…But is that necessarily a bad thing? I tend to think the FCS program might have been a bit over ambitious when it was launched and has now lost a bit of its relevance as the services shift to counterinsurgency and “phase zero” operations.
I sat through an Army justification last year of how the FCS was “tailor made” for the counterinsurgency fight, but it smacked me as a sales pitch similar to the “B” designation of an F/B-22 (hey, weren’t you telling telling us the F-22 was build to counter the 4th gen fighters of Russia, India and China?)…
But what has worked for the FCS — and the Army is loath to admit it — is that the program has acted like an accelerated S&T program. Some of the FCS components get a lot of money (and congressional support like the NLOS cannon from the Oklahoma delegation) and are sped up and fielded quicker…what the Army likes to call “spiraling.”
Good, but let’s not turn it into a “death” spiral. The FCS technology is definitely helpful and necessary in some Army specialties…so keep it alive. But don’t let the program sink the Army under its own weight.
Here’s a great story from our friends at Aviation Week which they were gracious enough to allow us to run on our front page at Military.com:
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) warned March 10 that the U.S. Army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS) program is facing serious shortfalls and raised questions about the program’s future viability.
In two new reports, the GAO takes aim at FCS. Both reports deal with acquisition issues one focusing on 2009 as a “critical juncture” for FCS and the other homing in on the program’s potential network and software issues. Although progress on FCS is “commensurate with a program in early development,” GAO said, the knowledge demonstrated falls “well short of a program halfway through its development schedule and its budget.”
According to GAO, that situation portends additional cost increases and delays. “In the key areas of defining and developing FCS capabilities, requirements definition and preliminary designs are proceeding but not yet complete; critical technologies are immature; complementary programs are not yet synchronized; and the remaining acquisition strategy is very ambitious.”
The report regarding network and software issues is equally pessimistic. “Almost five years into the program, it is not yet clear if or when the information network that is at the heart of the FCS concept can be developed, built and demonstrated by the Army and [lead systems integrator].”
The findings come at a time when the Army is spiraling out the first tendrils of the program, from the Non-Line-of-Sight-Cannon to the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T), which has already undergone one restructuring. Whether the GAO reports will resonate on the Hill, perhaps resulting in cuts to certain aspects of the program, remains to be seen. One of GAO’s recommendations was to “identify viable alternatives to FCS,” a direction with which DOD concurred, at least in the report.
– Christian
slntax,
Ask Eric Shinseki…he’s the one who made it a formal program and the be-all-end-all for the Army.
I have ALOT of probe,s with FCS and this
Non-Line-of-Sight-Cannon
is probbly the stupidest thing ive ever seen.……its freakin arty but cracker.why do i have the feeling they just payed some one 100 a hr to come up with that?.…sigh..another remember another thing of FCS was its information abilities.…..cant china or somebody it sells the stuff to use anti sate stuff now?
plus another thing of FCS is to take out the armor aspect of vehicles.……em.…great idea because we all know the abrams are getting takin out left and right.
ok bottom line FCS is nothing but a a realy realy realy big expensive and breakable marine corps.…without the armor.….….im all for the army having fast mobile forces but it needs to have the magority of its troops able to take a punch and keep moving or atleast survive.…
far as im concerned its another DDX good idea on paper but they try to do to much with it in the real world…like the stryker.….its a great vehicle…just over engineered oh and are they still keeping that dumbass 105mm cannon? why not switch to a turret kinda like the bradly…bushmaster and anti tank missiles?
I have ALOT of probe,s with FCS and this
Non-Line-of-Sight-Cannon
is probbly the stupidest thing ive ever seen.……its freakin arty but cracker.why do i have the feeling they just payed some one 100 a hr to come up with that?.…sigh..another remember another thing of FCS was its information abilities.…..cant china or somebody it sells the stuff to use anti sate stuff now?
plus another thing of FCS is to take out the armor aspect of vehicles.……em.…great idea because we all know the abrams are getting takin out left and right.
ok bottom line FCS is nothing but a a realy realy realy big expensive and breakable marine corps.…without the armor.….….im all for the army having fast mobile forces but it needs to have the magority of its troops able to take a punch and keep moving or atleast survive.…
far as im concerned its another DDX good idea on paper but they try to do to much with it in the real world…like the stryker.….its a great vehicle…just over engineered oh and are they still keeping that dumbass 105mm cannon? why not switch to a turret kinda like the bradly…bushmaster and anti tank missiles?
