BFV, Bradley Fighting Vehicle

Almost every army you look at is ahead of the American Army, as far as taking care of our infantry. The Russians, are ahead of us, the German, are ahead of us, the Dutch are ahead of us, the French are ahead of us, the Yugoslavians are ahead of us. Almost everybody has a better infantry vehicle than the U.S. Army. We would have been better off in 1963 when we started to just build the MICV immediately. Are we to start over again? My guess is that if you start over again, you will have a 10 percent increase in effectiveness and 50 percent increase in cost.
—General William E. DePuy, testimony to Congress, 1977.
In 1977 Congress ordered two new evaluations of the IFV program, one by the GAO and one by the Department of the Army, under General Pat Crizer. The GAO report was critical of the XM2's height, mobility, complexity, lack of clear doctrinal use, and lack of CBR protection. Based upon this criticism the OMB deleted M2/3 funding from the budget for the 1979 financial year. In 1978 the Crizer report asserted that the basic design was consistent with doctrine and development of an IFV with superior characteristics would be costly and pose significant developmental risks. An additional study, the IFV/CFV Special Study Group, evaluated whether an improved version of the M113 could be used instead of the M2/3 IFV. Their conclusion was that extensive redesign would be necessary for even marginal improvements in M113 derivatives. In October 1978 Congress reauthorized procurement funds.
The XM2/3 passed the Army Systems Acquisition Review Council Milestone II review in 1979 and final approval for production came from the Secretary of Defense on 1 February 1980.