The Pentagon Wars

💡 Did You Know?

Although the film makes it seem as if Colonel James Burton was this naive officer ordered to rubber stamp the Bradley, only to discover problems, the picture was far more complex. Burton's own book - that was made into this film - shows this in the title: "The Pentagon Wars: Reformers Challenge the Old Guard". "The Reformers" are a lobby group within the US military, that argue against the use of high-tech military systems and push for simpler, more basic systems. Burton was part of this group, and had already been involved in the procurement process on other projects, even going as far as to suggest his own Reformist designs.

Burton was also not the one to raise the red flag on the survivability of the Bradley; he was called in after the US Congress got worried about that particular issue. And the Bradley's E1 program - that eventually became the better protected A1 variant of the Bradley - was already underway when Burton got involved.

Lastly, the Reformers' idea of "live fire tests" was not something that was opposed by the US Army and that they then had to be forced into by Congress. While the Air Force and Navy snubbed the Reformers on that program, the Army had already agreed to it as Burton came on. The disagreement then was how these tests were to be made; the Reformers wanted to shoot at the Bradley with - as it is said in the film - "the biggest bang for the buck", while the Army objected saying that the Bradley would indeed fail spectacularly, and that nothing could be learned from such a test other than to confirm that - yes - a big enough shot will kill the Bradley, because it was never specified or designed to be as well protected as a main battle tank.

Still, it should be remembered that much of the film can be attributed to satirical exaggeration, and that the gist of it - that it took far too long to get the Infantry Fighting Vehicle that was specified already in 1958 - is essentially correct.