Army trims and stretches future combat program

The Army acknowledged Wednesday it sliced $3.4 billion over the next six years from its principal modernization program to fund more immediate needs of the heavily deployed service.

The decision to cut Future Combat Systems was "strictly budget driven," given the enormity of the Army's needs, service officials said while briefing reporters at the Pentagon. They emphasized that the $160 billion technology transformation program, in development since 2003, is meeting cost goals and is largely on schedule.

But faced with budget challenges, the Army last month privately spelled out plans to cut four of the 18 systems intended for FCS. They also chose to stretch out plans for producing and fielding systems by an additional five years, extending production to 2030.

"Clearly, we've had to go through a very difficult period here" balancing the current combat forces' needs against the Army's future goals, said Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson, the Army's deputy for acquisition and systems management.

But Sorenson and other senior Army officials reiterated their commitment to FCS, calling it the first major modernization program the Army has undertaken in 30 years. They also insisted that, despite the cuts, the Army will meet all of its basic operational requirements for the program, the most expensive and technologically complex endeavor in the Army's history.

The service intends to cancel two of the four unmanned aerial vehicle classes originally planned for the sprawling FCS program, and suspend development of an armed robotic vehicle. In addition the Intelligent Munitions System, once part of FCS's 18 networked systems, would be split off from the overall program.

But officials intend to add new technologies to the two remaining unmanned aerial vehicle classes and make other changes to compensate for some capabilities lost by the cancellations.

Meanwhile, Sorenson said the Army has already factored into its six-year budget plan President Bush's decision to increase the overall size of the Army by 65,000 new soldiers -- an indication that the expensive personnel boost will not eat into FCS accounts.

The Army will begin to introduce some FCS technologies between 2008 and 2010, including unattended ground sensors and the Non-Line-of-Sight Launch System. It will complete its first fully FCS-equipped brigade in 2015, and field the remaining 14 brigades through 2030.

But the program's future might ultimately be up to a skeptical Congress, which has cut $825 million from the program in recent years amid concerns that FCS was too ambitious. The Army requested $3.7 billion for FCS in fiscal 2008, a $300 million increase over the enacted fiscal 2007 level.

The service plans to equip one brigade with new gear from its short-lived Land Warrior program to Iraq later this year, Sorenson said.

Through the Land Warrior program, which recently passed operational tests, the Army developed wireless and other technologies intended to improve an individual soldier's command, control and communications, giving dismounted troops better awareness on the battlefield. But the Army already has dropped plans to buy any more Land Warrior kits after equipping the brigade headed to Iraq.