Future Combat System begins to take shape: Army-DARPA program garners attention in wake of Crusader cancellation.

• Author: Tiron, Roxana
• Position: Brief Article

The Army's Future Combat System is one of the programs that the Pentagon has put on a fast track, after the cancellation of the Crusader artillery vehicle. But despite an accelerated schedule, the concept design phase of the FCS will not be completed until at least 2003.

Meanwhile, program officials are trying to anticipate what threats FCS may encounter in future battlefields. The unpredictability of potential enemy capabilities beyond 2010 makes the job of creating the FCS all the more challenging, said Brig. Gen. Donald Schenk, the Army program manager for FCS.

"We know that we are being watched every single day," he said. During the past several months, Schenk's office has been working on defining "threshold" capabilities for the ECS, as the program continues its concept and technology development phase, or CTD.

During a combat vehicles conference of the National Defense Industrial Association, Schenk spoke in vague terms about the types of capabilities he expects that FCS will have. The vagueness is understandable, because the FCS program was intended to not be just another vehicle project. The Army, along with the Defense Research Projects Agency, purposely refuse to pigeonhole FCS as a smaller version of the Abrams or the Stryker. They want FCS to be a radical new weapon system that will give the Army not only firepower and speed, but also flexibility to move around in non-conventional battlefields, such as cities and mountain ridges.

The capabilities of FCS, said Schenk, will come partly from technology, but also from innovations in doctrine, training, leader and soldier development.

A recent decision to expedite the deployment of FCS from 2010 to 2008, however, has complicated the development options, because some technologies may not be ready on time, Schenk said. "Doors of technology opportunity [have been] slam shut," he said. "We have to figure out a way to leave doors open."

The cancellation of Crusader in May prompted Defense Department officials to ask the FCS program office to figure out ways to accelerate the indirect-fire portion of FCS. The idea would be to transfer some of the technology already developed for the Crusader program.

"What we would like to do--through the imposition of advanced technologies--[is to migrate] as much technology as we can from the current Crusader program" to the non-line-of-sight FCS, said Michael Wynne, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics.

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