by JOSEPH TREVITHICK

Thanks to the famous made-for-TV movie The Pentagon Wars, many Americans are aware of the problems with the U.S. Army’s Bradley fighting vehicle.

It’s too weak to battle tanks, too big to make a good scout—and too compact to carry enough soldiers. The Bradley’s tortured development makes it one of the more notorious weapons programs in recent decades.

Even before troops got these tracked combat vehicles, the Army went shopping for a replacement.

In 1977, Congress wanted to know if the new armored personnel carrier could survive a fight against Soviet forces in Europe. By that time, the Army had worked on the Bradley—while repeatedly changing its requirements—for years.

“The Army requires an infantry righting vehicle [and] the design of the IFV is acceptable,” concludes an Army study, which the Pentagon declassified in 2003, and recently released online at the Army’s Heritage and Education Center.

The Bradley would enter service. But now legislators wanted plans for a better design that could be ready within the decade.

The problem was that future Soviet tanks might turn the Bradleys into veritable coffins. If World War III broke out, the U.S. could face Russian armored beasts with huge main guns, long-range missiles and thick armor.

“In the 1987 time frame, the Warsaw Pact 130-division force … would contain more than 34,000 tanks, the majority being T-72s, with a good proportion of the successor tank,” the Army’s study warns.

“The Warsaw Pact will be turning out larger numbers of tanks with guns of 120-millimeter or larger bore and advanced armor,” points out a now-declassified CIA article, published two years later.