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Thread: US Army's Bradley battery issues...

  1. #1
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    US Army's Bradley battery issues...

    Interesting the little things that sometimes get overlooked:

    "WASHINGTON — The Army is testing a solution to address overheating and toxic gas production in the newest version of the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle’s turret battery, but its release has been delayed by almost a year, the service’s program office told Defense News.

    The problem was discovered during the Army Test and Evaluation Command-run Full Operational Test and Evaluation at Fort Hood, Texas, where the Bradley A4 batteries were hooked directly into test equipment placing additional strain on them. The Bradley A4 design features a new charger but not new batteries. The new charger did not come with a voltage regulator, which caused the older batteries to overheat and produce the toxic gas during testing."


    https://www.defensenews.com/land/202...ttery-problem/

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    made in China?
    “The Trump Doctrine is ‘We’re America, Bitch.’ That’s the Trump Doctrine.”

    "He is free to evade reality, he is free to unfocus his mind and stumble blindly down any road he pleases, but not free to avoid the abyss he refuses to see."

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    In 45 years of working on equipment of all kinds, I've never heard of a battery charger that does not regulate voltage. Overcharge any battery and it will get hot, outgas and possibly explode...

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    Quote Originally Posted by Slater View Post
    Interesting the little things that sometimes get overlooked:

    "WASHINGTON — The Army is testing a solution to address overheating and toxic gas production in the newest version of the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle’s turret battery, but its release has been delayed by almost a year, the service’s program office told Defense News.

    The problem was discovered during the Army Test and Evaluation Command-run Full Operational Test and Evaluation at Fort Hood, Texas, where the Bradley A4 batteries were hooked directly into test equipment placing additional strain on them. The Bradley A4 design features a new charger but not new batteries. The new charger did not come with a voltage regulator, which caused the older batteries to overheat and produce the toxic gas during testing."


    https://www.defensenews.com/land/202...ttery-problem/
    No surprise. If big Army is running an improvement program for the Brad it's bound to be an abysmal failure of a money pit. I drove and gunned on M2A2 ODS Bradleys from 2007-2010 and even though everyone hated them for all the weird idiosyncrasies they were incredibly valuable to have around in Iraq. Need a wall destroyed? Drive a Brad through it. Target BVR for the .50 or 240B? 25mm HE will take care of it. But with that we still had incidents of the hull cracking and fuel tank rupturing after driving over doublestacked AT mines.

    There's a video floating around from 2009-2010 from BAE of the Bradley technology demonstrator where the turret is fully automated and computerized, the turret crew seats are lowered to within the hull, a 40mm chain gun is substituted for the 25mm Bushmaster, fuel tanks relocated to the rear exterior of the vehicle, and dual pin tracks are in place of the standard single pin. It was a neat concept, and it certainly was years beyond our 1991 vintage M2A2's we had in Germany.

    https://www.defense-aerospace.com/ar...r-at-ausa.html

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    It’s long past time to start drumming out the officers presiding over these failed weapon programs and fine the companies making all this defective crap.

    The brass needs to learn to keep requirements realistic, and the only way to do that is punish them when they create a boondoggle. Since they’re all careerist turds ruin their careers when they fail as miserably as they have lately. We have a rotten officer corps that is incapable, at higher levels, of running procurement programs, leading troops, or winning wars.

    We have a bunch of defense contractors that are incapable of delivering functional weapons and other systems.

    Punish them all, that’s about the only thing we haven’t done.

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    I’d have a law that you shall not work as a lobbyist or for a contractor for five years after leaving government service without abdicating your rank, pension and benefits if GO/SES, three years for field grade/senior NCO/GS-12+, and one year for all other ranks. That would stifle a lot of the BS going on within DoD/USG.

    And, when these contracts are let, hold the companies to the contract. They produce X within the specified time, at the specified cost at the specified quality or they eat the cost overruns. If the quality is bad they eat the cost to fix and/or the execs are held criminally liable.

    And lastly, as a USG reg, no concurrency in program development, like they tried with Ford, LCS and DDG1000 and numerous other programs the past 25 years.

    The F-35 program alone should fill several Federal prisons with officers, politicians and contractors.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

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    Quote Originally Posted by Black_Sheep View Post
    In 45 years of working on equipment of all kinds, I've never heard of a battery charger that does not regulate voltage. Overcharge any battery and it will get hot, outgas and possibly explode...
    That had me scratching my head too.

    Andy

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    I refuse to work on them, they are (or were) an electronic nightmare.
    Last I heard you couldn't get a reliable set of schematics. You got a basic one and made notes and improved on them.
    The bigger problem is maintenance and accountability at the small unit level from my observation.

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    Part of the issue is that if a program is shutdown the civil employees have to find new jobs. They arenÂ’t going to be honest about issues if it means they lose their job. The system encourages a nothing to see here mentality.

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