Army to pursue several modernization programs

In reworking its modernization plan after the demise of the ground vehicle portion of its problem-plagued Future Combat Systems, the Army supports breaking the massive program into several pieces, Army Chief of Staff George Casey disclosed Thursday.

"We're not going to have another program where we bundle everything into one package," Casey told reporters after a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "I don't know what it's going to cost, but we're not going to come up with another program, frankly, that's just a big target."

After launching FCS nearly a decade ago -- an ambitious program whose price tag swelled to $160 billion, the Army argued that it needed to be managed as a single program to ensure coordinated development of its manned and unmanned vehicles and sensors, as well as the intricate electronic network that would link the various components together.

But last month, Defense Secretary Robert Gates dealt the program a crippling blow when he announced plans to cancel the family of manned ground vehicles that formed the foundation for FCS. Gates said he was concerned the Army had not adequately incorporated lessons learned from Iraq and Afghanistan in the vehicles' design.

While Gates has said he is committed to pursuing new combat vehicles for the Army, his decision has forced the Army back to the drawing board.

The four-star general acknowledged the Army had done a poor job explaining FCS, the most expensive and ambitious undertaking in the service's history, and never succeeded in building a broad constituency on Capitol Hill in support of FCS, in part because lawmakers had difficulty grasping the concept.

"Frankly, we designed a program that was really very good but we could not explain it," Casey said. "We spent more time explaining the program to people unsuccessfully than we did actually working on the program. In the end that doesn't help. Whatever we come up with is going to be simpler."

Ashton Carter, the Pentagon's recently installed top weapons buyer, is expected to sign an acquisition decision memorandum for FCS in the next several weeks, formally killing the eight types of manned ground vehicles and separating the program into discrete pieces.

The memo will be the "start of the process" of redefining FCS, Casey said. The Army then will work with contractors to break up the program, Casey said.

Army leaders plan to have a new design for the manned ground vehicles by Labor Day, in the hopes of fielding the vehicles in five to seven years.

Boeing Co. and Science Applications International Corp. led the FCS effort as the so-called lead systems integrator, although it is unclear what their role will be in the future. Gates has said the contract was "not as good a contract as we could have, in terms of how we spend our money."

Casey said he does not yet know whether the Army will pursue another family of vehicles or simply develop a replacement for the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the workhorse of the mechanized infantry that entered the field more than 25 years ago.

Casey also said he did not know whether the vehicles would be wheeled or tracked, or what the cost would be. The price tag on the FCS manned ground vehicles, which were intended to roll on hard rubber-band tracks, was expected to be $87 billion, more than half the total cost of the program.