Btw, they should also cancel the Stryker and go with the M8 Thunderbolt
Posted on 07/19/2009 12:51:24 PM PDT by GOPGuide
On June 23rd, the U.S. Army announced the official cancellation of its FCS (Future Combat Systems). This was a program of next generation weapons, vehicles and other equipment that was going to cost over $160 billion. The cancellation was no surprise. A year ago, the army dropped any pretence of trying to roll out its new FCS stuff as a complete package. That's mainly because the Department of Defense had ordered that FCS items be readied for combat use as soon as possible. The future will arrive piecemeal, as had been actually happening ever since September 11, 2001, and especially since early 2003. When the Cold War ended in 1991, the army took stock and decided that its future combat vehicles would be smaller and lighter, relying more on missiles, better communications and lots of electronic gadgets. All this was called FCS, and it would change everything. Then came 2003, and three American divisions invaded Iraq and, within three weeks, had seized Baghdad and conquered the country. When the dust had settled, and the battles were carefully examined, it was discovered that the key to rapid victory were the "obsolete" M-1 tanks and M-2 Infantry Fighting Vehicles, doing what they were designed to do.
This didn't faze the FCS developers, for the 20-30 ton FCS vehicles could have done the same thing. The key was being resistant to the RPG rockets, which the M-1 and M-2 were. But that got people thinking. We got all these M-1s and M-2s, and money is tight, and the FCS crowd are asking for over $100 billion to buy new armored vehicles that might not be as effective. Why not just keep upgrading the armor we got, and we know works? This bold idea, reeking of practicality and thrift, received a cool reception. The FCS proponents had spent years of effort to get enough political support for the money to start flowing. And now these retards, with their experience in Iraq, want to face the future with refurbs? The "retards", in the end, had the stronger argument.
The FCS was seen as a breakthrough system. Actually, it's over fifty systems (depending on how you count them), and a lot of technologies that haven't been invented yet. Many in the army were unsure about how FCS would do in combat. This "tried and true" crew responded with an offer to try out each of the new technologies as they become available. Whenever that might be. Eventually, the brass at the Pentagon agreed with this. Meanwhile, FCS faced a more formidable problem than reality checks after 2003; lack of money. Not only was Iraq reminding everyone how well existing armor works, but it sucked up the billions that FCS was hoping to feast on.
FCS was nothing if not ambitious, with its plan to militarize many new technologies before anyone else did, and give the army powerful armored vehicles that could be airlifted anywhere in the world in a few days, and then be easier to maintain because the FCS vehicles guzzled a lot less fuel. But that depends on the air force coming up with more transports (C-17s), something the air force has been reluctant to do. The air force has its own FCS (the F-22 and F-35), and that's where all their money is going.
What a lot of officers, and troops, began to see was a need for evolution, not revolution. There's no longer any big land army out there that needs to be shut down. The Red Army is gone, the Chinese army is largely obsolete and shrinking, the North Korean army is falling apart, and the Iranians are more concerned about another civil war. The few nations that are still building new tanks are trying to keep up with the M-1, not leap-frog it using unproven technologies. Continued efforts to keep FCS alive ended up becoming evolutionary as well, because the money just wasn't there for anything radically new. Thus the M-1, M-2, and Stryker rapidly evolved, and proved that, as weapons, they were far from dead. NLOS-C, a new self-propelled artillery system, was built from the wreckage of the cancelled Crusader system. While technically FCS, it was more of an evolved system, and it was the only FCS vehicle to survive.
But there was another factor at work in undermining FCS, and it was called RFI (Rapid Fielding Initiative). One of the little noticed after-effects of the Afghanistan campaign was the establishment, in early 2002, of the Rapid Fielding Initiative. This was an army program that recognized that American army troops did not always have the best weapons and equipment. RFI was intended to do something about that, and do it quickly.
You could see RFI coming. There were three existing trends pushing it. First, there was a lot more new technology coming on the market that troops could use. Some of it came from the companies that created equipment for the hiking and camping market (boots, rucksacks, all manner of outdoor clothing). Other stuff came from hunting suppliers (new gun sights). There was a flood of new electronic gear, like lighter and more reliable GPS receivers and computer gear.
