Future Combat Systems

I thought this was pretty cool. Its about the armys transformation.

The Future Combat Systems (FCS) program is an Army transformation initiative designed to link soldiers to a wide range of weapons, sensors, and information systems by means of a mobile ad hoc network architecture that will enable unprecedented levels of joint interoperability, shared situational awareness and the ability to execute highly synchronized mission operations.

Check out the vids from youtube that explains and show theatrical type trailers of what the FCS will be able to do.

www.youtube.com...

www.youtube.com...

www.youtube.com...

www.youtube.com...

Though there has been some setbacks in regards to the FCS. It is still going strong! A few programs have been posponed due to budget cutbacks. But it shouldnt affect the overall programme.

[edit on 9-1-2007 by wildcat]

WTF man. What does that have to do with the FCS?

Originally posted by semperfoo

The Future Combat Systems (FCS) program is an Army transformation initiative designed to link soldiers to a wide range of weapons, sensors, and information systems by means of a mobile ad hoc

That looks to me like a Global Information Management System. That was a part of Skynet in the movie series The Terminator. The US is not that stupid to make an Global Battle Management System, which is an AI that controls a wide range of military machines and devices. That is the main part of Skynet. Maybe these terms are unofficial but you get the point.



[edit on 9-1-2007 by wildcat]

Originally posted by semperfoo
WTF man. What does that have to do with the FCS?

I was watching it at the same time, how about I erase it then.

I thought you were making a funny. I guess you werent. Just kinda caught me off guard because it was a 'spur of the moment'. Or whatever you call it.

Originally posted by wildcat

Originally posted by semperfoo

The Future Combat Systems (FCS) program is an Army transformation initiative designed to link soldiers to a wide range of weapons, sensors, and information systems by means of a mobile ad hoc

That looks to me like a Global Information Management System. That was a part of Skynet in the movie series The Terminator. The US is not that stupid to make an Global Battle Management System, which is an AI that controls a wide range of military machines and devices. That is the main part of Skynet. Maybe these terms are unofficial but you get the point.

Come again? Are you saying the FCS videos i posted are fiction? Clarify that for me.

No, a Global Information Management System is an unofficial name (maybe) for that network they are planning to create.

Well, the first one is ridiculous.

All this 'transformational' nonsense '350 miles in 15 days' /crap/ 'so soon you could almost hold your breath' BS.

And look what they show. Men with rifles outside of vehicles doing conventional infantry work. That's not necentric because it IMPLIES that you have to debus troops to FIND the theat. And the best robot you have available to do the job is a packbot capable of all of 5mph on a hard tether.

Let me tell you that anytime you have to put boots on the ground, _in numbers_, to win a tactical fight, you have blown anywhere from a half hour to an hour of time. Infantry have ZERO place on the battlefield as is.

NONE.

Then I look at the 'generation next' and it's even worse. You show about a dozen different fires solutions 'all multiservice' (NLOS-C, Netfires, JCM, Apache D, oldstyle MLRS, F/A-18E) to make it seem like everybody is operating cohesively (slice of pie).

Yet for all this as well as E-8, ERMP, Shadow, Hummingbird, Cypher and LAM type UAVs, they _do not_ have good-fix on all the threats /until/ they start moving an indeed, it seems like 'half the action' is some idiot brigade commander voyeurizing his own people with his 'RISTA' assets.

And then things get worse. If you want someone across a damn river, you go at speed and with several simultaneous stagings.

Yet what do they do? Monkeys in a Bradley followon 'at warp slow' first.

Everybody is jam packed (terrible road march discipline and spacing) on the WRONG side of that damn bridge and yet you have a man on point crossing a battle damaged structure when there is a perfectly serviceable robot that can go across at 60mph and indeed is _light enough_ to 'forget the beach!' make the leap airmech.

It is equally humorous to not that 'only the good guys' have APS and Reactives when the Russians pioneered the frickin' things TWENTY YEARS AGO! It would help of course if the main-force enemy /at least/ fought with 1980s level technologies and numbers. But instead you have a pair of pongos firing Javelin wannabes at an IFV and three conventional (monster) tanks obliterated _on approach_ by an SPH fired BAT.

ALL OF WHICH COULD BE HANDLED BY TODAYS 'COMBINED ARMS TACTICS' (which is all their version of FCS-on-a-WAN really is, at the fires level) units with _zero_ change from contemporary TOE.

ARGUMENT:
Sigh. I hardly know where to begin so let's start with the end. 3,000 men, 18 networked systems, 96hrs, 12,500 miles. Ironic that the one asset I _didn't_ see was another buy of 100 C-17s and 50 tankers to make this happen 'all at once'.

And of course then there's the old 'fight the enemy you trained to defeat...' question of AGAINST WHOM?!

You engage a real army while using such slow, terrain mode fixated and dispersed as non-force-secure distributed combat elements and they will wipe the floor with you because they WILL NOT obey a fixed line of battle behind or beyond which you are safe. They will attack you as YOU deploy and you will never get let alone secure a line of logistics.

OTOH, you fight a bunch of idiots buried in collaterals in a MOUT environment and 3,000 men is a drop in the frickin' bucket for sheep-and-goat wheedling them out. They will shoot, they will run. They will fade into the women and kids.

Next, rather than showing a bunch of OPTICAL LOS ISR platforms 'operating below a convenient snow storm cloud base', why not show ONE platform with enough radar and physical performance to serve as coordinator and targeting for an entire combat team?

