It’s ramping up to a thundering fusilade…
The FCS lobby is loading up the bombs, feeding the ammo belts and launching the salvos.
While the Pentagon’s official position is that the FCS program will be radically restructured and the ground vehicle programs killed, Army and industry officials are acting as if “there’s nothing to see here.”
On Tuesday, FCS co-prime Boeing released a statement saying it had completed a “System of Systems Preliminary Design Review” and, guess what, it totally validated the FCS program and showed how much better the Army would be with the entire web of sensors, robots, ground vehicles and networks.
The SoS PDR is the most comprehensive review of the program to date. It validated that the designs for all FCS systems and subsystems, including the network, sensors, weapons and manned and unmanned vehicles, meet current requirements and will function as an integrated system of systems. The review proved that a family of networked systems will provide greater combat capabilities, including enhanced intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities, across the full spectrum of conflict.
No way!? So all this talk about vulnerable vehicles, network bandwidth problems and schedule slips is baloney?
And our boy Greg Grant from DoD Buzz reports that Gen. George Casey, the Army’s chief of staff, had a momentary bout of honesty when he told the SASC this week that he didn’t ask for or want the FCS rejiggering but he’d been forced to back it.
Asked by SASC chair Senator Carl Levin whether he agreed with Defense Secretary Robert Gates decision to cancel the FCS vehicles, Casey said: I supported it; I did not agree with it. The fundamental point of disagreement, he said, was whether the vehicle design included sufficient protection against IEDs.
Oh, the boxes we get put in…
And yesterday the Pentagon announced a hastily-called together press conference for today where Army officials would help reporters understand the service’s modernization program for Brigade Combat Teams. One wonders what they would have said had not the presser been cancelled this morning without prejudice.
I have always believed that the FCS program was far too complex to execute both technologically and fiscally as a total package but was tailor made as a sort of service “Skunk Works” that could develop the associated technologies for futuristic solutions to aging platforms and incrementally populate them within the force. It’s as if you’re working toward that Buck Rogers goal every day knowing full well you won’t get there but that at least part of the fruits of your labors will be incorporated into forces who need them today.
The Army’s going to need a replacement for the Bradley and M1 soon and as the development of the JLTV shows, there’s lots of cutting edge solutions or just beyond the edge ones that could make the next set of ground vehicles more deadly to bad guys and safer for Joes. Or are we at a tipping piont here — kind of like the one the Air Force is struggling with — where it’s all just a waste of money spent on manned systems. Is it close enough for us to envision robot ground vehicles pummeling enemy redoubts instead of manned ones in the next “generation?”
Maybe so…
– Christian Lowe
{ 31 comments… read them below or add one }
Watch out, Christian, to even suggest that the M-1 Abrams needs a replacement will get you nailed to the nearest cross. I mentioned it once, here on DT, and you’d thought that i posted a video of people eatting babies alive. I agree with you… the design is 30 years old and most of our “enemies” have come up with means to take the Abrams out of the equation. Time for the DoD to start looking into developing a new MBT.
If you got “nailed to the cross” it is because the statement, “the design is 30 years old….”, is not a valid basis for the argument of replacing a system.
Any system design is a valuation of risk vs. cost vs. reward.
No MBT in the world is invulnerable. Even if you made one today that could resist all current threats how long would that last? How much money would you have invested for that short-term gain?
Make a sound set of reasoned arguments. Such as:
1. The main armament is no longer sufficient to deal with opponents (not true).
2. The systems fuel consumption creates a risk due to logistics requirements (true).
3. The system does not have sufficient (define by a quantifiable measure) data storage or processing capability to operate in the net-centric style of warfare practiced by the US Army. Nor can sufficient capacity be reliably (define quantifiable measures) added as upgrades.
Usually, the presentation of sound, reasoned arguments backed by facts and statistics will carry the day. Unless of course you are presenting in front of Congress.
We should probably just say “screw the IED requirements”. Are we deploying FCS into situations where we are going to run into them? An occupation army might not need FCS to run around on patrols. Perhaps we should keep additional vehicles to “switch to” when we switch from “agile nimble digitally-networked” attack force to “digitally-networked, agile, nimble, mine resistant, anti-infantry” force.
