Predecessor of FCS from late 80s?

[eshelon]

From http://www.swoknews.com/misc-columns/lightening-army-d%C3%A9j%C3%A0-vu-all-over-again:

"In the late 1980s, Army experiments with high-tech but lightly armored "motorized" forces proved uniformly unsuccessful."

?

 

[TomS]

Look up the 9th Infantry Division (Motorized), also called the High Technology Test-Bed. 9th ID got all sorts of weird stuff - fast attack vehicles, LAVs, etc. By all accounts it was an incredible unit to be in, and a horrible one to consider deploying. Massive firepower and not much protection.

 

[starviking]

Look up the 9th Infantry Division (Motorized), also called the High Technology Test-Bed. 9th ID got all sorts of weird stuff - fast attack vehicles, LAVs, etc. By all accounts it was an incredible unit to be in, and a horrible one to consider deploying. Massive firepower and not much protection.

Were they the guys who had the armed dune-buggies?

 

[TomS]

Yep. Lots of armed HMMWVs as surrogates for future light armored vehicles, as well. They had small numbers of a lot of other experimental toys as well -- one of their tasks was to develop requirements for a Mobile Protected Gun System and I think several of the industry concept vehicles, like the RDF Light Tank, got some field trials with 9th ID (Mot).