FCS has always struck me as unrealistic. They are saying that a family of light armored vehicles will replace our current IFVs and MBTs. The assumption seems to be that between the time they envisioned the system and the time it’s deployed, the technology will magically appear negates all the problems with the concept. In reality technological advancement takes its own course, paying little heed to the time lines set forth by the DoD.
Now this is not to say that there aren’t good things coming out of FCS. There certainly are bits and pieces of the system that have value in their own right. But FCS as a whole makes too many assumptions about the future, both in terms of available technology and the type of warfare we will experience, to ever succeed as originally planned
Personally I wish that our military leaders were a bit less obsessed with revolutionary systems that they are sure will change the way we fight wars. Evolutionary development is generally the way to goal. Set high goals for R&D for sure, but have a backup plan and be willing to build a better version of proven systems when radical ideas fail to become practical.
the real problem is the weight of the m1a1 heavy tank. fcs is saying that hey we dont need armor we will have superior battle field “total awareness” i say BS. you can never have total battlefield awarness. the idea that you will be able to see all enemy positions is insane. there will always be unknowns in combat. what the army needs is a light tank and research next gen lighter armor that is abled to be air dropped anywhere. instead of light armor we get mgs stryker which IMO is not armored enough. and has inferior off road terrain handling abilities vs track. we did have the m8 Buford but in some generals infinite wisdom it was canceled.
http://www.combatreform2.com/strykerprogram.htm
check out this site during training at ntc they had to change tires 13 times over 96 hours.
The FCS initiative gets a lot of flak from wonks on both ends, but it seems that most people tend to focus on the trees and miss the forest. NLOs and other the other ground vehicles are neat systems in their own right but these systems are a necessary creation in the greater goal of creating a truly networked system. Not unlike RMA of the 80s, the development of advanced systems in the future will not just be about making stealthier jets or more precise radar to act as game changers, but also greatly expand information sharing in real time. Due to the very nature of the proprietary systems built by different contractors of the past, an initiative to accomplish such a task must not only create the framework of such a system, such as Blue force tracking, but also a series of compatible vehicles which can best use this new information sharing ability to its greatest advantage.
The crux about such an initiative is the software and hardware components are both mature in market and by and large commercially available, albeit on a much smaller scale & in a narrower scope. In this regard, emerging military forces awash with larger procurement budgets will find the development of such a concept to be neither daunting nor technically infeasible.
It is my hope that the army and our legislature continue to fund FCS in full and not cut it down even more than it has been.
Christian: Yes, FCS was basically an S&T program under another name.
Why is that bad? Why don’t *all* procurements on the edge of tech start out like FCS — really, accelerated S&T programs until the requisite knowledge is gained?
The problem with FCS isn’t whether it works or, not, I’m sure it would in time. The problems is, it’s not what we need. For over 20 years I’ve been hearing about how we need to be prepared for the low intensity conflicts and that’s what we are likely to face, trouble is we never prepared for that. We continued buying and developing systems based on old threats.
The failure, is a failure in vision. You can take legacy M1’s and M2’s, and now Strykers and drop in leading edge comm systems and computer systems as you go. There isn’t anyone on God’s green earth that is going to challenge and beat an American armored BDE on the open battlefield even with our older systems, so they won’t try.
China? Gimmee a break, there is the crowd out there that wants to paint them as the boogeyman for the sake of buying stuff we don’t need. China is not the USSR, we are in bed with each other financially like we never were or even are with Russia. They would be cutting their own throats economically.
We need to ‘spiral out’ the counter insurgency stuff now. A good modular off the shelf wheeled $ tracked APC that can be upgraded and maybe look at making a new MBT, as light as possible, but a MBT none the less. Lets get serious about UAV purchases, makes it hard to be an insurgent when we are watching everything all the time. Buy the prop COIN aircraft. Get a serious new hvy lift chopper. Buy a new patrol MRAP now! There are good options out there right now. That’s what we need.
Sean,
I know I understand English. I know those words are English. Yet I have no idea what you just said. Odd.
–
The FCS faces three problems. The first is technological. It was assumed when the program started that “the future” would bring with it the technologies necessary to make the individual projects work. Well, technological development didn’t happen as was predicted. Some of the early FCS proposals talked about tanks with laser turrets (in the far future of 2008, such things would surely be possible). Didn’t happen. Some of the technology was developed, and that has made its way into use today. But that leads to the second problem.