The second trend was that the troops were all on the Internet, and like never before, were in touch with each other via military related message boards, listservs, Facebook pages and chat rooms. Troops have always been coming up with new ideas about how to use civilian gear for military purposes. But before the Internet came along, each soldiers discovery spread slowly. Now, information about new discoveries gets spread army wide within hours.
Finally, there was SOCOM (Special Operations Command), which had long possessed its own RFI powers, and budget to go with it. SOCOM could buy neat new weapons, as well as equipment. SOCOM could also afford to buy expensive stuff (night vision gear and satellite phones). SOCOM personnel were on the Internet as well. By 2001, thousands of soldiers were speculating on the Internet how much more effective they could be if they had SOCOMs freedom to quickly get new stuff that allowed them to do their job better.
When American troops went into Afghanistan in early October, 2001, it was several hundred SOCOM Special Forces operators that did most of the work. Once the media got to the Special Forces guys, stories started coming out about the non-standard gear they were using. American infantrymen being sent to Afghanistan saw those stories, as did people in the Pentagon. Connections started to get made. Among other things, someone in the Pentagon realized that the army would not look too good if too many journalists interviewed too many troops who had bought civilian equipment with their own money. Especially if the new equipment, from a civilian supplier, was obviously superior to the stuff the government was giving the troops. With this kind of incentive, the Rapid Fielding Initiative was quickly set up and became a big success.
The Iraq campaign gave the RFI another workout. A typical incident involved all the raids troops had to make and the problems with getting through sturdy locked doors. Some troops knew of special equipment police departments used, others knew of special equipment fire fighters used to break into burning buildings. The proper equipment was soon in the troops hands, and many lives, both American and Iraqi, were saved. Stories came back from Afghanistan and Iraq about how great the RFI gear was and all was well with the troops and the brass in the Pentagon.
So eventually FCS became, in effect, a part of RFI. It's another example of what happens when carefully constructed plans encounter reality. Reality always wins. In this case, FSC as a program was killed by RFI, while FSC as a collection of good, or at least promising, ideas, lived on.
Btw, they should also cancel the Stryker and go with the M8 Thunderbolt
Elections matter.
Just think, that $160 billion is only a small fraction of the $787 billion Porkulus Maximus bill, and actually WOULD have created good paying jobs in the US. (Due to ITAR export controls, foreign nationals would not have been permitted to work on projects like this, so US citizens would be the primary beneficiaries).
Instead we got 30 years worth of Democrat pent-up wet dream pork all in one shot. Crap that never would have seen the light of day, much less 3/4 a trillion of non-existent dollars in normal times.
Yep, elections have consequences. And a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.
The FCS was an enormous waste of money because the vehicles were too lightly armored.
Unlike the FCS, the F-22 however is worth every penny. It would have made more sense to cancel the FCS and used the money to build more F-22s.
This is the one statement I vehemently disagree with:
“[RFI] was an army program that recognized that American army troops did not always have the best weapons and equipment. RFI was intended to do something about that, and do it quickly.”
BS. American troops almost ALWAYS have superior equipment and weapons in battle. Especially against Toyota pickup “technicals” or obsolescent Soviet bloc armor or improvised explosive devices. What we were not too fast at was reacting to these improvised and innovative assymetric warfare weapons.
TC
>Finally, there was SOCOM (Special Operations Command), which had long possessed its own RFI powers, and budget to go with it. SOCOM could buy neat new weapons, as well as equipment. SOCOM could also afford to buy expensive stuff (night vision gear and satellite phones). SOCOM personnel were on the Internet as well. By 2001, thousands of soldiers were speculating on the Internet how much more effective they could be if they had SOCOMs freedom to quickly get new stuff that allowed them to do their job better. <
The Green Berets deserve it.
Maybe so, I’m not familiar with the vehicle programs. But FCS included a lot of technology such as more UAVs and MAVs (Micro Air Vehicles) that would provide intel and keep troops safer. Fortunately I think some of these aspects are being funded separately.
I guess my point really was just to compare the potential value of a major investment in national defense vs. the piddling-away of resources on the alleged stimulus which won’t stimulate anything other than bigger government.
