Army weighs options for scaling back combat systems upgrade
Long-term program, now valued at between $160 billion and $200 billion, is one of the service’s most expensive technological efforts.
Bracing for expected cuts in its prized program, the Army is weighing several options to scale back funding for the Future Combat Systems over the next five years, including slowing the fielding of new equipment to combat brigades.
In recent high-level meetings, Army officials have warned that the FCS budget will be among several targets for deep cuts by the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of the Secretary of Defense as part of a government-wide crackdown on spending and a feared downward slope in defense procurement dollars, said a defense source with knowledge of the discussions.
The Future Combat Systems, long a target of congressional trimming, is the most expensive technological endeavor in Army history and forms the core of the service's transformation efforts. The program, led by Boeing Co., and Science Applications International Corp., is a complex system of manned and unmanned ground and air vehicles tied together by an electronic network.
Among the options under consideration is scaling back the number of so-called spinout technologies, which the Army expects to phase into the force intermittently through 2014. Those include futuristic sensors and unmanned air and ground vehicles.
The Army also has discussed whether to move forward with developing the manned ground vehicle portion of FCS or instead upgrade the 20-ton Stryker vehicle, a less costly route.
The latter option has long been feared by FCS advocates in the Army and the defense industry, who argue that connecting the Stryker to the expanding FCS network and adding more advanced protection devices would require a complete redesign of the vehicle.
Additionally, the Army might have to slow down sending out FCS technologies to combat brigades.
"What they're saying is that FCS, as it's envisioned, is going to be changed," the source said. "It's kind of like they're stuck with a bill for 10 dollars and they've only got five dollars in their account. There's just no way to do it."
A former senior Army official noted that Army and industry officials are "fretting" over the future of the long-term program, now valued at between $160 billion and $200 billion.
A common saying is, "If the Army wants to keep FCS, it's got to kill everything else," the former official said. "My reply is that I thought we already had killed everything else."
In the last several years, the Army has canceled the Crusader self-propelled howitzer program and the Comanche reconnaissance and attack helicopter.
Amid concerns about the FCS program's progress and its management, the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee this week trimmed $326 million from the Army's $3.9 billion fiscal 2007 budget request for the FCS program, matching language in the fiscal 2007 defense authorization bill passed by the House last month.
The Senate Armed Services Committee, meanwhile, kept intact the Pentagon's $3.9 billion request for FCS, setting up a potential conflict during conference negotiations on the authorization measure. Senate appropriators have not yet marked up their version of the spending bill.