Paladin PIM: The Little Cannon That Could & The Future Of The Armored Brigade « Breaking Defense - Defense industry news, analysis and commentary: After 20 years and two costly cancelled programs, the US Army finally has a new artillery vehicle. While the ceremonial rollout isn’t till Thursday, contractor BAE Systems has already delivered the first pair of self-propelled howitzers. Oft-overlooked and blandly named, this Paladin Integrated Management program is a modest but much-needed success for the beleaguered Army acquisition system.
“So far, it has moved along without drama or significant problems,” one Hill staffer told me. “It is not a truly new vehicle in that it borrows from others, but still a success.”
Small though it may seem from the Hill, PIM is a harbinger of three bigger things to come:
a revival of the field artillery, the “
king of battle” against conventional threats but a neglected “
dead branch walking” during counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and Iraq;
an overhaul of the armored brigade, which will lead to 72 percent of the brigade’s heavy vehicles having the same BAE-built automotive systems;
a new approach to acquisition, in which expensive, ambitious, all-new designs give way to incremental but still substantial changes to existing platforms.
