M2 Bradley

The M2 Bradley, or Bradley IFV, is an American infantry fighting vehicle that is a member of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle family. It is manufactured by BAE Systems Land & Armaments, which was formerly United Defense. The Bradley is designed for reconnaissance and to transport a squad of infantry, providing them protection from small arms fire, while providing firepower to both suppress and eliminate most threats to friendly infantry. It is designed to be highly maneuverable and to be fast enough to keep up with heavy armor during an advance. The M2 holds a crew of three: a commander, a gunner, and a driver, as well as six fully equipped soldiers as passengers. In the year 2000 the total cost of the program was $5,664,100,000 for 1,602 units, giving an average unit cost of$3,166,000, or $4,122,000 per in 2022. The Bradley IFV was developed largely in response to the amphibious Soviet BMP family of infantry fighting vehicles, and to serve as both an armored personnel carrier (APC), and a tank-killer. Design began in 1963 and entered production in 1981. One specific design requirement was that it should be as fast as the new M1 Abrams main battle tank so that they could maintain formations while moving, something which the older M113 armored personnel carrier could not do, as it had been designed to complement the older M60 Patton. The Bradley is equipped with the M242 25 mm autocannon as its main weapon. The M242 has a single barrel with an integrated dual-feed mechanism and remote feed selection. The gun has 300 ready rounds in two ready boxes, one of 70 rounds – usually AP-type rounds, the other of 230 rounds – usually HE-type rounds, with another 600 rounds in storage. 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 25 mm automatic gun is primarily used for clearing bunkers and firing on lightly armored vehicles.