What Should the Army Do with the Fcs Program
- Submitted by: douglasdarr
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- Category: Other
- Date Submitted: 02/11/2011 07:42 AM
- Pages: 4
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The purpose of this paper is to address what should the Army do with the Future Combat System (FCS) program, which is now referred to as the Accelerated Technologies (AT) program. I propose, that the Army should cancel the program because of the lack of results of the sensors, the network is not preferred verses having SIPR connectivity and redirect monies to stop IED attacks.
Currently the U.S. is using systems that are similar to the FCS programs that have failed to live up to their press. Sensors are one of them. The AT, formerly known as “spin out” systems, must be understood in context for both purpose and use. These AT systems are sensors, less the NIK and the Non Line of Sight – Launch System. Combined with a network, their purpose is to collect and report information that is useful and relevant to the commander. Sensors are tasked to collect specific items or actions as part of the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) plan to satisfy the Commander’s Critical Information Requirements (CCIR) and other intelligence requirements.
During the push to Baghdad from the 3rd ID, the sensors failed to provide data to one battalion in the defensive that would have been useful to the commander. The only report that the commander had was that a single Iraqi brigade was moving south from the airport, but the battalion sensors failed to convey the far more dangerous reality that confronted them that morning. The battalion faced not one brigade but three, between 25 and 30 tanks, plus 70 to 80 armored personnel carriers, artillery, and between 5,000 and 10,000 Iraqi soldiers coming from three directions. The Iraqi deployment was just the kind of conventional massed force that is easiest to detect, and what the sensors were design to detect. Yet the battalion got nothing until they slammed into them. The keys to victory lay in better training, better tactics, better planning, and, most of all, superior leadership at all levels. Despite the...
Currently the U.S. is using systems that are similar to the FCS programs that have failed to live up to their press. Sensors are one of them. The AT, formerly known as “spin out” systems, must be understood in context for both purpose and use. These AT systems are sensors, less the NIK and the Non Line of Sight – Launch System. Combined with a network, their purpose is to collect and report information that is useful and relevant to the commander. Sensors are tasked to collect specific items or actions as part of the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) plan to satisfy the Commander’s Critical Information Requirements (CCIR) and other intelligence requirements.
During the push to Baghdad from the 3rd ID, the sensors failed to provide data to one battalion in the defensive that would have been useful to the commander. The only report that the commander had was that a single Iraqi brigade was moving south from the airport, but the battalion sensors failed to convey the far more dangerous reality that confronted them that morning. The battalion faced not one brigade but three, between 25 and 30 tanks, plus 70 to 80 armored personnel carriers, artillery, and between 5,000 and 10,000 Iraqi soldiers coming from three directions. The Iraqi deployment was just the kind of conventional massed force that is easiest to detect, and what the sensors were design to detect. Yet the battalion got nothing until they slammed into them. The keys to victory lay in better training, better tactics, better planning, and, most of all, superior leadership at all levels. Despite the...