The U.S. Army is rushing ahead with its project to develop a new light tank to give infantry brigades extra firepower, especially against a near-peer opponent such as Russia. In the past, though, developing a vehicle that is both lighter than a traditional main battle tank and still survivable and useful on a modern battlefield has proven to be a difficult proposition. The Army plans to send out a final, formal request for proposals for the program, known as Mobile Protected Firepower (MPF), to interested defense contractors in November 2017. The service then hopes to power through the contracting process and pick a winning design during the 2019 fiscal year, which begins on Oct. 1, 2018.

“We expect to be delivering prototypes off of that program effort within 15 months of contract award,” U.S. Army Major General David Bassett, the service’s program executive officer for Ground Combat Systems, said earlier in October 2017. The goal is “is getting it in the hands of an evaluation unit six months after that – rapid!" The Army has focused discussions of the MPF program heavily on the contracting side of things. After suffering spectacular setbacks in armored vehicle modernization with the cancellation first of the Future Combat Systems (FCS) program and then of the subsequent Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV), the service has been keen to stress that this effort will be different.

US Army One of the US Army's M1A2 Abrams tanks, which are too heavy to adequately support light infantry and airborne forces.

Getting the vehicles to units quickly is important because the Army has identified a clear need to improve the firepower of infantry units in particular against a more traditional opponent. After more than a decade of limited, low-intensity conflicts against terrorists and insurgents, the U.S. military has become increasingly concerned it isn’t prepared for a conventional, high-intensity battle. After Russia seized control of Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014, subsequently began fighting alongside separatists battling the central government in Kiev, and adopted a broadly revanchist foreign policy, this only became more apparent. Since then, the United States and NATO members have taken up and expanded defensive posture along the alliance’s eastern flank and have experienced increasing harassment from Russian forces and intelligence services. MPF will follow a number of other similar rapid procurement efforts primarily focused on the European theater of operations, including the development and purchase of an up-gunned Stryker armored vehicle with a 30mm automatic cannon and of a turret for other variants of the 8x8 design that features both a .50 caliber M2 machine gun or a 40mm Mk 19 Mod 3 automatic grenade launcher and a Javelin anti-tank missile system.

US Army Upgunned Stryker.

As for the actual requirements for the MPF, the Army appears to have done its best to keep them as opened ended as possible. The design should be able to blast its way though bunkers and other fortifications, attack enemy forces taking shelter in buildings, and destroy various enemy armored vehicles, according to one official briefing. At the same time it has to be light enough – approximately 25 to 30 tons – to fit inside at least a C-17 Globemaster III transport aircraft, and hopefully even a smaller C-130 Hercules. Since the Globemaster III can already carry a single M1 Abrams, the goal is for a C-17 to be able to deliver two MPFs straight into a combat landing zone. It should be protected against at least small arms and shrapnel air burst artillery rounds, with additional armor kits offering defenses against more powerful threats.

US Army