European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 13, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 16 the stars and stripes sunday april 13, 1986 a tremendous combat multiplier by Don Tate staff writer col. Richard Beal commanded the first Bradley heavy brigade in Europe for the past two years directing the use an testing of his 122 Bradley fighting vehicles Over smooth and rough German terrain under Good conditions and foul. The Bradley is a tremendous combat multiplier Beal said. It gives us so Many options we Haven t had before. The Bradley extends the Range of the infantry so that we can use every facet of our skill. From quiet and cunning to Speed and firepower. We can move Over the Battlefield faster than any army has Ever moved. We can change tactics improvise. Kill a unit Here climb on our Bradley move at High Speed and Knock off. Another enemy unit Over there. We can Streak from one flank to another. Patton would have loved it. We do things with the Bradley we could t dream of doing with the m-113." Beal who recently became chief of staff for the 8th inf div in bad Kreuz Nach Germany said it would be tragic if the Bradley program were Cut Back or cancelled. The whole idea is to move faster and farther than the soviets do he said. We re vastly outnumbered. I Tell my troops you can t begin to think about being a casualty until you be killed 50 of the enemy. I have seen the Bradley hit 55 Mph even faster. Now that gives us the capacity for the Art of Man Euver. And that s How we would defeat the russians. Keep moving. None of this charge of the Light brigade thing. No set piece Battles. If we just sat and let them hit us with their planes and artillery and then went head to head with their Armor and infantry we would t have a Chance. The Bradley is for Battle Beal said. It is an infantry fighting vehicle. That gets lost on a lot of people. On the one hand it has weapons that can defeat the enemy at Long Range. It has Thermal sights that can see 50 meters inside a Wood line a sight stabilization system that locks on targets and enables a gunner to shoot better on the move than he can standing still. Our firing data shows that. On the other hand it s got Speed that puts foot soldiers where you need them when you need them. The infantry still has the Mission of closing with the enemy and destroying him. The Bradley is simply the Best thing for doing that we be Ever  Beal said the Bradley has a fuel Range of 300 Miles. His Bradley averaged about 40 Mph Over a 203-mile stretch coming off Border duty compared to about 20 Mph forthe m-113 Over the same distance. The Bradley is both Light enough to swim across streams and heavily armed enough to shoot Down air planes and take out tanks. Beal said he d be very confident battling the enemy in a Bradley. We would shoot him at extreme Range the Bradley Tow anti tank missile has a Range of 3,700 meters he said whether he was on the offence or defense As Long As we had the requisite number of seconds to get the round there. We would probably hit them with smoke first and maybe Call in some he High explosive artillery. There Are ways to fight tanks alone but preferably we hit them with combined  Beal said he firmly believes there is less Chance of War because of the Bradley. I think it could be tragic if we did t have it. Germany is a highly porous country. With the High Speed Road network they have Over Here i Don t think we could do the Job with 113s and  s8.s photo by Tony Nauroth soldiers of the 2nd army div fwd attend a Brad Ley maintenance course. A photo a Bradley gets topped off with its Turret at the fac corp s san Jose Calif Plant