The Army’s Future Combat Systems overhaul is FUBAR, we all know. But it’s just the latest in a long line of big-ticket Pentagon programs to burn cash and squander expectations.
So it there any way for the Defense Department to buy next-gen gear without picking taxpayers’ pockets and leaving soldiers ass-out? Pentagon insider Dave has a few new rules on his blog, Garfield Ridge.
– It has to be cheap…
– Only one, maybe two, leap-ahead technologies allowed per program. The rest of the program has to rely on stuff we’ve already done before…
– Congress must not care about it. If it hates it, it will cut it and ruin program stability, particularly in the early years where it’s needed most. If it loves it, it’ll add unneeded money and unrealistic demands on the program. The best programs are always the ones that Congress keeps their noses out of.
– The program must be small enough to fail.
That last one is probably the most important one of all.
Most of the Pentagon’s acquisition trouble in recent years has occurred on programs that are quite simply too big to fail. Either the requirement is one that can’t be ignored, thus forcing the development program into a fixed schedule — never a good idea to do this stuff on a deadline — or the program reaches a point where so much money has been spent on it that in the event of failure no one wants to cut their losses and try something new. The moment the contractor smells fear on the part of the Pentagon, once it knows no one in the Building has the guts to cancel the program as it goes south, that’s when the Pentagon takes it in the wazoo from industry, often willingly.
FCS, for all its necessary wisdom — after all, it makes no sense to modernize the Army one little piece at a time — FCS is precisely one of the complex systems that the Pentagon can’t seem to run right anymore, if it ever could.
Welcome to the ugly.
And read the whole thing.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
CUT the bureaucracy alone & regulations & useless Milspecs so we can have a Mobile Force needed & worthy.
Very doable.
Maybe we need a 6 engine C130.
OR use Hovercraft ferries for transport from the UK X Channel alone for TransOceanic uses.
& Preposit cargo ships for Ops worldwide.
Very doable.
Good Morning Folks,
This looks like a vehicle that President Bush would ride in as he passed Cindy Sheehan. Is there a port where he canf lip her off?
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
“Stewart’s Platoon”
Is this why I am seeing so many ugly concept designs of US made weapons such as the FCS MCS vehicle, OICW, B-3, JHL, DD(X), etc? I really miss the old days of military which design was one of the factors. I miss the old days of the great retro designs such as the M-1 MBT, and F/A-22 which sounded like the 21st century weapon design out of science fiction. I am getting more frustration from ugly designs for US made weapons…
I`m pretty sure that vehicle can not be detected by heat sensing devices. It also has a hybrid electric motor. It was the same chasis for the FSCS program or known as the Future Scout and Calvery System, which was later combined with the FCS program. Here is a picture of it with a 40 mm. cannonhttp://www.geocities.com/fscswheelsvstracks/fscstracerprototype.jpg
Also a fact I bet alot of yall didnt know is that the FCS program started out as a single 40 ton tank ment to replace the Abrams tank.