I can see a need for new vehicles, I just would like to see some reality imposed. Not the sales pitch threat scenarios from Boeing that validate the system against the boogeyman. Show me how they will be useful in Stan. Show me how they can be quickly deployed and helpful in urban COIN ops in Africa. In other words develop stuff that we’ll actually need and use, as opposed to fighting someone’s paperback novel conflict.
Time for DoD to ask the question if the MBT is still totally relevant in today’s fight….
Every system works perfectly on paper. That’s what the PDR was. A chance for all of the systems engineers to pat themselves on the back. Requirements traces and spec trees are not proof that the hardware will work. BTW I heard the NLOS-C costs as much as a fighter plane.
@ Bob,
You must have misunderstood what i was saying… i was making a statement. There was no need to become a Byron Skinner Jr. I wasn’t throwing it out there for every know-it-all to disect and make an arguement, i’ve already done that before, moron.
ALLONS, pinhead.
@ Schrott
So now I am a moron for making a reasoned argument?! I love it when people cannot refute someone else’s argument and instead defaults to name calling.
I’ve never understood why FCS has always been promoted as an ‘all or nothing’ initiative. The three key components I keep hearing about are:
- Lighter, more effecient vehicles
- Hyper networking
- Active denial systems
These all look like independent R&D projects, which, if and when they come to fruition, can be applied to just about any vehicle, built or yet to be built.
Am I missing something? Is there anything about FCS that justifies this kind of mega project approach?
Unmanned ground vehicles to replace manned vehicles? There are countless problems inherent with the identification of targets on ground battlefields. To think we could have robot tank replacing a machine like the Abrams or Bradley is crazy. There are indeed many uses for unmanned ground vehicles like bomb disposal, ammo and equipment hauling (MULE), as well as general infantry support. Yet to think we should be replacing our manned vehicles with these rather than just supplementing them is insane.
The MGV family would have been at least as survivable against IEDs as MRAPs as they did develop a V-shaped hull for it, and they would have been significantly better armored than a Bradley. Yet MRAPs are not horribly well armored against conventional weapons and the Bradley is a long way from an Abrams.
The question is, should the Army simply develop a heavier, better armored MGV-type family, lets say in the 40 ton range? Or should we eventually develop two armored platforms? One would be in the 50-60 ton range that would provide true replacements for the Abrams, Bradley, and Paladin. The other possibly in the 20-25 ton range and would equip lighter rapid deployment units (a role currently being filled by the Stryker brigades).
Also would armor for airborne forces like the M8 AGS still be a worthwhile investment?
If possible design these vehicles to be able to use fancy things like electro-magnetic guns (railguns) or lasers down the road.
Why does everything have to be a ‘leap ahead’? Just take the Abrams design and update it with >current< manufacturing and materials, and just crank out a 1,000 of them for a fraction of the cost of the FCS. You’d still get a vehicle that has 40 years of technological advancement over the original Abrams. Current enemies can barely handle the 40 year old Abrams design, so I think we’ll be just fine with a Abrams 2.0. and there’s no need to be idiots and spend massive sums on flaky FCS crap that we can only by in small handfulls.
US military needs to plant its feet back on the ground and become the ass kicking nonsense soldiers that won as WW2; more Pattons, less Rickovers.
We’re going to be so much better off when the old cold war fossils die off.
“We’re going to be so much better off when the old cold war fossils die off.”
What is that supposed to mean? You think we don’t need armored vehicles?
Charles:
Our wars in Iraq and A’stan proved how useful IEDs could be. Even if by some miracle we never do a COIN occupation again, our next conventional enemy will likely have IEDs in their arsenal.
Hunter:
You’re right, most of the miracle weapons and tools coming out of the FCS project could probably be individually developed and fielded. Making it all or nothing is probably just a sales pitch. The only issue I can see with adding FCS gear to Abrams and Bradleys is the power requirement. I don’t know the exact numbers, but all the new computers, radios, and sensors we keep adding are maxing out the electrical outputs of these vehicles. I can say for sure we’ve passed that point on the humvee. JLTV and the FCS chassis are/were supposed to have dramatically increased power generation capacity to support all these new toys.
@CJ – I’m in total agreement. The idiocy of reinventing the wheel every time we need to upgrade is getting too expensive.
The M1 series is a fantastic MBT – upgrade it, don’t tear it down and try to build the next wonder weapon. That used to be called sound engineering, now its a unknown concept.
