The US Army has announced that it is investigating synthetic material solutions to reduce the weight of its vehicles, notably the M-1 Abrams main battle tank and the M2 Bradley armored fighting vehicle. In addition to these vehicles, the US Army also wants to reduce the weight of military trucks. For this particular program, the US Army has requested appropriations of $1 billion in the 2025 defense budget.
As for trucks, the program aims to reduce their weight so as to improve driving performance and increase the maximum transported load. For the M-1 Abrams and M2 Bradley the goal of the program is to reduce their combat weight so that they have higher battlefield mobility and free up weight to integrate more systems. Composite materials consist of various materials, which are combined, through industrial processes, in order to yield a new material. The new material can be lighter than an existing one or harder, depending on the requirement.
