Disabled vehicle, huge log, boulder, whatever.
Although I think we can assume the big tanks aren't likely to be slowed too much by typical obstacles or similar loads, I'm curious to know what a Bradley could shift if it came to the crunch.

Don't know about that, I've seen M-1s get hung up on stumps, and they have the highest belly clearance and most power of any US tank.

I have to go along with the rest, a Bradley can generally tow another Bradley as long as its roads/trails...going cross country, then I've always seen them towed by M-88s.

The technical rule isn't given in tonnage, but a Bradley can pull a Bradley, but not an Abrams. This is in neutral with the primary drives disengaged. If the tranny is locked up, we can't pull it without damaging ourselves, but it will pull it. My educated guess is the same about the Bradley pulling an Abrams as well, it's possible but causes damage.

As long as the Bradley isn't getting high centered and can use the towing BII like a snatch block, it can pull out just about any tree or boulder up to it's size. I'll dig in my TMs and FMs and see if I can't find tonnage today while I'm looking for some kind of work to keep me busy, but in Bradley School, they never published it.

Yes, with tracks.

For reference, a Bradley weighs 38 tons.

I've got a fair bit of experience with bulldozers and the like and understand that the ground itself is going to limit the possibilities - loose gravel or mud for example is going to make it difficult to shift a significant load as will hard rock that doesn't allow the tracks to grip.

I suppose the question has more to do with the capability of the engine and transmission than ground conditions. It also revolves around how much stress individual components can take before failing.

To simplify, if the Bradley was a rope, what would it's breaking strain be... At what point are you going to break something you can't live without.

The Bradleys I've seen towed with other Bradleys were over hard-packed dirt trails in fair weather using tow cable, but I have seen two Bradleys pull out a Bradley stuck in the mud -- that was three Bradley engines working in concert.

One of the things I was taught in the National Guard is, under those circumstances, sometimes piling rocks or logs under the front of the drive wheels or the front of the tracks will help quite a bit.

Enough ice can make a tracked vehicle skid. I put my M577 through the motor pool fence one night during an alert in Korea, and I saw an M-60A3 skid the same night, the rear end fishtailing quite a bit.

I can see the movie now - Vin Diesel in 'The Fast and The Furious - Armoured Drift' :D

LOL, we were on maneuvers in northern Germany once, and got a nasty ice storm. We were bivouacked at some Air Force radar facility on top of a hill - we tried to get down, and my M577 slid for probably 100 yards down the road before coming to a halt, along with a few others. We ended up leaving them there, and spending another (unplanned) night at the AF facility. :)

I think the issue there was with the road pads, they got hard and frozen like hockey pucks. If we didn't have them on (and wouldn't in a combat situation), we probably would have made it, but we had to leave them on or the Germans would have killed us for tearing up the roads :)

Strange how alerts always happen in the early morn? Most of ours happened at o-dark-hundred, except for a couple in the evening and one in the morning. That one was during PT, we had just gone to extended mass formation, and then the siren went off. I immediately turned and ran for the motor pool. Everyone else just stood there, arms raised in double interval dress-right-dress, until the Sergeant Major yelled, "Don't just stand there, you idiots!"

In their defense, we had just had a call-out alert six hours earlier. They must have thought it was a mistake. But it turned out to be a roll-out alert.

Speaking of alerts, have you ever been in a MOPP 4 alert and had someone so hammered they threw up in their mask, but were forced to wear it anyway? Happened to a friend of mine. He also couldn't find his HMMWV even though he was three feet away from it.

Yeah, we called it our 9th gauge. But the extensions was attached to the extended bustle, by the time you figured in the ammo can bins, it covered all of the rear deck.

I've seen GIs so hammered that they fall out for morning PT in a jock strap, tee-shirt and unlaced combat boots, you know, the ones that do the front leaning rest, puke and pass out....

Never had someone puke in the mask and not be allowed to clear it though...pissed off his sergeant did he?

Just me, but I never liked having too much gear hanging of the back and sides of the turret...but then I was the tank that always had to cover the alley or have to bust bush and that junk got torn off quick!

SFC Richard was...unhappy with him. Eric was essentially a limp body for that alert, and PFC Park (one of our Katusas) had to drive the Major's HMMWV, which upset Sergeant Richard and the Major since Park was a certified road hazard behind the wheel. I don't know, Eric may have been so hammered at the time the mask didn't bother him...

It's not that he wasn't allowed to clear the mask, he just had to wear the damn thing after clearing it as best he could. Puke doesn't blow out of filters that well. Eric caught hell from the NBC NCOIC for that one as well -- Sergeant Richard lent him to the NBC section to clean up the masks of people outprocessing and inprocessing for a day, and the NBC NCOIC was definitely a bitch. You didn't want to get on her bad side.

We had one guy in Basic who, when we were dropped in the front leaning rest, just fell asleep! They doused him with two cans of water then did the Heartbreak Ridge thing on him -- they made him run around the platoon for two miles. At least it wasn't for the whole run.

Nothing is worse in basic than being both the old man (all of 29) and being the one to actually be dumb enough to actually say: Do you really believe the sh@@ that is coming out of your mouth?

- still shuddering in memory -

Jeez -- at 22, I was the oldest man in my Basic Training platoon. Though there was a guy in 2nd Platoon who was 35 -- he was returning to the Army after being out for 10 years.

We had a 36 year old that was out for 10 years or so. Good guy, good to have around.

One of the best leaders I was ever under was my platoon leader during the time shortly before until shortly after Desert Shield/Storm. This guy was in the Army for not quite 10 years, gets all the way to SFC (E-7) and 30 years old -- and then decides to go to OCS. He was just out of OCS when I showed up at the 82nd -- after a career in mech infantry, then at one of the Ranger battalions, then in SF. He was a real-life T2K munchkin character! More knowledge and ability than any of the platoon sergeants, platoon leaders, and even the company commander.

LOL There is just something about being the Bugs & Gas Puke for the unit that just ruins your day...must be that residue of CS...

One think I always liked about tanks is that we got to wear the old M25 mask...just a quick pinch and you can pull the filter off and leave the tube running into the ole mask carrier.

You can almost hear him "I'm too old for this shit!" :)