The second problem was how development proceeded. There was a “wait and see” attitude towards many of the components. “Once this tech is developed, we’ll be able to move forward.” If you look at the publicly available information on FCS today, most of it is the same as was available five or six years ago. Very little development has taken place, as everyone sort of waited around for the technologies to present themselves. Most programs are still in the early concept phases. We’re still just sort of waiting.
The third problem is Iraq. Gulf War II changed a lot of the Army’s needs. FCS was presented as a faster, more efficient way to fight the first Gulf War. Since our Abrams were rarely shot at in that war, the assumption was that we could beat the enemy through superior positioning and range. The armor was seen as unnecessary. Today, Iraq has shown us the opposite. Many of the assumptions that were made for FCS have since been proven wrong. Meanwhile, the Army has very real needs to re-equip and resupply. It cannot afford to give FCS its full attention. FCS began because we were far enough ahead of all competitors that we were able to focus on the “generation after next” Iraq has shown a different future for ground combat than we had anticipated, one for which FCS is not ideally suited.
It may be time to take FCS as a learning experience, incorporate everything we have learned, and break it back down into its component pieces, rather than deal with the program as a big, unweildy whole.
To me,the [planned] FCS Brigade just seems like a tracked version of a Stryker Brigade.
I think that the FCS should be used for “quick-reaction brigades” like Airborne/Air Assault Brigades.My question with that is can they be easily transported by C-17s in sufficient numbers to turn Airborne/Air Assault units into Airmoble Mechanized Strike Units? Do you know the answer to that DarthAmerica?
This whole thing reminds me of the 9th “Motorized” Infantry Division Experiment during the 80s.It failed then,but we finally ended up with Stryker Brigades today.
DA — written like someone who has read everything on the internet about FCS, but has very little comprehension of warfare beyond his own rifle sights. Lots of great dazzle phrases, little meat.
Two Items — roles and missions, and transport capacity.
R&M — the USMC is already the nation’s fast response force, trading heft for speed. They get there quicker but with less punch. The Army brass saw the main reason for the large US Army disappear (the coming war in Europe), tried to pitch themselves as equal to the USMC in deployability, and got burned several times. So out comes FCS and a way to keep the Army in competition for what they (Army brass) naively believed was the only game in town — light expeditionary forces. The TO and the E of traditional Army units just doesn’t/didn’t lend itself to getting someplace else fast, so they made up a new one. Which leads to…
Transport capacity — which is what these major Army restructering cycles are usually about — making every piece of combat power relevent to the fight. If you can’t sit on the border waiting for the war, you have to have the ability to get to *any* border quickly. So you either cut down your bulk to gain strategic speed — the USMC route — or you hollar until you’re purple about fast sea lift and massive airlift and get the Navy and Air Force off their ass and committed to their principle reason for being — Air and Sea Lines of Communication.
No one ever takes the second route. I think they should. The reason it won’t happen — it doesn’t bring more money to the Army. If the Army demands more fast sealift so they can respond with heavy forces globally, the “new” money goes to the Navy for new fast sea lifters. That’s assuming the admirals can be forced to buy unsexy lifters.
All the ancillary issues with FCS are just that — ancillary. Better comms, better networks, those are standard evolutionary force upgrades that have unnecessarily become “hitched” to the FCS bandwagon — but it is not the meat of the issue. Misguided Army guesswork that light & fast is their future fight IS the meat of the issue.
Krag
Brian, that has to be the appropriate reaction, especially to such a half backed rant.
Let me match up some comments with my first sentence, though: “It seems to me the chief problem with this type of vision is the bundling of risk.“
Brian — The second problem was how development proceeded. There was a “wait and see” attitude towards many of the components. “Once this tech is developed, we’ll be able to move forward.“
Krag — Better comms, better networks, those are standard evolutionary force upgrades that have unnecessarily become “hitched” to the FCS bandwagon — but it is not the meat of the issue. Misguided Army guesswork that light & fast is their future fight IS the meat of the issue.
As for DA’s OODA loops of days, and his insistence on the straight jacket of air mobility, it’s the best example of wishing for a pliant enemy. Nothing against speed, but why should the advantage of a complementary and much greater force arriving a bit later be done away with?