If you are SERIOUS about transformation, you have to do more with less /types/ so that you have adequate coverage numbers _overall_. Neither the LAM nor the Hunter seemed to be doing more than watch our own forces and the Cypher was hiding under the damn bridge 'looking for IEDs' no doubt.

Why not put your UAV _over_ the far hillsides BEFORE the infantry attack? Indeed, why not put an airlanded assault force across to secure those hills and multiply the shock effect of both armor and envelopement axes of engagement against the poor dumb monkey force which may well have one line of breach fully covered?

Why not show an enemy 'dealing with' UAVs and even Attack Aviation at low level using AHM and pursuit drones of their own? Why is there not ONE laser threat on this battlefield when optical hazards have already shown up in TWO Iraqi wars?

If the threat has to be conventional, why not make it at least a company level force with mixed tubes and missiles of their own _well emplaced_ with decoys and hardened overhead cover and thus NOT caught in movement to contact phases but rather fighting a very well orchestrated combined arms ambush of their own? /Even the Iraqis/ (albeit without armor) have gotten to the point where they can do multi supporting fires ambushes people.

Instead, the entire movie seems to be about a commander looking at a digital terrain trace showing a large heavy-armor friendly force, 'engaged in a feint', _pinning_ the majority of the threat while his micro taskforce loses a valuable vehicle in driving a 100m across a river.

Whoopity Doo Dah Day.

ARGUMENT 2:
If you want FCS, start with a viable force model and the 'futhest, fustest, longust' deployment model specifically. If you want to move 12,500 miles in 96hrs, you'd bloddy well better go with the Marine model of a BATALLION as the smallest independent ops unit force. That's 800-1,000 effectives and perhaps 150-200 vehicles on 100 C-17 loads. More importantly it is the ability to /pack your bags from one start point/ as a function of integrated force options and palletization for SINGLE leapoff rapid reaction.
You don't drive anywhere. You don't mate up units from separate stations. You jam your force in an integration hall like a satellite assembly, then you roll them out to a ramp where your Air is waiting.

One you got the logistics half of the model, down it's time to look at force equivalencies. Both in terms of the threat you expect to be able to handle 3:1? 5:1? on a fires allocation and maneuver cycle basis. And in a generic LOA/AOR coverage numbers for sustainable terrain presence. This suggests the ability to sustain 2-3 lines of advance (3 companies up, 1 back as an attrition fill/exploitation reserve) across a 20nm frontage or a terrain allocation of perhaps 10X10nm.

I would suggest that, excepting an 'occupational' force footprint requirement, a further maneuver-combat mode reduction in manned footprint is essential for the standard deployment OOB. Men need manpower to do basic things like cook and casevac and rotate duty shifts. Robots do not. Men also have the unfortunately need to blow out the bubble on under-armor volume to the point where you _no longer can_ consider 'instead of the bridge, how about flotation bags and we tire-as-paddle our way across?'. Weight is particularly important because if you have to consider utility (CS/CSS) functions like AVRE/AVLB you make one concession. If you create a force of 5-10 not 20-25 ton vehicles you not only can but MUST make allowances in the deployment roster for 15 ton organic vertical lift to move them _completely beyond_ terrain chokes. Like Boyd told the Marines: _Forget The Damn Beach_. Think past it and you will BE past it. So long as you don't have to carry more than 250-450 men in doing it.

Robots obviously have no mothers. A vehicle like the MULE shown can be lost _without recovery_ and have a perfectly well trained replacement flown in from 'unattached' stateside units whose sole purpose is to act as a reserve equipment pool. Robots can make good use of hybrid powerpack systems to lighten their deployment weight and provide multiple power-on-axle mobility at low fuel cost to overcome terrain and damage. Robots _never_ get tired. Which means if you drop one 10 miles the other side of a river and have it drive /back/ to attack a vulnerable ambush site before sending out to secure a 20 mile security zone, after having driven 200 miles into the operational area, it's not going to look at you with dark eyes and a slap-happy expression.

Robots are then the way in which a batallion can -act like- a brigade.

Yet despite the promise of 'inside ten years' I see ZERO evidence that we are anywhere's close to having robotic weapons systems, even of the kind depicted, by 2015. Indeed the notion that FCS 'builds on' todays force structure is proof that the commitment isn't there because todays army, aside from being complete worn out by an endless COIN war in Iraq, is also one which is _undeployable_, _unsustainable_ and _uneconomical_ relative to it's tooth:tail and combat day cost ratios per ton mile.

CONCLUSION:
The Army more than any other force is a manpower enabled one. That is where they get their esprit de corps. That is where they get their budgetary guarantee of chain of command. That is what the politics of 'Army Strong' really means. O/FBCT and the FCS role in that force is thus neither more nor less 'virtual' than the cartoon shown. And integrating an internet experience into the Army does nothing to guarantee the funds or RMA ready transformation model will be ready to create the PHYSICAL construct changes in platforms and fires to make the Army any less manpower driven. As the converse definition vs. expectation of what a future force needs to be about.

Networking is relatively simple. Particularly if you keep it all-in-a-bundle of service elements and total platform compatibility issues. Having something /worthwhile/ to network means analyzing how much of a given fire you need to score a given number of kills and then determining how many platforms you need to deploy to get those kills within an acceptable loss margin. Without the physical element (which we remain YEARS from properly achieving autonomous ops on robotic fires delivery) the NCW model will be nothing but decorative icing on conventional forces like the 'digitial division' concept is now.


KPl.

This has already been psoted by deltaboy somewhere. The videos are very good and defenetly worth watching.