Bradley Fighting Vehicle System: "Bradley - Second to None" 1982 FMC Corporation (Patreon)

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'General Omar Bradley inspires Bradley Fighting Vehicle System.'

Originally a public domain film from the Library of Congress Prelinger Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Fighting_Vehicle

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The Bradley Fighting Vehicle (BFV) is a fighting vehicle platform of the United States manufactured by BAE Systems Land & Armaments, formerly United Defense. It was named after U.S. General Omar Bradley.

The Bradley is designed to transport infantry or scouts with armor protection, while providing covering fire to suppress enemy troops and armored vehicles. The several Bradley variants include the M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle and the M3 Bradley cavalry fighting vehicle. The M2 holds a crew of three (a commander, a gunner, and a driver) along with six fully equipped soldiers. The M3 mainly conducts scout missions and carries two scout troopers in addition to the regular crew of three, with space for additional BGM-71 TOW missiles. The Red River Army Depot in Texarkana, Texas, is the Center of Industrial Technical Excellence for the maintenance and repair of the Bradley system...

Design

The Bradley was developed largely in response to the Soviet BMP family of infantry fighting vehicles, and to serve as both an armored personnel carrier, and a tank-killer. One specific design requirement was that it should be as fast as the then new M1 Abrams main battle tank so they could maintain formations while moving.

Armament

The M2/M3's primary armament is a 25 mm cannon that fires either 100 or 300 rounds per minute and is accurate up to 3,000 m, depending on the ammunition used. It is also armed with a TOW missile launcher that is capable of carrying two loaded missiles. The missiles, capable of destroying most tanks to a maximum range of 4,000 metres (13,000 ft), can only be fired while the vehicle is stationary. The Bradley also carries a coaxial 7.62 mm medium machine gun, located to the right of the 25 mm chain gun.

Primary

The Bradley is equipped with the 25 mm M242 Bushmaster as its main weapon. The M242 is a single-barrel chain gun with an integrated dual-feed mechanism and remote feed selection. The cannon has 300 rounds of ammunition in two ready boxes (one of 70 rounds, the other of 230 rounds), with an extra 600 rounds in storage for the M2 Infantry Fighting Vehicle variant or 1,200 stowed rounds for the M3 Cavalry Fighting Vehicle variant. The two ready boxes allow a selectable mix of rounds, such as the M791 APDS-T (Armor-Piercing Discarding Sabot (with) Tracer) and M792 HEI-T (High Explosive Incendiary (with) Tracer) rounds. The tungsten APDS-T rounds proved highly effective in Desert Storm, being capable of knocking out many Iraqi vehicles, including several kills on T-55 tanks. A few kills against Iraqi T-72 tanks at close range have been reported.[6] Subsequent ammunition developments resulted in the M919 APFSDS-T (Armor-Piercing Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot with Tracer) round, which contains a finned depleted uranium penetrator similar in concept to armor-piercing munitions used in modern tanks. The M919 was used in combat during the 2003 invasion phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Secondary

It is also armed with an M240C machine gun mounted coaxially to the M242, with 2,200 rounds of 7.62 mm ammunition. For engaging heavier targets (such as when acting in an antitank fashion), the Bradley has a TOW missile system on board, which was changed to fire TOW II missile from the M2A1 model onwards. M2 infantry Bradleys also have firing ports for a number of M231 Firing Port Weapons (FPWs)...

Countermeasures

The use of aluminum armor and the storage of large quantities of ammunition in the vehicle initially raised questions about its combat survivability. Spaced laminate belts and high-hardness steel skirts have been added to improve the side protection of later versions, although this increases overall weight to 33 tons. In friendly fire incidents in Desert Storm, many crew members survived hits that resulted in total losses for lighter U.S. Marine Corps LAV-25 vehicles.

All versions are also equipped with two four-barreled smoke grenade launchers on the front of the turret for creating defensive smoke screens, which can also be loaded with chaff and flares...