HILL RESEARCHERS VS. “FUTURE COMBAT”

Add the thinkers at the Congressional Research Service to the grow­ing list of folks who think the Army’s sprawl­ing set of mod­ern­iza­tion pro­grams, Future Combat Systems, is bad news.
As reg­u­lar Defense Tech read­ers know, costs for the project have been swelling out of con­trol — from $92 bil­lion to a pos­si­ble $450 bil­lion — while major chunks of FCS has been pushed back.
Now, in a report, obtained thanks to the fine folks at Inside Defense, the Congressional Research Service says that it’s time to start think­ing about pulling the plug on FCS.

Congress, in its autho­riza­tion, appro­pri­a­tion, and over­sight roles may wish to review the rel­e­vancy of the FCS pro­gram in terms of cur­rent and poten­tial future threats, the over­all via­bil­ity of the pro­gram, pro­gram man­age­ment and con­trac­tual agree­ments, and pro­gram off ramps into the cur­rent force should the FCS pro­gram be mod­i­fied or curtailed.

Defense Tech read­ers will be not at all sur­prised to learn that the Joint Tactical Radio System (“Jitters”) is one of the report’s biggest Future Combat fears.

May 4th, 2005 | FCS Watch | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.