Free Republic

“Ideas matter.” So says the first sentence in the Army’s newly published Capstone Concept, titled Operational Adaptability: Operating Under Conditions of Uncertainty and Complexity in an Era of Persistent Conflict. It bears the imprimatur of its primary author, Brig. Gen. H.R. McMaster, a revolutionary thinker. Not surprisingly then, its the most revolutionary document the Army has produced in a long time because it discards two very big ideas – actually it discards one and demolishes the other — that have driven Army doctrine and weapons buying over the past three decades. The first idea retired by the new capstone concept...

On June 23rd, the U.S. Army announced the official cancellation of its FCS (Future Combat Systems). This was a program of next generation weapons, vehicles and other equipment that was going to cost over $160 billion. The cancellation was no surprise. A year ago, the army dropped any pretence of trying to roll out its new FCS stuff as a complete package. That's mainly because the Department of Defense had ordered that FCS items be readied for combat use as soon as possible. The future will arrive piecemeal, as had been actually happening ever since September 11, 2001, and especially...

    Can the Army reconcile its current -- and future -- force requirements? That's the key question now at the center of an important debate concerning the Army's budget.     At issue is an $867-million cut to the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) modernization program recommended by the House Armed Services Committee. House authorizers are concerned that the Army cannot afford to pay for current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan while simultaneously pursuing FCS modernization. The Senate Armed Services Committee, by contrast, has proposed increasing the FCS budget by $115 million to accelerate key FCS modernization initiatives. The congressional appropriations committees have...

Lockheed Martin, part of the NetFires with Raytheon, recently performed four successful tests of the Non-Line-of-Sight – Launch System (NLOS-LS) Loitering Attack Missile (LAM) Multiple Explosively Formed Penetrator (MEFP) warhead. The tests took place at the National Technical Systems (NTS) facility in Camden, AR, and confirmed the performance of the penetrator. All of the objectives in the four tests were achieved. The data from each test will be used in compiling additional Army lethality simulations, which have already shown the LAM warhead to be lethal against the desired target set. The Aerojet designed and built warhead was integrated onto the...

Dean Lockwood, a weapons systems analyst for Forecast International, says that a modified version of the U.S. Army's Stryker vehicle could end up serving as the primary platform for the service's manned ground vehicle portion of FCS. He says that Stryker's proven effectiveness in battle, combined with the Army's recent decision to push back portions of the FCS manned ground vehicle development, could cause Congress to divert money from FCS to Stryker. "The main point I have about it is that while the ground FCS vehicle is being pushed back, [the Army] has yet to be set on any concrete...