Our warfighters will get the best of the ideas, if Bambi and the Commies are throttled.
You're not "sparky", are you?
The author is confusing the Rapid Fielding Initiative (RFI) with the Rapid Equipping Force (REF). RFI provided updated personal clothing and equipment to deploying units. This included improved helmets, body armor, and some electronic kit, but did not include the much broader range of equipment sponsored by the REF. RFI was an accelerated fielding program for equipment that had been through the complete cycle of materiel development.
The REF, on the other hand, introduced new technologies to the theater before it had undergone any extensive development. The result was that some of the kit was a great success, some a great failure, and some were good ideas, but not quite ready for prime time. Both programs demonstrated that if you were willing to take some risk, and were determined to overcome the bureaucrats, you could get things done quickly.
Both efforts are having a harder time repeating earlier successes. The easy stuff has already been done, and the tough problems take more time. The bureaucracy has also played a role, adding weight to the saddlebags whenever they can to slow these racehorses down.
The one thing from FCS that will be missed is Netfires (or whatever they ended up calling it): a box of missiles that just sits there waiting to be pinged by a field commander, at which point it unloads all sorts of Bad Stuff on the enemy.
FCS presumed that better information could permit mobility to replace armor.
That can work on the attack, when you can create signiicant uncertainty in your enemy on where you will attack.
On the defense, the enemy selects where he attacks. In peacekeeping operations the enemy can create situations to which you have to react with minimum force, yet be prepared to resist very significant firepower, and thus create very unpleasant situations. The only way to respond is with highly armored forces, so the enemy ambush will be unsuccessful.
I like tracked vehicles, but there will be some situations where the high speed and silence of wheeled vehicles can be very useful. It is good to have a choice, as a commander, such as a Brigade military police company.
War is like chess, in that if you don’t bring out your pieces fast enough, or if you bring them out too fast, in either case you lose.
What the M-1s really needs is a new engine that gulps less fuel.
Feedback?
Some truth to both sides - you can’t put 60 tons of armor on a twenty-ton vehicle, and that the FCS network is a significant force multiplier.
The M1 doesn’t gulp a lot of fuel, it’s a misconception repeated over and over on the web.
The M1 uses a little more than 1 gallon per mile at 20 MPH and gets better mileage than it’s Leo counterpart. Turbines are “more” efficient than otto or diesel engines. The M1 achieves this running on JP-8 which is a less energy rich fuel and the tank weighing more. Think about that.
When the M1 transitioned from JP-4 to JP-8, like all other vehicles it began to burn more fuel because the fuel itself has less energy (joules) per volume. However, the turbine is a true multi fuel power plant, which the diesels are not. While they list that the diesels are, it’s not really the case with every modern diesel tank out there which might be able to run a “mix” of “some” fuels, looses power, degrades engine life.......... The M1 will run on straight kerosene if that’s all you have and even after the switch from JP-4 to JP-8 other than loosing a little in mileage and not being able to run the smoke generator because it was a fire hazard with the new fuel the tank was fine.
Furthermore, the turbine runs quieter, and anyone around the M1 can attest to the fact that from the front, even just 100 yards away you can hardly hear the tank while running. The turbine runs your NBC and cool air systems which are separate on a diesel. A power pack like in a Leo is a 7 ton motor. The turbine in an M1 separated from the tranny and recouperator you can pick up with your arms. The turbine doesn’t give a rats ass about the heat, nor really the cold, but there is a reason why those export versions of the LeClerk and Challenger have modified cooling systems in the Middle East. The turbine doesn’t even really have that significant an issue with sand and dust, but a diesel sucking in this crap does. Go ask the diesel mechanics that maintain the generators in Iraq what dust does to a diesel motor over time. The turbine will blow it right out the rear, and only after long and extended times will you see some wear on certain parts in the motor which by the way uses a high pressure air flow reversal to self clean it’s air filtration system (Which you can’t easily do on a diesel). The turbine requires very little power to start, and a HMMWV can actually jump an M1, try that with a 47 liter high compression diesel. The turbine can be used as part of a obscuration system (albeit disabled because of fire hazards and no need in recent times) and to decon each other forming a gauntlet and essentially blow drying contaminants off one another in a field expedient NBC decon.
