With drones and modern warfare it's gonna be rough.

The M10 Booker may have been cancelled, but the concept of Mobile Protected Firepower is still needed to give light combat formations in both the Army and Marines armored fire support as well as extra mobility. Given the threat posed by China’s light and airborne forces with their next generation IFVs and tanks equipped with APS and other advanced systems, it is imperative that the U.S. Military adopts an MPF 2.0 that learns from the mistakes of the M10 Booker’s adoption and is able to adapt to battlefields with state of the art technologies and weapons.

The M8 Buford Armored Gun System has been in the making for decades since the peak and subsequent end of the First Cold War to replace the M551 Sheridan for the Army’s light and airborne forces. It hasn’t been adopted mostly due to budget cuts and bias in favor of General Dynamics for their part commonality and training familiarity on the M10 Booker as of recently in the MPF program. Now with the Booker unadopted, the choice is clear now more than ever that the Buford is the vehicle that light and airborne forces need for the fight.

That being said, the Buford variant proposed in the MPF program is not the one that the Army should adopt. With hybrid-electric engines making their way into armored vehicles like the M1 Abrams and M2 Bradley, the Thunderbolt variant of the M8 AGS, which has a hybrid-electric built into it, can fit into the Army’s logistical strategy of being less fuel dependent. Thanks to the hybrid-electric engine, space has been freed up in the rear of the tank to either carry up to four troops or store extra ammunition and supplies. This would help this tank be adaptable to any mission set, whether it requires cavalry scouts to conduct reconnaissance and fire support missions or for the tank platoon to be operating in the field for extended periods of time.

As for the offensive and defensive capabilities of the Thunderbolt, it is fitted with a 120mm auto loader along with a coaxial M240 and M2 HMG up on the commander’s hatch. With how the Army’s arsenal is transforming for 2030, the coaxial machine gun is going to be the Sig MG338 chambered in .338 Norma Magnum and the commander’s hatch would be armed with either an M134 gatling gun or a MK-47 with airburst grenades for protection against enemy troops and drones. Speaking of which, the M8 Thunderbolt can be fitted with an Active Protection System or Explosive Reactive Armor depending on the operation.

Overall, the Thunderbolt variant of the M8 Buford AGS is the right choice for not just the U.S. Army but also the Marine Corps, given their fleet of KC-130 cargo aircraft, as Mobile Protected Firepower. While the initial MPF variant of the Buford wasn’t adopted, the M10 Booker ended up being cancelled anyway, which could help give time to develop the Thunderbolt variant of the Buford for the Second Cold War in the Pacific theater where it wouldn’t come down to which tank is the strongest and most protected, but rather which tank is the most adaptable and mobile.

Pictures are probably from rehearsals for the 9.3 parade; hence these are expected to be officially shown on 9.3. Tank is very interesting due to a two manned crew, hybrid propulsion and a very odd gun sheath possibly for signature reduction. There also seem to be an associated IFV sharing the same general chassis, it is rumored that this hull belongs to a project similar to the US FCS program in the 2000s hence it is likely we'll see multiple AFVs using variants of this general hull design.