On the other hand, a very light force, maybe based on vehicles like those nifty Israeli four wheeled bots, with abundant firepower and safety in numbers (maskirovka, anyone?), creatively deployed as an adjunct to the main body, could create an inordinate amount of problems for any host. Cheap platforms accelerate feedback, too.
Now, if platforms, weapons, computing ability, sensors, comms and concepts for their use were unbundled, while letting guys out front mix, match, and improve (the software at least), what do you think might happen? (Yes, some mayhem. Nothing new, there.) This is where the OODA loop will be decisive.
We will face such an enemy sooner or later, and the more adaptive force (and I’m thinking labs to mass production to deployment) will have a good shot at winning.
I really haven’t read up on the FCS that much, so I don’t know too much about it. I do know that some of the integration systems developed from this program have been deployed. And the NLOS Cannon and WIN-T systems seem to be pretty attractive.
What I don’t understand is this: Don’t we already have a common platform lightweight system in place called the Stryker? I thought that was what this vehicle was developed for.
Other posts on here have indicated how we had issues during GWI deploying our troops into battle and how the USMC is our mobility force. Both of those assertions are quite true, and the USMC has also developed quite well into a sustained presence force.
After GWI we realized we did not have enough equipment prepositioned around the world. During the 90s we went on a shipbuilding/conversion spree to develop RO-RO ships and have the prepositioned at strategic locations across the world. This equipment was used during GWII and we delivered from Diego Garcia.
During the start of the Afghanistan war, the majority of the US ground power came from the USMC, which deployed from amphibious ships sitting off of Pakistan. It took a little while longer for the 10th ID to deploy.
DC2
To expand on DA’s comments, the following depicts from most to least the spectrum of ground armor/firepower capabilities, deployment difficulty, and logistics requirements:
– Army Heavy forces (70 ton Abrams/35 ton Bradley)
– Army FCS (Family of 27 ton vehicles)
– Army Stryker (Family of 20 ton vehicles)
– Marine LAV (Family of 18 ton vehicles)
– Marine Light (V-22 transported, no armor)
– Army Air Assault (Lots of helicopters and HMMWVs)
– Army Airborne (Lots of HMMWVs)
– Army Light Infantry (Lots of dimounted infantry)
Note in the three groupings, only Army Heavy forces and FCS units have the armor/firepower for conflicts against armored threats with heavy artillery.
Stryker and Marine LAV units have compromise armor capabilities…emphasizing compromise. There is a reason FCS vehicles ended up abandoning C-130 deployment of its armored family of vehicles. Sub-20 ton vehicles have insufficient armor, firepower, and active protection.
The C-17 transports three (3) FCS armored vehicles per 166,000 lb payload aircraft. Look at the 173rd Airborne Brigade airlift into Northern Iraq using 62 C-17 sorties as an example of FCS potential. The light airborne troops had little firepower and just a company team of heavy Abrams/Bradley.
An FCS battalion task force of 30 “tanks,” 16 Infantry Carriers, and 8 NLOS-Cannons could deploy using just 18 C-17s out of adjacent allied nations or using aerial refueling. The other 44 OIF sorties used in Northern Iraq could support FCS C2, logistics, and engineers/air defense/MI/MP/Signal for a highly capable force on the ground very early in any conflict.
A heavy task force with 30 Abrams/14 Bradleys WITHOUT artillery would use 500 gallons each/200 gallons each of JP8 respectively, and would require 37 C-17 sorties, vs. the 18 for comparable FCS task force WITH artillery shown in the paragraph above.
The heavy Abrams/Bradley/no artillery task force requires 17,800 gallons for every 200 or so miles of movement. An FCS battalion task force with 30 “tanks,” 16 Infantry carriers, and 8 NLOS-cannons with hybrid-electric armored vehicles will use about HALF that much fuel.
It isn’t enough to get firepower on the ground early in the conflict. You must sustain it early. The Marines supply from ships requiring time to arrive and lighter logistics for lighter forces.…fully suitable if the problem is close to shore and has little armored threat. Afghanistan was landlocked and had little enemy armor waiting to greet Marines and Army light forces.
