ARMY “FUTURE” DIVERTED TO IRAQ

Originally, the idea was to replace the Army of today with a fleet of ultra-​​quick, laser-​​firing tanks, con­nected to a array of new drones by a giant net­work for com­bat. Then, the thought was to con­cen­trate on the net­work first, and do the sci-​​fi stuff sec­ond. But now, accord­ing to Bloomberg News, the U.S. Army’s $117 bil­lion Future Comabt Systems ini­tia­tive is poised to become, in many ways, just another way to get gear to the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Of the $3 bil­lion or so allo­cated to FCS this year, “about $886 mil­lion would be used to buy tac­ti­cal radios,” the news ser­vice says. The Stryker armored vehi­cles — a brigade of which just got done with a year-​​long deploy­ment in north­ern Iraq — “would receive an extra $672 mil­lion. The Army wants to spend $579 mil­lion on train­ing ammu­ni­tion.“
Another $9 bil­lion in FCS funds for future years has been moved around, too. Bloomberg notes that “the biggest por­tion of the shifted Future Combat Systems money, about $1.3 bil­lion, will be allo­cated through 2011 for ‘tac­ti­cal vehi­cles,’ includ­ing upgrades and repairs of General Dynamics M1A2 tanks and United Defense Industries Inc.‘s Bradley Fighting Vehicles dam­aged in Iraq.“
(thanks to Phil Carter for the catch)

November 5th, 2004 | FCS Watch | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.