It appears that the good folks at Aberdeen Proving Ground just set up a petting zoo for the press with a dog and pony show on the high tech armor for the manned ground vehicles (FCS-MGV).

I have no doubt that this armor will be more effective on a per unit weight and a per thickness basis, but the following is a flat out lie:

All these materials had apparently been used in the search to create the “B” armor for FCS. They are using what is called B-1 armor now and plan to come up with two more variants, using B-3 as the main armor once the FCS vehicles make it to LRIP in fiscal 2013. B-1 provides, a very careful public affairs officer told me, protection roughly equivalent to the Chobham armor on the Abrams tanks. The next variants should be much lighter and provide even greater protection.

(emphasis mine)

Simply put, you are not going to get higher armor levels out of a 25-30 ton vehicle than you do out of a 70 ton vehicle, the laws of physics.

It could be that they are factoring in the effects of an active protection system (which could be easily retrofitted to legacy vehicles) and greater situational awareness (which also could be easily retrofitted to legacy vehicles), but if they are, they are ignoring the realities of modern combat (IEDs, EFPs, and an insurgent enemy who has information superiority).

In other words, it’s a lie.