M8 Buford
The M8 Buford is an American light tank that was intended to replace the M551 Sheridan and TOW missile-armed Humvees in the 82nd Airborne Division and 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment (2nd ACR) of the U.S. Army respectively.
It is armed with an M35 105mm/52-caliber rifled autoloading main cannon with an M240 7.62 mm machine-gun mounted coaxially. An M2 12.7mm heavy machine gun is mounted in a manually-operated pintle on the commander's hatch. Power is provided by a Detroit Diesel 6V-92TIA diesel developing 550 hp allowing for a top speed of 45 mph (72.42 km/h).
The M8 AGS began as a private venture of FMC Corporation, called the close combat vehicle light (CCVL), in 1983. The Army began the armored gun system program to develop a mobile gun platform that could be airdropped. By 1992, the AGS was one of the Army's top priority acquisition programs. The service selected FMC's CCVL over proposals from three other teams. The service sought to purchase 237 AGS systems to begin fielding in 1997. Key characteristics of the AGS are its light weight (17.8 short tons (16.1 t) in its low-velocity airdrop configuration), field-installable modular armor, M35 105 mm caliber soft recoil rifled gun, 21-round magazined autoloader, and slide-out powerpack.
Though it had authorized the start of production of the type classified M8 a year earlier, the Army canceled the AGS program in 1996 due to the service's budgetary constraints. The Sheridan was retired without a true successor. he AGS was unsuccessfully marketed for export and was reincarnated for several subsequent U.S. Army assault gun/light tank programs. United Defense LP proposed the AGS as the Mobile Gun System (MGS) variant of the Interim Armored Vehicle program in 2000, but lost out to the General Motors–General Dynamics' LAV III, which was type classified as the Stryker M1128 mobile gun system. BAe Systems offered the AGS system for the Army's XM1302 Mobile Protected Firepower requirement, but lost to the General Dynamics Griffin II—later type classified as the M10 Booker—in 2022.