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Future tense
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| 22 September 2005 |
Future tense
By Joshua Kucera JDW Staff Reporter
Washington, DC
While much of the Future Combat Systems (FCS) programme is proceeding smoothly, technical problems have beset the communications systems that will be vital to FCS and engineers have been unable to make the manned ground vehicles (MGVs) as easily transportable as the army wanted. Critics say FCS is out of place in a world where the enemy uses rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and roadside bombs, not mechanised brigades. Also, mounting budget pressures at the Pentagon will soon force the army to cut something - and FCS is a likely target.
Despite the controversies and budget pressures, various elements of FCS are starting to come together.
Earlier in 2005, General Dynamics Land Systems began testing the 120 mm gun that it plans to integrate onto the Mounted Combat System: the closest thing FCS has to a traditional tank.
In July, BAE Systems for the first time fired a concept demonstrator for the 155 mm 38-cal Non-Line-of-Sight Cannon (NLOS-C). One candidate for the smallest of the UAVs, the Micro Air Vehicle, is being put through its paces at the Infantry Center at Fort Benning, Georgia. The first version of the computer operating system for FCS, the System of Systems Common Operating Environment, has also been completed.
In fact, FCS has reached every milestone in its schedule. In August the programme completed a System of Systems Functional Review, during which 11,000 separate technical requirements for all elements of the programme were finalised.
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