT&E will be conducted in conjunction with the FOT&E 3 for the M1A2 Abrams System Enhancement Program. The LFT&E is scheduled for 3QFY98 through 1QFY99. The full rate production milestone decision is scheduled for 1QFY00.

The BFVS-A3 TEMP was approved by the Director in February 1997. The OT events for FY97 were a combined DT/OT probability-of-hit gunnery exercise in March and two contractor Proofs of Principle (POP) in February and April, respectively. In the gunnery exercise, user-representative crews met a probability of hit requirement under the existing test conditions. The two POP's provided data for evaluating fundamental command and control capability, position/navigation accuracy, and fire control and message handling functionality. Remaining FY97 test events, consisting of contractor and government conducted production qualification tests, provided data which were used to support the July 1997 LRIP decision. Testing identified subsystems which required further engineering development. A sight reticule jump problem in the IBAS required its redesign and the system has experienced boresight retention errors. The LFT&E strategy was approved as part of the TEMP in February 1997. It is a building block approach to live fire testing, with the final building block being a 19-shot full-up systems level test series.

The BFVS-A3 T&E Integrated Product Team (IPT), in which DOT&E is an active participant, has been an effective and responsive means to address T&E issues. The highest technical risk area, which will continue to require the focus of this team, is software development. Of particular interest is the development of the Embedded Battle Command (EBC) software which is intended to provide battlefield situational awareness and shared command and control information throughout the combined arms team. This software is being developed as a Horizontal Technology Insertion program and will be provide to the weapons systems and C2 nodes of the combined arms team in FY99. This development schedule is high risk and could adversely affect the BFVS-A3 program. The BFVS-A3 is scheduled for an IOT&E in conjunction with the M1A2 Abrams FOT&E in 2QFY99. In order to minimize the impact on the BFVS-A3 program, this IOT&E is currently planned to be conducted without full digital command and control functionality. Fully digitized command and control using EBC will be evaluated during an FOT&E to be conducted in conjunction with the Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Below (FBCB2) IOT&E scheduled for 4QFY99. Although DOT&E had recommended that the FBCB2 IOT&E be conducted in conjunction with the BFVS-A3 IOT&E/M1A2 FOT&E in order to enhance operational realism for all systems and optimize the use of test resources, FBCB2 development will not be sufficiently mature to allow this to occur. The Live Fire Test IPT has selected 16 of the 19 full up shots. The Army anticipates completing a draft LFT&E Initial Assessment Plan/Test Design Plan before the end of CY1997.