FCS will defeat more capable landlocked threats, and will secure ports/airheads for heavy Abrams/Bradley divisions and AEFs, with help from the Air Force to supply the early FCS defenders with C-17 and C-130 airland/precision GPS airdrop. A joint heavy lift rotorcraft carrying 30 tons, and allied A400M carrying FCS vehicles/logistics could go along way to bringing the best of all worlds to ground combat early in any emergency.
ADyer: “They are saying that a family of light armored vehicles will replace our current IFVs and MBTs.“
Not true. FCS systems will be fielded in 15 brigades out of a 40+ brigade Army. Heavy forces will remain in the active and National Guard Army and FCS technologies are being spun out early into the current active force as part of FCS fielding.
Cole,
I understand what you are saying, but I think we have those capabilities right now. I know this is your forte as you are working on the program so I am looking at being educated as well.
The Marines have traditionally been the force to secure the ports you mentioned since they have the inherent capability to do so. The FCS provides no addtional capabilities (and probably fewer) than what the Corps has been developing for the past 70 years. And they proved they had the capability during OIF to project power further inland than ever anticipated. You also mentioned Army heavy armored divisions but failed to mention the same heavy armor the Corps also has. They have more than just LAVs and Humvees. BTW, much to their dislike, the Marines are a department of the Navy (yeah I know mens department blah, blah, blah) so they will always be supported by them and never really by the USAF. That is why Navy Corpsmen are their medics, Seabees are their engineering support, and Navy crews staff their LCACs.
But what I am seeing from your comments is that the FCS is a tweener to heavy armor Abrams/Bradley divisions and Stryker divisions. Or is this system supposed to replace the Strykers, which we have been spending a ton of money to purchase?
Also, given the fact that it took 62 C-17s to drop off an airborne brigade, how many more sorties would it take to drop off and sustain the FCS system versus the Stryker?
Don’t get me wrong, like I said I like the technologies coming out of this program. Especially the indirect fire stuff. I just don’t understand the difference between the FCS vehicles and the Strykers. Especially when we have so many different variants of the Stryker already developed (and continuing to be developed).
DC2
sintax:“fcs is saying that hey we dont need armor we will have superior battle field “total awareness” i say BS. you can never have total battlefield awarness. the idea that you will be able to see all enemy positions is insane. there will always be unknowns in combat.“
You can’t have total battlefield awareness. You CAN improve it dramatically through sensor technology, that again cannot be discussed here.
The media and GAO gets to take potshots at FCS all the time without the program being able to explain why FCS will sense threats and survive them in a lighter vehicle.
The current heavy force uses light HMMWVs for scout reconnaissance. THOSE HHMWVs are non-survivable. FCS will field a Recon Troop in EVERY BATTALION with heavily protected Reconnaissance and Surveillance vehicles that can use electric drive to employ ground stealth from a noise perspective. The current heavy force battalion has a Recon Platoon with HMMWVs that is 1/3 the size of the FCS recon troop.
There are already an abundance of non-FCS intelligence systems in the Joint world that can provide extensive information. The trick is to get that information to the Soldiers at the lowest echelons…and filter that information so it is relevant and not overwhelming.
FCS network communications and information managements sytems, coupled with displays to simplify presentation of information will support every commander down to his individual vehicles with the information that vehicle/squad may need.
General Wallace during OIF had just one Hunter UAV to support his entire Corps movement toward Baghdad. Sixteen Air Force Predators supported the entire Joint campaign and most of them were assigned to looking for mobile rocket/missle launchers threatening Israel and Kuwait.
FCS and other Army/Air Force UAV capabilities in future wars will be exponentially increased in numbers and capabilities. Where V Corps had 1 Hunter UAV, the future FCS V Corps would have literally hundreds of highly capable UAVs.
Perfect information? Never. Infinitely better information. Believe it.
DA, thank you for clarifying. Do not assume I’m merely paraphrasing.
I think many people would agree to what you wrote back here:
“Take Iraq in 1990–1991 for example. There was little preparation and warning for what Saddam did. When we did respond in force, it was weeks later. Not because we weren’t interested. But because our force structure was built for war in Europe on familiar territory with an extensive logistics support infrastructure in place.” — quoting DA
However, it’s the 20 ton blanket decree that I find highly problematical, for two reasons: insufficient protection at the high end, and way too great a distraction from the kind of optionally autonomous, compact but tough and lethal critters that may swarm the battlefield in the future.
