rssDraft GAO Report Rips Into Army Weapons Platform
Friday, March 06, 2009 at 1:23 pm
- 3 Comments
In my piece yesterday I mention several big-ticket defense platforms beloved by the military services that have featured chronic cost-overruns. One of them is a sprawling Army modernization program called Future Combat Systems, which is a bunch of tech-heavy weapons and vehicle upgrades. (It’s kind of hard to come up with a shorthand description for FCS — click through here and see why.) The fiscal-2010 budget review is causing the Army anxiety over the future of the way-over-budget program.
So this won’t help: Inside the Army (subscription-only, grr) reports that the Government Accountability Office is preparing a grim assessment about FCS’s financial soundness. [Update: Hey, now the piece is outside the firewall!]
Advocates of restructuring or cutting back on FCS will find ammunition in the draft report. In it, GAO asserts that FCS is “unlikely to be executed” for the $159 billion the Army says it will cost, a source said, citing the draft.
Moreover, and perhaps more relevant to the current decision-making within the Pentagon, GAO states that the Army has already spent 60 percent of its FCS development funds even though “the most expensive activities remain to be done before the production decision” in 2013.
GAO contends that the funding situation will deteriorate for FCS as the program’s costs will likely grow at the same time as competition for federal funds tightens, a source said.
The report also cites what it calls “actual immaturity” in the program, according to sources. Calling the network performance “largely unproven,” GAO says the Army has failed to convincingly demonstrate that FCS designs will meet their requirements, a source told ITA.
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3 Comments
Comment posted March 6, 2009 @ 3:37 pm
FCS is over promised in terms of realistic capability for the schedule promised and significantly under cost for not only design, development and engineering but production as well. The word significantly is under scored to mean at least 100 billion short of what was initially included.
Even if the money existed, the FCS concept is a marginal improvement over what exists today where we have artillery and tanks that are the best in the world. The scare selling point that the existing systems are 30 years old, ignores that each are continuously improved and overhauled to better than new frequently.
No, FCS like many of the new planes in the R&D pipeline can prudently be pushed way out in the future where perhaps major advancements in technology can take the person out of the loop to achieve the over matching capability we desire in the air and ground.
I would cancel FCS the FY22, Raptor and Ospery . Improve Military Housing ways to better support the military in the field would be money better spent.
Pingback posted March 6, 2009 @ 4:48 pm
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Comment posted March 7, 2009 @ 8:17 am
“Even if the money existed, the FCS concept is a marginal improvement over what exists today where we have artillery and tanks that are the best in the world. The scare selling point that the existing systems are 30 years old, ignores that each are continuously improved and overhauled to better than new frequently.” – Not even remotely close.
Try the the wikipedia artice to start with and if you have access to a platform like Jane's use that. There is also some research comparing the latest projected version of current equipment and FCS base configs from RAND and others out there in the unclassified space. When used together the components of the platform are far, far more lethal than the components they replace in any environment or conflict level.
I do agree that it'll probably cost more than projected but then this platform replaces allot of systems. People keep pricing it like it replaces one or two. It replaces almost every major platform in inventory and still it's the only Army program in top 10 for cost across all services.
Most things cost more than originally projected. These stories are starting to sound like similar stories in the early 80s about the M-1, M-2, F-16, F-18 when people were fighting the Reagan buildup. Those platforms were never supossed to work either. And like you said, they are the best (if only for the moment mow).
I do also agree that housing, benefits, and pay need to be improved. We have to take care of the people that take care of us.
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