Army Seeks Short-Term Payoff From Future Combat Systems

The Army is redirecting priorities in the Future Combat Systems program, in an attempt to meet short-term needs for new technologies. This shift in emphasis means the program will be less about developing futuristic concepts and more about upgrading the current tanks, armored infantry vehicles and trucks.

Program officials assert that the chief of staff of the Army, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, supports the FCS and intends to keep the $15 billion project on track to field a new family of vehicles by 2010. But the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan clearly have forced the Army to reassess the program goals. While the FCS previously was viewed as a long-term modernization effort, now the chief wants FCS to begin delivering technologies as soon as possible.

The plan is to “spin off capabilities” out of FCS into the Abrams tank and Bradley infantry vehicle fleets, said Lt. Gen. John S. Caldwell Jr., military deputy to the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition. But he cautioned that the FCS program is not being significantly restructured or downscaled. Rather, other programs will be “adjusted” to take advantage of the new technologies developed in FCS, Caldwell told National Defense.

Since the FCS got under way more than three years ago, the predominant message heard from senior officials has been the notion of FCS as a “network” or a “system of systems” that would usher the Army into the information age.

Each FCS brigade, called a unit of action, will run 30 million lines of software. More than half of the money in the program will be allocated to ground combat vehicles and C4ISR (command, control, communications, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) systems.

A seamless network of light ground vehicles and aircraft remains the essence of the FCS, but program officials now are stressing that FCS is first and foremost about putting technology in the hands of soldiers. During an industry conference last month sponsored by the Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command, in Dearborn, Mich., the program manager for FCS, Brig. Gen. Donald F. Schenk, told contactors that they “need to work fast.”

Despite widespread skepticism that the program may not be able to deliver a new generation of vehicles to begin replacing tanks and Bradleys in less than a decade, Schenk said that the goals are achievable. But in his opening comments to the conference, he acknowledged that, with the Army at war, the focus has changed. The technologies of the FCS could “transition” to other programs “more quickly than most people think,” Schenk said.

Among the technologies that could “spiral” from FCS into the current force are wireless communications systems, active protection for vehicles, diagnostics devices to predict engine failures, hybrid-electric power units and advanced truck suspensions, said Albert Puzzuoli, deputy program executive officer for Army ground combat systems.

But for FCS to be successful, he stressed, the Army and its contractors must fix a vexing problem that affects today’s weapons systems: electronics obsolescence. The term refers to the difficulties in upgrading older weapon systems because the electronic components often are out of production and not available in the commercial market. This could pose serious hurdles as the Army figures out how to upgrade the Abrams and the Bradley, so they can remain in the fleet for at least 20 more years.

The Army’s ability to “spiral” technologies out of FCS into Abrams and Bradley depends on “how we attack our electronic obsolescence problems,” Puzzuoli told the TACOM conference. One solution would be to develop a new, less complex electronic architecture in the Abrams and Bradley that is “somewhat compatible” with FCS, he said.

Unless this matter is resolved, he added, “FCS, one day, will suffer electronic obsolescence issues.”

Puzzuoli suggested that one of the more pressing technology needs in the near future will be to equip the Abrams tanks with new or remanufactured engines. The Army had awarded a contract to Honeywell Corp. in 1999 to develop a new turbine engine, the LV100. The plan was to build 1,600 engines to be installed on all Abrams tanks and Crusader artillery vehicles. But the cancellation of Crusader and cutbacks in the Abrams upgrade program drove down the number of engines to fewer than 600. An expected higher price for the LV100 (as a result of a smaller order) and technical problems experienced in the program have prompted the Army to reassess whether it should cancel the project and start over.

“We are currently evaluating the status of that program and where the future lies,” Puzzuoli said.

The current engine, the AGT1500 turbine, is fuel guzzling, has poor reliability and high maintenance costs, he said.

In fiscal year 2004, the Army will need to overhaul more than 1,200 tank engines, a threefold increase over 12 months. The Anniston Army Depot, in Alabama, currently overhauls about 400 engines a year.

The commander of TACOM, Army Maj. Gen. N. Ross Thompson III, said he fears that shortages of key components could severely undermine the depot’s ability to deliver enough engines to meet the Army’s needs in Iraq.

