The Pentagon is trying to figure out what to do with the two dozen vehicles produced before a contract for new armored vehicles was canceled, The Washington Times has reported.
The M10 Booker was to have been the U.S. Army’s first new major combat weapon in decades before it was canceled recently, because the “light” tanks were too heavy to be useful to the paratrooper units for which they were created.
Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll discontinued the Booker program, which had an initial price tag of more than $1 billion, as part of the Trump administration’s spending cuts, telling reporters that “we didn’t design a tank that was effective. We wanted to develop a small tank that was agile and could be dropped into places where regular tanks can’t, [but] we got a heavy tank.”
The requirements for the Booker changed throughout its development, said Carlton Haelig, a defense program fellow with the Center for a New American Security think tank.
“They thought they needed a light tank that was armored enough, that prioritized its expeditionary capabilities, its ability to be airdropped from a C-130, and its ability to get to a medium-level intensity fight relatively quickly,” Haelig told The Washington Times.
However, the battlefield has changed significantly since the M10 Booker program started about 10 years ago.
The Booker is lighter than the Leviathan M1 Abrams, America’s main battle tank for decades, which weighs about 74 tons. But even at 42 tons, it was still too heavy to be dropped from an airplane or safely driven over most of the bridges at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
Haelig said that despite the tank being unsuitable as an airdroppable weapons platform for light infantry units, there could be other roles found for the M10 Bookers that have already been completed.
“I do not see a future for them with the United States Army, but there have been rumblings from those within the active and retired community of the United States Marine Corps,” he said.
The commander and executive officer of the Marine Corps’ 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion wrote an essay in June for the military news website Task & Purpose, arguing for transferring the remaining Bookers to the Marine Corps.
Lt. Col. John Dick and Lt. Col. Daniel Phillips said their current combat vehicle, the LAV-25, lacks adequate protection and firepower to take on drones, tanks, or modern infantry fighting vehicles.
“[The Booker’s] 105mm cannon and tracked durability would transform our ability to fight for information and keep pace against adversaries with real armor,” they wrote. “The M10 is not a luxury, it’s an operational necessity, bridging the gap between maneuver and lethality to ensure Marines prevail when contact is made.”
In addition, retired Army Maj. Gen. Patrick Donahoe, a former Fort Benning commanding general, said the Marines should use the Bookers to help alleviate their needs for an armored combat vehicle.
As late as last year, Pentagon officials called the Booker “a new, modernized capability for the Army, allowing light maneuver forces to overmatch adversaries,” The Washington Times reported.
Pentagon officials said the savings from canceling the contract won’t be quantified until they finish termination negotiations with the prime contractor, General Dynamics Land Systems.
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