Apart from the unoriginal, but proven heavies that obviously gain from usefully fieldable technology, we should be focusing on breaking down platform size. Cities most everyhwere are optimized for car sized vehicles, so there’s your envelope for MOUT. If that requires three man armored trikes (I’m merely flashing a provocative image), why not do it? Originality on this scale is cheap when you have plug, acquire, and fire.
And let us not forget that computing power today is essentially free.
We’re always hearing about low-tech, or high-tech-but-cheap, items that, when combined with appropriate tactics, yield great results in the field. That makes one wonder if the FCS is like main-frame computers that attempt to do it all at a very high price but, in most situations, can not compete with ubiquitous and cheap networked PCs.
ok darth you misunderstood what i was trying to say look i knw m1a2’s dont get taken out…things are ment to survive tank battles..
heres the thing if we have are that is as good or just about as good as a abrams on its replacment ok but dont send out cheese box tanks because theres stealthy and fast.….…..awsome who cares.
no one of my biggest problems look at the battlefeild..were trying to make it orderly.…..war is chaos its like murphies law..on steroids..like MLB steroids…war is chaos when we get to where we have to rely on knowing everything in battle what happens if we suddenly have to go to war blind? plus same thing as the UCAV’S and other UAV’s with all of this info shere ing the abiltity of other naions to mess with our computer systems goes way way up
Roy Smith:“To me,the [planned] FCS Brigade just seems like a tracked version of a Stryker Brigade.“
——————————-
Not even close in armor and active protection. Yet lighter Strykers have done well against MRAPs and have proven the principle of having better situational awareness using on-vehicle displays.
——————————“
I think that the FCS should be used for “quick-reaction brigades” like Airborne/Air Assault Brigades.My question with that is can they be easily transported by C-17s in sufficient numbers to turn Airborne/Air Assault units into Airmoble Mechanized Strike Units? Do you know the answer to that DarthAmerica?” YES. And properly planned, you can seat light/airborne/air assault infantry next to FCS vehicles on the same airlanding C-17. Don’t airdrop hundreds of paratroopers spread out over 12 miles in the mud. Land in an adjacent nation or in a remote part of the enemy country with plenty of aerial suppression and friendly allies on the ground.
18 C-17s equals an effective FCS deterrent force (See earlier comment for details) with both light and “heavy” elements, all in one night. It has already been proven in Northern Iraq.
———————————–
“This whole thing reminds me of the 9th “Motorized” Infantry Division Experiment during the 80s.It failed then,but we finally ended up with Stryker Brigades today.“
———————————-
Good ideas never die…they just evolve into even better ideas.
“Two Items — roles and missions, and transport capacity.
Roles & Missions — the USMC is already the nation’s fast response force, trading heft for speed. They get there quicker but with less punch.“
—————————
The last sentence about less punch is a good thing?? So you’re saying it can take days to sail there and when they arrive, you have little heft to survive…and you require $70 million V-22s to get inland when the 82nd Airborne ready brigade could have been there days earlier?
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“The Army brass saw the main reason for the large US Army disappear (the coming war in Europe),“
—————————
You mean the Cold War that we won simultaneously breaking the back of the world’s biggest threat without ever firing a shot except through surrogates?;)
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”…tried to pitch themselves as equal to the USMC in deployability, and got burned several times.“
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By being too light to be relevant…kind of like many Marine units?
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“So out comes FCS and a way to keep the Army in competition for what they (Army brass) naively believed was the only game in town — light expeditionary forces.“
——————————
There’s not much light about FCS…except its armored vehicles that far surpass LAV capabilities in protection and firepower. A few Marine Abrams units, do not a heavy force make.
——————————
“The Table of Organization and Equipment of traditional Army units just doesn’t/didn’t lend itself to getting someplace else fast, so they made up a new one. Which leads to…“
——————————-
You’re right!!
——————————
“Transport capacity — which is what these major Army restructering cycles are usually about — making every piece of combat power relevent to the fight. If you can’t sit on the border waiting for the war, you have to have the ability to get to *any* border quickly. So you either cut down your bulk to gain strategic speed — the USMC route — or you hollar until you’re purple about fast sea lift and massive airlift and get the Navy and Air Force off their ass and committed to their principle reason for being — Air and Sea Lines of Communication.“
———————–
You’re right!!!!
———————–
“No one ever takes the second route. I think they should. The reason it won’t happen — it doesn’t bring more money to the Army.