The potential cancellation of the LV100 is not related to the increased need for AGT1500 engines, Thompson said in an interview. “If they don’t continue the program, we’ll have a competition to reengineer and increase the reliability and the durability of the AGT1500.”

Also of immediate need in the field is additional protection for Humvees and other trucks that are not armored. As U.S. forces in Iraq endure continuing attacks by rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and various explosive devices, TACOM officials are rushing to come up with “countermeasures,” such as armor kits.

Ideally, TACOM would like to build more of the up-armored Humvees, but the production line only can assemble 220 per month. The Army has asked for at least 3,500.

Until enough up-armored Humvees can be delivered, TACOM is providing interim alternatives, such as armor kits and a newly designed armor door that can be applied on existing Humvees. The Army’s depots will make 1,000 armor doors for immediate delivery to Iraq, Thompson said.

Armor kits also will be needed for medium and heavy trucks, he said. Future Army rotations in Iraq will see fewer Abrams and Bradleys, and more wheeled vehicles, including the new Stryker.

Contractors, meanwhile, await specific direction from the Army on how it will go about transitioning from the current force to the so-called Future Force, equipped with FCS technology.

Much of the technology the Army wants in FCS already exists, experts contend. Vehicle manufacturers are coming forward with unsolicited concepts that aim to prove that.

United Defense LP, for example, recently unveiled a 20-ton armored vehicle equipped with a 120 mm gun that was fired at a shooting range in California, according the UDLP officials. The demonstrator—powered by a hybrid-electric engine—is a modified armored gun that originally was developed in the early 1990s for Army light forces and subsequently was cancelled to fund other programs.

UDLP resurrected one of the six 105 mm prototypes and installed a 120 mm gun designed at the Army’s Watervliet Arsenal.

The company claims that the vehicle is not intended to meet FCS requirements, given that the Army selected General Dynamics as the provider of direct-fire vehicles for FCS. UDLP was designated the supplier for the artillery systems.

In what appears to be a tit-for-tat move, General Dynamics unveiled its own concept for a 20-ton 105 mm howitzer, which would be compatible with the Stryker family. Company officials said the Army has not yet settled on whether the FCS howitzer will be 105 mm or 155 mm, even though UDLP is developing a 155 mm non-line-of-sight cannon for FCS.

As far as FCS requirements are concerned, the Army has been “really vague,” said Dean Lockwood, combat vehicles analyst at Forecast International, a market research firm. For that reason, “contractors are showing what is possible and what is not.”

Lockwood believes that the Army is moving toward a hybrid force of light quick-reaction and heavy armored units. “With FCS, they want something in the middle.” Stryker, he said, is the “first incarnation of FCS. It’s the test-bed and interim program for it.”

Marine Lt. Gen. James Cartwright, of the Joint Staff, called FCS “the most transformational thing that is going on in the Department of Defense.”

Given the uncertainty about future conflicts and geopolitics, “the Army knows its goals are probably ambitious,” Cartwright said in a speech to the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement. The schedule may slip, “but they’ve got the right mindset,” said Cartwright. “They’ve got a heck of a challenge.”

Troops add heft to Humvees

"The Army has always sandbagged its vehicles -- probably as far back as World War II. ... We're just updating it."

Indeed, all the foot wells and cargo bed floors already had been lined with a layer of sandbags. The modifications under way Monday were much more elaborate.

Ferguson's soldiers were building rectangular boxes that looked like 6-foot-long flower planters. They strapped a box atop each wall of a Humvee's cargo bed and ran a third up the middle for gunners to sit on. Sand filled all three boxes to blunt the force of an explosion or bullet -- they hope.

A few yards from Ferguson's informal armory, Alpha Company soldiers were building cruder variations. They emptied dozens of cardboard boxes containing meals ready to eat (the military's field ration), filled them with sand, then taped them shut and strapped them along the sides of the trucks, topping them with a layer or two of sandbags.

By Monday afternoon, some were built up with so many boxes and sandbags that they looked like rolling bunkers. Encrusted in their makeshift armor, the normally imposing Humvees took on a look that can be compared only with the Beverly Hillbillies' truck.

On one of the first convoys Monday afternoon, Sgt. Richie Velez of Bravo Company, a medic, was the rear gunner on a Humvee freshly beefed up with MRE-box walls. Sitting on the floor and poking his M-4 carbine out the back, he was hidden.

