[Gen.Blather]

“In an attempt to be everything to everybody, it became nothing to anybody.”

You put your finger on the problem. In order to get funded a project promises that it can do every mission and therefore it can get the funding of those other projects that are more specialized. (The more funding you get the more powerful you are.) FCS did this. One vehicle was supposed to be modifiable to do every vehicle’s function. Main battle tank, mobile hospital, ambulance, scout vehicle...It was ridiculous. The Army spent more money than if it had designed all new special purpose vehicles and they ended up with NOTHING.

[Redleg Duke]

I remember when I was working on the FCS pre-contract efforts. Some egghead told us how they had a deterent that would stop a long-rod penetrator from destroying a 25-ton FCS combat vehicle. We asked what Sir Issac Newton had to say about it, other than the energy had to go somewhere, other than putting the intact vehicle upside down in the ditch, with the crew turned to jelly.

Dead silence.