CBO study: Army FCS and alternatives

[akd]

some of the conclusions:

1. Airlift is largely useless unless you're dropping paratroopers or unless you can seize large, modern airports to handle the high volume of sorties required to transport an FCS brigade.

2. Current sealift capabilities allow an entire heavy division to deploy anywhere in the world within thirty (30) days.

3. It takes an FCS brigade only a day or two less to deploy via air or sea than a conventional heavy brigade. (Is that worth a $300 billion program?)

4. Under ideal FCS fielding conditions, the Abrams and Bradley will remain in frontline service until 2025. Under realistic FCS fielding conditions (contractor delays, funding delays, "bugs" with the systems, production delays, etc.) the Abrams and Bradley could be in service until 2035.

5. The FCS program is massively complicated and it is not believed that most systems will work as advertised.

The document offers several other alternatives to the FCS and also to restructure the Army. Some alternatives drastically cut back the FCS development, some cut only the most difficult programs.

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/74xx/doc7461/08-02-Army.pdf

[hellfish]

Hey... that looks familiar.

[Battlefront.com]

Sounds vaguely familiar to me too

The other thing to consider is dwindling oil production and the near certainty that a significant conflict will involve the disruption of oil in some way, shape, or form. Air deployment consumes a staggering amount of fuel. In the past nobody worried about this because the US had (long ago) an oil surplus. More recently the military just assumed that we had enough friends to make up any shortfall from whatever was disrupted. But this is false now and will be even more wrong with each passing year. So, any future defense strategy that requires massive quantities of fuel for deployment are foolish, even if all the equipment being deployed works as advertised.

Steve

[hellfish]

Someone on another forum pointed me towards a couple really interesting Swedish systems.

Four major FCS programs are briefed in this article:

Armada Magazine's FCS article

Here is some info on the really neat Swedish SEP modular armored vehicle program:

Forum thread on militaryphotos.net

And the Swedish light tank in the 28-ton range: the CV90120T, with lots of interesting upgrades.

The 25-28t CV90120-T with Active Armor suite is so-and-so interesting too.

(top radar, multispectral smoke launchers, missile warners, active armor that can take several hits against the same section, a rear door hatch etc)

[Battlefront.com]

You know, for a small neutral country that thinks a finger pointed at someone too excitedly is quickly followed by loud peace marches decrying the violent act of finger pointing... they sure do make some fantastic military equipment. The CV90 is a fantastic platform from what I've read.

Steve