The bottom line is: the FCS vehicles were lightly-armored, flat-bottomed, tracked vehicles when we needed heavily-armored, V-shaped, wheeled vehicles.
The first and foremost priority in any new ground vehicle is that it can stand up to IED’s…period. It’s the one requirement that is not negotiable. The FCS vehicles were designed pre-IED.
IED protection must be a concern, but it must not be the first and only concern. We are not looking for more MRAPs here. As far as IED protection on the MGVs goes, the vehicles were resigned with a v-shaped hull at some point. A wheeled chassis was tested for the MGVs back early in the program anyway, but tracks were chosen for other reasons.
The fact is however, a vehicle that weights 25-28 tons can only have so much armor put on it.
Good Evening Guys,
A posting over on the “buzz” negates this story, the FCS/GCV’s will not be built and the cancelation order is being processed, again end of story.
A couple of thing though not brought up hear that maybe should be. The armor that the FCS was to use hasn’t been invented yet. Boeings estimate is between 7-10 years before an acceptable armor plate could be developed.
The hurry up change for wheeled vehicles to the “Rubber Band Track” was not well though out. The last armored vehicles to use the all rubber tracks was the M-2 and M-3 Half Tracks of WWII. The worked fine on warm smooth hard roads, but couldn’t get traction on iced roads and tended to break tracks when off road as in cross country movement. The Army dumped these vehicles ASAP after the end of the War, Israel I believe still uses some for their reserve units and still manufacture the tracks.
The next item not mentioned by Christian is general Motors. Whit the U.S. owning 18% and the Canadians owning 8% of GM and the GM manufacture Stryker being manufactures in two Canadian plants, they need to generate business for the auto maker and the Stryker is one of the proposed solutions. The Army will have to a home another 746 of these turkeys, maybe more. Stryker is not in the budget but will be sent to Congress as a separate bill for funding. In short the Stryker is the vehicle of the Army’s Med. BCT’s.
On to Chrysler, who is in worse shape the GM. Look for a soul source contract to Chrysler for Jeeps. “militarized” of course, shabby interiors,crappy paint job, GI tires, and stiffer axels. They will replace in CONUS and on other non tactical operating bases the HUMMVE as a general utility vehicle in garrison. It is expected that all U.S. services will make this switch and the Canadian forces will do like wise.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
Serious question: Why are we going to need a new tank? No doubt that the M1 is reaching the end of its endurance, but there’s not a huge niche for tanks anymore, and programs are coming down the pipe that seem much more palatable then a whole new MBT.. that hard-kill missile countermeasure, for example.
How about before we design and build anything we get some realistic threat assessments. I can see a need for a direct fire gun on a big chasis, maybe not quite an MBT, or maybe so. If we can get the same ballistic protection out of a 40 or 45 ton chasis we get from the M1 currently, that’s a huge benefit. We need to make sure whatever we build is what we really need.
Byron,
Regarding your comments on the Stryker vehicle buys being used to prop up GM, you’re way off. GM is no longer involved in the Stryker vehicle. General Dynamics bought the facility where the Stryker Vehicle is designed and built and now the Stryker vehicle is solely a General Dynamics product. Stryker buys may still be used to prop up GD though, as they are one of the major partners in the FCS MGV project, and stand to lose quite a bit in the cancellation of the FCS vehicles.
Good Evening Greg,
You may be correct about the facilities in London Ontario Canada. That information was on the dated side, it appeared in a financial journal.
There is an RFQ out their for another 746 Stryker Units, but were left out of this budget. With what appears to be bankruptcy for GM in the near future this may have been GM shedding capital assets before the judge does it for them.
I believe that the current budget has all 2-131 Strykers already built going though modernization and upgrading. The 746 looks like a 33% increase in the number of Strykers and not good news for Boeing or SAIC wanting to promote the FCS/GCV’s.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
Jiminy Christmas.
FCS is a failed SoS acquisition.
Is Boeing’s definition of System of Systems as elusive as everyone else?
OBTW: Joint Chief of Staff’s SoS definition has been removed from 3170.01G. Imagine that!
Why does the M1 need a replacement at all? They’re being rebuilt all the time from the steel up back to brand-new status, so why this silly talk about “must have something new”? The M1 may be old, but it’s still ranked among the best tanks in the world, if not THE best.
True it needs a more fuel-efficient powerplant, but let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater, ok? Same goes with the Bradley.
