doors? a roof? nah, we don't need that
They're apparently planning to buy 2.5k of these too! Light skeletonized utility trucks like this have been around for a while, but as a very specific niche for special forces, not general issue
Except now all the Infantry Brigade Combat Teams (which the US apparently has a ton of, you'd think the wealthiest country in the world would have, like, a mostly fully mechanized infantry force and not nearly half of its units without even organic APCs, but I guess not) are going to be converted to Mobile Brigade Combat Teams, mounted on these things.
Something I found interesting is that the Soviets actually trialed a similar concept of airborne troops mounted in stripped-down utility trucks all the way back in the '80s, with similar motivation - lighter-equipped units are easier to redeploy via air, as it takes less plane trips (and opens up the usage of more plentiful smaller planes) to get all their gear in place: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYSb5VsQxNY
Except they pretty quickly came to the conclusion that this concept just doesn't work out that well. And even if they'd gone forward with it, there would have likely been just a handful of units like this, with the bulk of Soviet infantry remaining properly mechanized (in BTRs/BMPs for regular infantry, and BMDs for airborne).
Oh well, I guess the Americans have to see for themselves.
Saw some Ukrainians had put together an AI targeting bot on top of an M2 50cal and just let it rip on approaching drones. Feel like we might be getting dumbed down active protection systems off of tanks fit to everything that can move. Soon we won't even need anyone to be left alive for the machines to keep the war going :D