[dralley]

This narrative is nonsense. To point out one example

>> To further insure that the Bradley appeared impregnable, the Army filled the internal fuel tanks with water rather than with diesel fuel.

No, the reason is so that you can see what got hit by shrapnel and where afterwards, and not have a burned out wreck of metal. The goal of testing is to make improvements to the design, not produce very expensive fireworks displays.

Likewise it was obvious that no amount (or composition) of armor was going to make it survive direct hits from a tank or ATGM, so heavily compromising the design in a futile attempt to do so would be wasteful, as would blowing up several dozen of them with such tests as Boyd and co. wanted to do.

We now have decades of experience with the Bradley and while it's not a perfect vehicle, it is pretty good.

[wolverine876]

> We now have decades of experience with the Bradley and while it's not a perfect vehicle, it is pretty good.

We have no experience with it fighting a peer or near-peer enemy, is that correct? That doesn't make it bad, but not good either. We have little data.

[nradov]

We have data. Several Bradleys were hit during the Iraq wars by weapons similar to what near-peer adversaries use. Some shots penetrated, others did not. Overall, it held up about as well as can reasonably be expected. It's simply not physically possible to build an IFV that can stand up to modern guided weapons, and so the Army accepts that risk in order to accomplish their mission.