———————-
You’re sort of right. Just substitute USAF or USN for the last word in the sentence. If you have unsufficient C-17s, you can argue that we don’t need FCS because we don’t have sufficient aircraft to lift multiple FCS divisions…so use the money to buy more F-22s instead. If you have more theater support vessels that can sail 16 C-17s worth of equipment into a shallow draft port, why do you need expensive V-22s and EEFs to storm the shorelines, mines and all.
—————————————-
“If the Army demands more fast sealift so they can respond with heavy forces globally, the “new” money goes to the Navy for new fast sea lifters. That’s assuming the admirals can be forced to buy unsexy lifters.“
———————
“How can the Army “demand” anything of another service in control of its own pursestrings and “requirements” that have different priorities? C-17 or F-22. About the same price. One is much more practical/useful on a daily basis.…but lacks the sexiness factor. Funny how 187 F-22s is not enough for a limited threat, but about 190 C-17s is “just right” despite a demonstrable need for more.
—————————————–
“All the ancillary issues with FCS are just that — ancillary. Better comms, better networks, those are standard evolutionary force upgrades that have unnecessarily become “hitched” to the FCS bandwagon — but it is not the meat of the issue. Misguided Army guesswork that light & fast is their future fight IS the meat of the issue.“
——————————————
Wait, so the Army should forget the Cold War is over and buy more heavy forces for the war that will never come…like the USAF bet on air-to-air with China and USN bet on a fight over the Taiwan Straits?
Or are you saying the Army should buy more light forces that really ARE duplications of Marine capabilities?
Or could it be that General Shinseki(sp), MG Scales…and God help us, Donald Rumsfeld were on target? You can’t be right all the time but Rummy hit the nail on this one.
I think the PAM system is a really good idea. I bet everyone would agree on that.
The Bradly and Abrams seem to make a kick ass team as is, and it would seem easier to just install the FCS modernizations into the current vehicles. It does make since to have a one vehicle design, but I would rather see something more like what the Israelis have done using their main battle tank as the body for their new infantry vehicle. One of the key ideas with the FCS is being lighter, faster, and more mobile. Well the army already did that with the Stryker systems. They made a common vehicle to provide many different functions that are much lighter then “heavy” vehicles. The whole family of strykers is very similar to the FCS. Just keep those as the FCS, and integrate the new technologies into the existing heavy vehicles. With FCS on the ropes, I bet something similar will happen.
Arty might be slow compared to mortars in regard to response time (2 min from call for fire to shot out fmr 11C speaking here) but it has it’s place.
If the marines want their V-22, the airforce its f-22, and the navy it’s cv-21, why not the army?
Joe, you will like this ass a former mortarman. Multiple-round simultaneous impact of 6 rounds!
http://www.baesystemspresskit.com/nlosmortar/system_benefits.cfm
Click on the individual captions for more info.
While we’re at it, here is the dog and pony for the NLOS-Cannon:
http://www.baesystemspresskit.com/nlos_cannon/system_benefits.cfm
Sorry about misspelling “as” Joe.
Cole,
The FCS systems may be lighter weight, but the bulk of the shipment will still come by ship when a war comes up! They will still be entirely to heavy and will require the biggest of our jets to just carry maybe 2 at a time vs 1 with our current heaviest vehicle, the M1A1. Bringing FCS via Air, what a logistics problem! We have light units like the Marines and Army Paratroopers and Light Inf battalions. With the javilon, they still pack a pretty heavy punch even against massed enemy armor.
Changing our forces to a welterweight swiss army knife fighting force seems nice and all, but the advantages of that over the current heavy vehicle seems negligible when the same technologies can be incorporated into them.
The technologies being developed like the JITRS and all that stuff are great, but the entire “light” business and the logistics behind it just doesn’t make a lot of since to me. Don’t get me wrong, the idea is great, but when I look at the current vehicles, like the “tank” replacement (direct fire vehicle), it looks like a ridicules design with a very high profile, not as much armor and so on. I guess my main problem with it is the common vehicle.
DA and Cole, Good points and arguments. I still just do not see the Army getting the full 15 brigades, or even half that. With a left wing congress now in power and a maybe left wing president, once they cut in run in Iraq, they will cut the Army’s budget and the overall military budget down dramatically.
DA — Don’t count on Obama supporting FCS.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0du8wMLzEY
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