Navy’s New 80-MPH Mini Combat Vehicle Can Drop From the Sky

http://www.wired.com/2014/04/navy-phantom-badger/



Navy’s New 80-MPH Mini Combat Vehicle Can Drop From the Sky
By Allen McDuffee
04.10.14 | 6:30 am


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The U.S. Navy has certified the Phantom Badger, a 240-horsepower combat support vehicle that’s about the size of a Mini and tough enough to traverse damn near anything. It’s designed to fit inside several different aircraft, including the V-22 Osprey, and airdropped to provide ground troops with superior mobility.

“This certification validates Phantom Badger’s versatile design while offering the warfighter increased battlefield access and deployment options,” John Chicoli, who leads Boeing’s internally transportable vehicle program, said in a statement.

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The Badger will hit 80 mph running flat out, and unleash hell doing it. Weapon loads include a .50-caliber machine gun or a 40mm automatic grenade launcher bolted to the roll cage. The rear-facing seats can be equipped with general-purpose machine guns or ditched for hardware supporting resupply or medevac duties.

The vehicle is just 60-inches wide, and it was designed to fit in the cargo hold of a V-22 Osprey—a tilt-rotor aircraft so narrow the Pentagon doesn’t have a ground support vehicle that fits inside it. The CH-47 Chinook helicopter and the C-130 cargo plane can carry two Badgers apiece, while the C-17 transport plane can carry 10.


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Our $100 million plus dollar V-22 was designed, built, tested and delivered without a single "ground support vehicle that fits inside it."

Good planning, guys.