“The armor that the FCS was to use hasn’t been invented yet. Boeings estimate is between 7-10 years before an acceptable armor plate could be developed.” (Skinner)
Thanks, Byron. Everyone I know at United Defense 9 years ago knew that, but you couldn’t convince Rumsfeld and his “lighter, faster, deader quicker” crowd that that was so, and so goes it.
I won’t rehash the argument as it’s been done already here many times, but it is worth saying again that a 20-ton “tank” replacement for the M1 is simply never going to work with any current or near-term technologies.
Unless, of course, Area-51 has something going that we don’t yet know about…
Good Morning Max,
Thanks for confirming my point on the armor. During this argument Boeing/SAIC either avoided the issue or simply said it doesn’t matter. I would say that the current state of the art of the IED (anti-tank/vehicle mine) and EFP’s (kicked up shaped charges) at least for now makes any armor little more then protection against small arms fire, and that bar is being raised by the reintroduction (Finland/Soviet War 1939) of the T-17 14.5 mm rifle and a new family of light wight TG19 LWMG 12.7 mm machine gun, both weapons will have a new Russian designed SLAP round.
When an RPG round can pass through the hull of an M1 Abrams or a 63 ton Abrams can be blown up, turned 180 degrees and land on it turret in a 25 foot creator make the idea that a 20-25 ton wonder tank could survive in an asymmetrical combat environment is utter nonsense.
Like at the battle of Cery in 1314 when mounted armored knights were defeated by swordsmen and archers who discovered that by cutting only one Achilles tendon on a horse, it would bring the animal down on top of the fully armored knight, pinning him under his struggling mount, leaving easy work for the women in the baggage train to come along and stick a sword in the vision slot of the helpless armored warrior.
Today we have the same situation with AFV’s. Very easy to obtained common industrial materials and rather all to common high end explosives have made AFV obsolete.
Time to close the book on these dinosaurs and move on.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
The original concept of the Tank fighter Abrams may very well be obsolete, but there is still a need for a rugged, maneuverable vehicle capable of surviving moderate to heavy fire, and providing direct fire against hardened targets such as bunkers, fortifications, and enemy armor and enemy vehicles.
I find the whole tangent of V-shaping the hull and armoring against IEDs to be rather pointless to an extent. If the Opfor blows a couple 155mm howitzer shells under your chassis, you are going to die. Regardless of what vehicle you are in, or what shape the bottom was before the blast.
1000 units x 80% solution @ 30% cost is >> than 100 units x 105% solution at 300% cost.
After so many abysmally failed programs, the Pentagon should get that or get out of the way.
Good Evening Cole,
First off I would like to add my congratulations to your daughter and he graduation and acceptance to Medical School, it is an impressive accomplishment to be sure, and I’m sure you are more then a little proud of her as you should be.
The question of could you daughter weaponize genetic material, I have no doubt she could if so motivated. Bio-Hacking is a relatively new activity with it’s only know mischievous was use in changing plant colors, but the potential is far greater weaponizing is there. The intellectual base of qualified people is growing with every graduating class of students who can’t find employment at with the economic rewards they feel they deserve. Because of bad decisions on such issues as stem cells the past eight years many employment opportunities have left the United States and went to foreign countries who don’t have Governmental regulations on Biological research.
Sad to say but the insurgents have defeated all the armored vehicles we have sent to Iraq including the “V” hauled MRAP’s. The packing of troops into carriers be it a HUMVEE to a Bradley is creating a moving coffin. The weapons that have created this threat environment are cheap, easy to constructed and very effective. As long as the bad guys have money they will find willing vendors of improved “insurgent technology”
Examples are PRG rounds fro Switzerland that can go through an M1A1 tank, and a round with a proximity fuse, to bring down low flying helicopters. From Iran there is EFP kits and more recently new designs of EFP’s that make them far more dangerous. Iran has also produced a family of cheap mortars in 60-81 and 120 mm that have proved effective as the insurgents move up the learning curve on their operation. From Portugal and the Ukraine is the availability of RDX and UBX explosives, and etc.
With in this environment Cole, armor is of a rather limited tactical use. You are correct, “Ripsaw” is still in early development stages but is being designed to do two things the FCS wasn’t. It has a clocked speed on hard surface of 60 mph and the ability to move cross country with out throwing a track. Any edge armor might have in the future is speed and the ability to come from where the enemy doesn’t think it can. A manned vehicle crew cannot function in a vehicle traveling ay 60 mph or going over the obstacles that there is video of Ripsaw doing.