Ever wonder why an M1A1 with an automatic transmission and 7 tons heavier can accelerate better than a Leo IIA4 with the same horsepower output on paper? Torque. Of course if you take an AGT1500 (1970s) and compare it to new diesels (2000) they too get the performance because you’re comparing a 30 year older power pack. But isn’t it awesome that an old AGT1500 can hold ground TODAY with diesels that are on steroids and still only bring similar performance? Isn’t it awesome that when comparing the old AGT1500 to the MTU883 (I think that was the original power pack), the AGT kicked the diesel in the rear when it came to torque AND how fast it can develop the power?
**** Turbines run most efficiently under load. They want to run. And that’s where the misconception of the fuel guzzling M1 comes from. When an M1 sits and idles he sucks fuel. If you were to draw a curve where you have fuel consumption vs. power output you’d see the turbine has a linear and gentle sloping curve that starts fairly high but only slopes up slightly as load increases; meaning he needs a lot of fuel just to keep running but doesn’t use really that much more when driving down the road at 20 MPH. However, the Diesel while starting much lower and using very little in idle has a near exponential curve that starts to drink when under load. When an M1 sits and spends a lot of time idling in places like NTC, or Graffenwoehr one might get the thought that an M1 drinks a lot because these tanks don’t move much inside these small confined battle spaces but need refueled constantly. However, in a maneuver war for which the tank was built, quite the opposite is true.
The way the issue of high fuel consumption in idle, especially tach idle, was largely solved was with an APU. That’s why we needed the APU so urgently. But that’s something that we began to address nearly 20 years ago. We also had some power plant improvements that attempt to reduce the fuel consumption in idle.
No-no, the turbine is no bad concept. Sometimes little kids that don’t know better and have no idea that the toy they have is the better one, would rather trade it for a cheaper less capable toy that their friend has.
Misconception: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/misconception
The military has more stuff they do not use than we could possibly imagine. I remember not too long ago sniper schools and fielded teams couldn’t get enough ammo to practice because the budgets went to pie in the sky crap. Personal armor was saving lives but budgets weren’t there to buy simple $1,000 armor, yet, the Air Force is billions behind on a pie in the sky satellite system that has little advantage over systems costing 1/10th as much. $10 billion went to the Peacekeeper missile that was then canceled.
Back to basics would be good but between politics, social experimentation with queers and women in combat, to pie in the sky systems, the average grunt has far less than what he should be given to accomplish the job.
The Air Force canceled the A-10 using more F-16s for ground support. Dumd idea, but politics prevailed and money is wasted and ground troops don’t have the best, and cheapest, ground attack aircraft they need.
I seriously think the military should cancel every research project and start over. Anything not in production should be halted.
Much of the arguments floating around are simply misconceptions that get propagated through the web and accepted as the truth. The arguments were “reliability” and “fuel consummation” with the M1, but neither is really rooted in anything factual. Truth is, those diesels they now use are no simple tractor like a John Deer motor. They are trying to squeeze every last bit of power from them and with multiple turbo's direct injection on a V12 etc etc etc. Many of these arguments like the “reliability” one regards the AGT1500 are sound good arguments. The logic is that the turbine is more complex and prone to failure. Which is of course the opposite of reality where the turbine is more reliable than a otto or diesel, as evidenced in aviation. Compare reliability of a turbine on something like a Cessna 208 to an otto motor like on a Cessna 206.
Many of these arguments simply “sound reasonable” and use an appeal to ignorance to make their case. I'm no cook, and if a cook told me something that was complete BS but sounded reasonable, I would probably fall for it. The turbine was one of the M1s original advantages, and when you talk tanks like with car rivalries those that are rooting for the other team will attempt to minimize your product or advantages if it be only with rhetorical arguments that can't really hold ground when looked at more closely.
And that is precisely what is happening the majority of the time that a tank is running. I do agree that the APU ameliorates most of the "sitting around doing little" idling issues.
For myself, I like the turbine - it was great to hang Jiffy Pop off the rear end and get freshly popped popcorn.
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