"I'm no expert; I'm just a doc," he said. "So I don't know, but it does at least feel safer."

We have a production line in New Orleans making ASV's that the Army thinks it has enough of. Well, I don't think it is quite a production line...they are making less than 50 a year, and producing through 2005 as it is. Although I have to admit, I am not sure...I thought it was the Air Force security police who were buying these, not the Army. Who in the Army is getting them? The other issue is the cost...they were $1 million each in the first contract and $525,000 each in the proposed extension. The SISU goes for less than $100,000 and its spare parts are cheap and plentiful because they are commercial. I would bet that America could produce something similar to SISU in quantity for even less than $100k.

The industrial capabilities of this nation & the amassed brain power are not able to design & order into production bolt on armor kits for use in Iraq just like this nation is supposedly not able to produce enough kevlar/ceramic laminate body armor plates to stoop AK-47 rounds that is pure unadulterated horse manure!!! The politicians & perfumed princes in the Pentagon need to get the priorities straght ASAP.

Bolt on armor kit like the Brits used in Northern Ireland in the bad old days also I read that the brits have worked on a "electric" armor for defeating RPG-7's consisting of two plates with an insulating material between that has current applied.When a RPG hits the copper cone in the warhead that forms the self forgeing penetrating fragment peirces the first plate & the insulating material till it contacts the second plate completing an electric circut which vaporizes the copper similar in manner as trying to rig up the starter to a deuce and a half with two single strands of speaker wire . We need to talk to the Brits about this item, they have done some preliminary testing that was successful.

One response to deisel engine proposal was to raise the weight issue - it would be heavier than a turbine.

Another response to deisel engines:

"With this configuration, the diesel engine need only be sized to meet cruising power requirements, and can operate all the time at its most effective speed or be turned off entirely during idle, resulting in significant fuel savings. A hybrid electric engine can also be operated in electric-only mode, bringing not only the infrared, but also the acoustic signature down to nearly nothing. We're not talking about pie-in-the-sky future tech,..."

If we want infrared-avoiding tanks, electric hybrid is the way to go ... being "green" and fuel efficient for the tree-huggers is a bonus.

Why are we not using ex-Iraqi Army vehicles?

Recce: approximately 600 recce vehicles available including PT-76; AML-60; AML-90; BRDM-1/2; EE-9. AIFV: approximately 800 to 900 BMP-1/2. APCs: possibly 2,000 × APCs including some MT-LB; ERC-90; Panhard M3; PSZH-IV; BTR-50; BTR-60; BTR-152; EE-11; OT-62; OT-64; Walid; Type 531; 20 × M113A1; M-60P; BMD-1.

Radix, old friend, do you have an answer to the last question?

Reluctantly, I must answer, that in my opinion, it has all to to do with innovation, and thinking on your feet for the leaders.

I have not read this thread yet, but, I believe that blind obedience to doctrine, is deadly. Our Military company, platoon, and squad leaders, must be able to innovate. Adherence to unquestionable and inflexible orders, is detrimental to our Troops, and it is dangerous for them. It is getting some of them killed. I cannot say more.

Armored trucks commonly used for the transport of money are not that well armored having had the opputunity to work in one, windshields wont stop much over a 38 special also its basicly a steel box on a standard truck frame with commercial diesel engine & truck tranny. Nothing fancy .The idea of using off the shelf components is a good start & it won't be used simply because of politics.

Is this machine an improvement over the Stryker?

Probably not. Incapable of carrying a full qquad, as vulnerable to AT weapons fire, if lacking some of the specific vulnerabilities of the Stryker's design, and probably unsuitable for C130 carry due to the powered turret.

But it could probably handle being airdropped or LAPSEd from a C130 with the turret replaced by a single or twin-gun protected position, as per the SFOR-marked vehicle shown, and used as a half-squad carrier, two such vehicles could provide mutual support for each other, as per the way the Finns use their SISU vehicles- they're the manufacturer. And as an ambulance vehicle, SISU may also be superior to the Stryker version; I believe the SISU ambulance is arranged to transport four stretcher-carried casualties, same as an M113 tracked evac vehicle; the Stryker ambulance version carries only two.

It's probably not *the* answer, but could be a part of an overall one...which would have included the continued production and use of the military police 4-wheeled ASV instead of Humvees.

