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September 29, 2002
While the army moves ahead developing it's medium brigades, it's running into several problems with the air force about moving the new, lighter, LAVs (Light Armored Vehicles) by air. The problem is that air force has a number of practical restrictions on the use of their C-130 transports that the army was apparently unaware of before they started spending billions on the new LAVs. The army thought the upper weight limit for it's LAVs was close to 19 tons, but as a practical matter, the air force is reluctant to move anything over 13 tons. Another item of contention is where the C-130s can land. The army assumed that the C-130s, since they were designed to land on dirt runways, would. But the air force will only land them on concrete, not dirt. This means the army won't be able to get its new, lighter, force as close to future hot spots as it has planned. The army has another problem with the tendency to add more equipment to the LAVs, to the point where some of them have to be partially disassembled before loading into a C-130 (and then reassembled when they get to the combat zone.)
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