Report: Army future combat program may be unaffordable

A new government report on the Army's massive Future Combat Systems questions whether the cash-strapped service can afford to buy the program, delivering the latest in a series of blows to the backbone of the Army's transformation plans.

The program, according to the Congressional Budget Office, would eventually eat up 40 percent to 50 percent of the Army's procurement accounts, leaving scarce dollars to buy other needed gear.

"Dedicating such a large proportion of the service's procurement funding to the FCS program would leave little money for purchasing other weapons systems (such as helicopters) or needed support equipment (such as generators and ammunition)," CBO said in a report released last week.

CBO also projected that the FCS price tag, which already has jumped by billions of dollars in the last few years due to a major program restructuring, could grow by another 60 percent, largely because the program entered the development stage prematurely.

"The FCS program may continue to experience cost growths at historical rates," CBO said. "If it does, the average annual funding needed for the program, CBO estimates, may climb from the $8 billion to $10 billion projected most recently by the Army to between $13 billion and $16 billion."

The report follows several Government Accountability Office studies that have questioned the Army's ability to develop and buy FCS, a system of manned and unmanned vehicles tied together by an extensive high-tech network. The report also comes just weeks after the Pentagon's Cost Analysis Improvement Group estimated the total cost to develop, procure and operate FCS has soared from $175 billion to more than $300 billion since 2003.

The Army rejected those estimates as wrong, stating that the total cost will be roughly $230 billion. In its report, CBO analyzed four scenarios that would significantly reduce the size, scope and price of FCS. The options include developing and investing primarily in the manned ground vehicles and fielding only the sprawling FCS network and accompanying sensors. CBO acknowledged, however, that the options all have drawbacks.

Meanwhile, the Army's current fleet of ground combat vehicles is aging, with the average age between 11 years and 15 years. Many could reach the end of their service lives within the next decade, before the Army expects to field FCS ground vehicles in large numbers.

CBO noted that the Army's current efforts to reorganize itself into a smaller, more modular force would allow the retirement of 11,000 older tanks and other vehicles by 2011, thereby holding back increases in the average age of its vehicle fleet.

"Nevertheless, the resultant fleet, with an average age of 13 years, would still be relatively old," CBO said. "Although the FCS vehicles could ultimately replace most of the armored vehicles that now equip the Army's combat brigades, the average age of those vehicles before they were retired would significantly exceed the Army's guidelines."

Indeed, by 2018, when the Army plans to buy 500 FCS vehicles a year, the average age of its other vehicles would be 16 years, requiring the service to invest heavily in upgrading its so-called legacy fleet, CBO concluded.