Light tank prototypes to go to light infantry units

The 82nd Airborne use to have the air drop-able M551 Sheridans but the Army retired them in 1996. I was in a mass attack training exercise with those tanks. I almost landed on one that was already on the DZ. I was extremely glad to miss it.

Light Tanks, Big Wars


The Mobile Protected Firepower vehicle is essentially a 30-ton light tank to accompany airborne troops and other light infantry where the 70-ton M1 Abrams heavy tank can’t go. As such, MPF would fill a gap the Army’s had for 22 years, ever since it retired the easy-to-deploy but technically troubled M551 Sheridan in 1996. Ironically, BAE’s offering is an evolution of the M8 Buford Armored Gun System that the Army developed to replace the Sheridan and then cancelled at the last minute before buying it.


Now, MPF is not required to be , a major problem with the turbine-driven M1.


The Army has long sought an armored vehicle that combined deployability with tank-like firepower. It’s arguably only more important as the service pivots from counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and Iraq to preparing for high-intensity multi-domain operations against Russia or China. In guerrilla warfare, whenever American infantry ran across a target too tough for their own weapons, they could call in airpower effectively on demand to smart-bomb it into oblivion. Against Russian and Chinese-style anti-aircraft defenses, however, the Army expects it’ll need to rely much more on firepower of its own, so it’s made long-range artillery its No. 1 investment priority and new armored vehicles like MPF its No. 2.


Yes, MPF is much lighter and less heavily armored than the M1 Abrams or even Russian tanks like the T-90, although the Army says whichever contender wins the contract will get an Active Protection System installed to shoot down incoming anti-tank missiles. But MPF is going to light infantry units that currently have no armored vehicles at all, just a handful of Humvees, towed M777 howitzers, and whatever weapons the men can carry on their backs.