The turretless SISU XA-202 command vehicle is probably the closest to Stryker as now contemplated. I'm not certain if they're amphibious or not.

Come on people. We are talking about accelerating FUTURE technology into today's battlefied.

Notice that you don't see any tanks opposing us on today's battlefield. 120mm, 105mm, and 155mm canons do precisely *what* against RPG's, landmines, and IED's?

New turbines or diesel engines do precisely what to protect our soldiers and eliminate our enemies?

Think, people! We aren't fighting the Soviet tank armada in East Germany. We're fighting lightly armed amatuer fanatics who blend in with civilian populations (and might quit and go back home at any minute, there is no conscription - or might blow themselves up, or might engage in a suicidal banzai charge, or might lob a few mortar rounds or RPG's before running away).

We need better mine detection on all of our vehicles, bar none.

We need better situational awareness.

We *don't* need a new Soviet-tank-killer. Newsflash, the CCCP is dead and gone. It's the Soviet remnants, sold far and wide, that we have to deal with. AK-47's. SA-7 Strella's. RPG's. Some Katyushka rockets. Some C-4. Some mines.

I don't think the problem should be solved by trying to turn the unarmored humvee into an armored humvee. The mission calls for a cheap to buy (lots of 'em) and cheap to operate wheeled APC. America can (and in my opinion should) build one. I don't think the LAV is it, the LAV is a high end combat platform, and priced to match. America should design and build a cheap wheeled APC with COTS components from the truck/bus industry. In comparison, the SISU APC is cheaper then the M1114. It ain't a great APC (ala LAV/Stryker) but its a whole lot better than the M1114.

If a six-wheeled APC is desired, it's possible to begin the project using the chassis and powerplant of a 6x6 cargo truck, the Genesis of both the SISU and the 6-wheeled Ford M8/M20 of WWII. Though the M20 was never intended for use as a squad carrier, some were used for MP strike teams by the US Constabulary by the Occupation Forces in Germany following WWII, and mortar and M55 quad-gun mount versions were fielded by other countries military forces.

If a short wheelbase version is required, the engineer dumptruck chassis offers an immediate starting place; the standard truck chassis for a personnel carrier, or the stretched M36/M36A1/M36A2 version automotive platform can be used for a longer variant.

Does that thing have top hatches so the passengers can provide flank security / RPG grenadier watch & suppression?

Aside from the 20mm turret-equiopped versions, yes. There's a fold back troop hatch that can also allow the vehicle to double as an 82mm mortar vehicle or for the use of the infantry wire-guided antitank missile launch tubes so the vehicle is not entirely an *easy meat* proposition for enemy LAVs. And the side-folding hatches can be propped up in a 90-degree raised position to provide such exposed troops standing in the rear hatch with side flank protection from small arms fire.

You can't see it real well, but here's a shot of one with the guys standing in the open back hatch for just the reason you suggest.

. The plan was to build 1,600 engines to be installed on all Abrams tanks and Crusader artillery vehicles. But the cancellation of Crusader and cutbacks in the Abrams upgrade program drove down the number of engines to fewer than 600.

Why don't they just buy all 1600, shelve 600 as spares, and find 400 other uses for them.

Government today doesn't under stand supply/demand pricing.
Oh, it's so expensive, we can't buy that many.
Ok, now the price is X+.
Oh, that's even more expensive we'll have to cut the order
even more.
Ok, now the price is X++.
OH Oh, now we'll have to cancel the order and start over.

Yee Gods what a way to do things.

IIRC, they may not buy "excess sparing" because Congress got slow-rolled more than once through such practices, usually by the Air Force.

The Air Farce would typically be authorized, say, 500 airplanes or missiles of a particular type, when they wanted 700. So they bought, on top of spares for 700 of the weapons system in question, enough spares to assemble 200 more, and then build 'em up at the depot.

Presto! They get the airplanes, and Congress realized (eventually) that they'd been ripped off.

3rd ID turned in its Bradleys and M113s in early June and patrolled in soft-skinned HMMWVs until late August. Made no sense, from a tactical standpoint. I would be curious to know how many soldiers have been killed while riding in Bradleys or M113s and how many have been killed riding in HMMWVs.

It makes a lot of sense from a tactical point of view: Greatly increased vision, greatly decreased visibility, and fewer turtles.

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