🔷 Assault Bridge

Assault Bridges

When land forces hit a roadblock, they go around it or through it. But when they hit a large gap, they need to get over it.

To do that requires an assault bridge.

What

An assault bridge is basically a vehicle chassis with an extendable scissor bridge on it.

We scoured the internet to find the best tutorial on the concept of operations and force integration, and this is it: a 1985 G.I. Joe commercial that packs so much into 30 seconds you’ll have to watch it twice.

The U.S. military has used 3 main tank-based variants over the years. The M60 Armored Vehicle Launched Bridge (AVLB) uses a M60 Patton tank carrier, and the M104 Wolverine uses an M1 Abrams tank chassis.

The newest assault bridge is the M1074 Joint Assault Bridge (JAB), and the Army is fully replacing the AVLP and Wolverine on a one-for-one basis.

Like the Wolverine, the JAB is built on an M1 Abrams tank chassis, but it’s faster and cheaper.

But all 3 of these assault bridges are heavy, weighing up to 69 tons.

And that weight got caught up in a kerfuffle with the Marine Corps.

Force Design

In 2020, the Marine Corps issued Force Design 2030, a dramatic restructuring to refocus on naval-centric warfare.

One of the first steps was to divest all the 452 M1 tanks they possessed. The Marine Corps’ heavy tank-based AVLB got caught in the fray and was divested as well.

By 2023, it was becoming clear that it was a mistake.

The Marine Corps currently lacks both assault bridging and assault breaching capabilities, limiting its ability to maneuver across simple terrain obstacles.

What Now

The Marine Corps' October 2025 Force Design Update quietly walked back its decision, stating that gap-crossing and obstacle-breaching solutions are being explored again.

With no tanks to deal with, what might a lighter assault bridge look like? Details are scant, but this 2023 SBIR topic is a pretty good starting point:

• Chassis: Medium Tactical Vehicle Replacement (MTVR)

• Bridge Span: 12-15 meters

• Military Load Classification: 40-60 tons

The obvious team to win this effort is Oshkosh + Leonardo DRS, the builders of the MTRV and JAB’s bridge, respectively.

But there are other options out there.

General Dynamics (maker of the AVLB) has PYTHON, which fits on an 8x8 carrier truck, or COBRA, which is adaptable to different carrier platforms and looks like a good fit for MTVR adaptation.

KNDS might be the dark horse, though. Their LEGUAN family of bridges is used by 20 countries and fits the bill. They recently sold the tank-based bridge to Denmark…integrated onto a 10x10 wheeled vehicle. OBTW, they also market a version mounted on a Boxer 8x8 Armored Fighting Vehicle.

Based on the timing and capability gap, expect the Marine Corps to kick off some type of competition by the end of the year.

In That Number

181

The Air Force is planning $1.7B in future funding to retrofit 181 older F-35As with new AN/APG-85 radars.

Given that the first APG-85-equipped F-35A is projected to be fielded in 2029, expect these retrofits to occur in the 2035 timeframe.

For those mathing at home, that’s $9.5M per radar…10 years from now. A lot can happen in 10 years, especially with hardware.

TRIVIA

In 1930, aviation pioneer Louis Blériot established a trophy after his namesake, and it took 30 years for someone to win it. On this day in 1961, the U.S. Air Force won the Blériot Trophy…by performing what feat?

A) fly to 100,000 feet
B) fly from New York to Paris in under 4 hours
C) fly 2,000 kilometers per hour for 30 minutes

On the Radar

Israel +50 fighter jets. Israel is expanding its air force by 2 fighter squadrons, adding a 4^th F-35I squadron and a 2^nd F-15IA squadron. Based on the IAF’s 25-jet squadron structure, that would be a 50-fighter expansion, bringing the eventual inventory to 100 F-35Is and 50 F-15I as part of the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) 10-year force development initiative.

• The Merge’s Take: That 10-year horizon matters. While the deal still needs U.S. approval, those jets aren’t showing up anytime soon for 2 reasons. First, it takes 5-6 years from contract to initial deliveries. Right now, Israel has 48 F-35Is and doesn’t expect to have the contracted 75 jets until 2031 or so. And while 25 F-15Is have been ordered (with an option for 25 more), those won’t even start showing up until 2031. The additional F-15IA order leads to reason 2: it's going to fight to get in line due to the U.S. Air Force’s 267 F-15EX fleet expansion (up from 129) and a potentially 200 F-15EX order to recap the aging F-15E fleet. That’s a ton of jets, but Boeing can only build 24 F-15s per year, and it won’t be until 2029 that they can build 36 per year. BL: It will be at least 10 years until Israel has 100 F-35s and 50 F-15s.

AFRL re-org. The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) underwent its largest restructuring in 30 years. It collapsed 11 legacy sub-organizations into 7 directorates (5 are new) to eliminate duplicative overhead, streamline processes, improve responsiveness, and better position the lab to deliver results.

• The Merge’s Take: Time will tell, but we’re hopeful this might help address the disconnect between the lab and the field that has plagued most service labs. The Technology Transition Office is key: it is the system integrator across the lab, operators, and industry. Leadership, authority, and accountability in this office will determine whether this re-org is successful or just rearranging deck chairs. Weird that the official image (see above) didn’t put them in the middle.

Maverick Act. A bill was introduced in Congress to save the last 3 F-14 Tomcats from destruction. Instead, they would be transferred to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center Commission in Alabama. Called the Maverick Act, the language also paves the way to return them to flyable condition for “an airshow … or a commemorative event to preserve United States naval aviation heritage.”

• The Merge’s Take: We laid out the steps to do this last month, and we’d still like to see NASA lean into this initiative as a nationwide STEM project.

They Said It

“The Army will either lease or purchase the IP, and then we want to see if we can create, from scratch, an interceptor that we can then own the IP for, and then go find contract manufacturing to build.”

— Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll, on how the service wants to develop affordable Patriot-like interceptors…but own all of the intellectual property by buying it piecemeal from places like labs and universities, then use contract manufacturing to build it.

That would make the Army the lead systems integrator (LSI), an engineering and accountability role that the government generally avoids struggles at contracts out.

Knowledge Bombs

• Northrop Grumman flew the XRQ-73 hybrid-electric drone (video!)

• Astranis raised $450M to accelerate high-orbit spacecraft production

• Firestorm won a $30M APFIT contract to deliver drones and microfactories

• Domino Data Lab won a $99M Navy contract for AI mine-hunting software

• L3Harris received an Air Force contract for ABMS digital infrastructure

• ThinKom’s containerized ground station won a Space Force competition

• BlackSky received a $30M contract for space-based ISR services

• The Army purchased a Draganfly heavy lift drone for logistics

• Darkhive raised a $30M Series B for autonomous software and drones

• GPS Source won a $17M Army contract to prototype a PNT system

• Anduril won a $100M contract mod for Space Force mesh networking

• Rocket Lab secured a $30M contract for 3 Anduril hypersonic launches

• Rocket Lab acquired Motiv Space Systems

• Rocket Lab & Raytheon were tapped to demo a space-based interceptor capability

• Askari Defense’s Rift Alpha interceptor made the Army’s counter-drone semifinals

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ANSWER C. A U.S. Air Force Convair B-58 Hustler was the first to fly 2,000 kph for 30 minutes. The crew of aircraft 59-2451 “the Firefly,” flew 669.4 miles (1,077.3 kilometers) in 30 minutes, 43 seconds, averaging 1,302.07 miles per hour (2,095 kilometers per hour). The trophy is on display at the U.S. Air Force Academy.