The only part of the FCS you and I debated was the Vehicles, which are the only part that is being canceled. The unmanned platforms and the communication parts are being fully funded and in some cases expanded upon. I have no doubt that Boeing and BAE will now start buying up the small operations that are developing this technology. My fear is once the big boy get control of this like the development of the FCS/MCV’s they will take it down to the farm and milk it for years. The irony here is Cole if the FCS vehicles could have been ready for production in 2005, Rumsfeld would have bought the whole system.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
Bryon,
Thanks. I had been looking for an opportunity to play proud papa, and you offered it nicely.
Considering that FCS has only been around since around 2003, and had substantial funds were cut each year ever since…that would have been a pretty amazing accomplishment to have vehicles ready by 2005.;)
The thing I find ironic, is that the manned ground vehicles probably would have done quite well against most threats without either the complex software and without the JTRS-based network…both of which are far more troubled in my lowly and limited observation than the MGVs.
Believe you are also overlooking the obvious that you have better knowledge of than I ever will…that Soldiers must conduct fire and movement to win on the battlefield. Are you proposing that all future fire and movement be dismounted or heliborne and with only what Soldiers and unmanned ground vehicle can carry?
Exoskeletons helping troops move hundreds of kilometers?;) Don’t see how you avoid needing a capable future armored vehicle to move Infantry and other fire/movement/indirect fire systems.
Also, I know you are aware that artillery is the past largest battlefield killer and that armored vehicles provide substantial protection against that threat.
They also protect against small nukes and other WMDs you have been mentioning. Are you proposing that troops walk everywhere on future hot battlefields in full MOPP 4? Don’t think body armor protects too well against most IEDs let alone small nukes fired by countries like North Korea or Iran.
Considering how lopsided the young vs. old populations are in Muslim countries, you would think they could have cornered the stem cell research market and harvested the next greatest product in demand after oil…youth and health. But suspect that if bad guys start messing with bio-weapons over yonder, the effect on Muslim populations will far exceed the death rate in Mexico City from swine flu. The casualty rate in the U.S. would be far less pronounced due to our better medical care and lesser population density per square kilometer.
But considering that jihadists don’t seem to have much problem blowing their own folks up, they probably wouldn’t think twice about exposing Muslim friedlies to nasty diseases and viruses.
Good Afternoon Cole,
The United States needs more young folks like your daughter then wall street traders from Ivy League Institutions who make careers of working in the legal fringes with some going over the line of the worlds financial infrastructure. We are told that we must pay these people obscene bonuses because they are to valuable to lose, while your daughter most likely will be an under paid Doctor that only saves lives. Our society has clearly lost it;s values.
There will always be a need for the foot soldier to go the last 100 meters. Our western political traditions demand that our Generals take the enemies flags and banners and plant our own, or plant a cross or as the WWII Generals symbolically did when they pi**ed in the Rhine, and in this vanity some pvt’s must die.
I think the era of tube artillery is pretty close to being over for the reasons you said it kills the most people. The United States has become adversed, in my opinion to the extreme, to collateral damage and our own causalities to support massed artillery fire or carpet bombing even on purely military targets such as depots or troop staging areas. The indirect fire weapons of choice will be more in line with the GMLRS or the NLOS PC. One round direct hits, target destroyed. I can even see the Israeli Spike Missile replacing the Hellfire II, it makes a smaller splash.
I think there is a place for something like armor, an unmanned tracked/wheeled weapons platform that has a modest cal. weapon say in the 35-76 mm range that could be under the direct control of the fire and movement formation and move with them. The Marines show in Fallugah with Predators that manned and unmanned formations can communicate and fight together with out stumbling over each other.
I don’t think that it comes as any surprise to you but it really does appear we are in agreement on most issues. JTRS is a bureaucratic nightmare that is not in the interest of Harris Communications to solve. The clear intent of Harris was shown when they sold the Afghanistan Government on rebuilding their ATC system so that it could handle old Soviet era aircraft, but would have to build a duplicate system to handle modern air traffic. Of course the American taxpayer paid the bill.
Again Cole,good luck to your daughter, and her proud papa. Enjoy the bliss. the bills will come all to soon.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner