Future Combat Systems

Template:TOC-right Expected to begin full deployment in 2010, Future Combat Systems are an integrated, network-centric set of techologies and equipment for enhanced warfighting by the United States Army. Most components are in advanced testing, whie some are in operation. In the original concepts, 14 combat subsystems were identified, along with enabling technologies. These call for advances in a set of 44 technologies. In March 2008, the General Accountability Office said the Army rated 2 of them as fully mature, 30 are nearing full maturity. 6 advancing, and 3 less mature. The systems, however, will be rolled out incrementally with periodic reviews and reassessment. Some, however, are now in combat use.

Shared among all the components is:

• A system-of-systems common operating environment (SOSCOE): it supports multiple mission-critical applications by using a nonproprietary, standards-based architecture and COTS computing hardware adapted for military applications.
• Battle command (BC) software: this includes mission planning and preparation, situation understanding with a common operational picture, mission execution, and warfighter-machine interface (WMI) applications.
• Tactical and Strategic Communications, using Increment 3 of the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T).
• Intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance (ISR) sensors: these are a distributed, networked array of multispectral sensors that provide a "see first" capability that is rapidly shared across the FCS network.

Procurement, Risk and economics

These systems will unquestionably be expensive. The key question is whether the greater cost will be justified by greater efficiencies, including the ability both to field smaller forces and to lower risk among the troops of those forces. In the Fiscal Year 2007 appropriation, while $3.4 billion for the Future Combat Systems (FCS) program was appropriated for FCS, the U.S. Department of Defense is required to submit "independent cost estimate[s] of the core FCS program, FCS spinouts and FCS complementary systems." "Spinouts" are the systems that are being sent to combat units in the field, before the full FCS deployments begin; they focus on systems needed by Infantry Brigade Combat Teams. The General Accountability Office has raised concerns over risk in premature procurement.

According to the GAO, not all critical may be fully mature until the Army’s production decision in February 2013; a major reassessment is due in early 2009, based on the results of early implementation. Some of the enabling technologies include the separately managed Joint Tactical Radio System, which is behind schedule in some areas; early FCS systems requiring JTRS will be tested with interim radios.

Some of the systems have been defunded, for budgetary reasons, including the Armed Robotic Vehicle and the Class II and III unmanned aerial vehicle. Four proposals for reducing scope have been presented:

• Alternative I, full suite of sensors in the FCS program (to provide enhanced information collection capabilities) and a version of the FCS network (to disseminate that information). All manned vehicles, unmanned ground vehicles (UGV), and the Improved Munitions System (IMS) and its NLOS-LS launcher would be cancelled.
• Alternative II: retain the sensors and keep the program’s systems that focus on attacking targets more than 20 km away. All manned vehicles, unmanned ground vehicles, Improved Munitions System, and the new version Class I and II UAVs would be cancelled.
• Alternative III: focus away from sensors and long-range weapons and concentrate replacing older maneuvering vehicles, especially those based on the M113 and the M109 howitzer. This would retain the NLOS cannon and mortar, 25% of the infantry combat vehicles, the command and control vehicles, and the medical vehicles. The mounted combat system, recovery/maintenance vehicle and reconnaissance vehicle would be cancelled, as well as all of the UGV, unattended ground sensors, and IMS.
• Alternative IV: cancel all but a scaled-down network.

"Under none of the alternatives would the service develop or procure the unmanned ground vehicles or improved munitions systems that are currently planned under the FCS program, and all of the alternatives would upgrade existing armored vehicles to convert them to the latest model of the current system and prevent their average age from increasing. Such upgrades would also integrate the capabilities associated with the retained FCS components when the systems became available".

Soldier as a System (Saas)

Aside from all the unmanned sensors, combat vehicles, crew-served weapons, and other features, it cannot be overemphasized that FCS includes the idea of the "soldier as a system" (SaaS), which includes a highly trained soldier, equipped with engineered clothing, personal equipment, and even food. While the fully FCS-equipped soldier is not quite the Mobile Infantry of Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers, or the "Borg" of the Star Trek universe, many of the SaaS features, in active field testing, give many observers a sense that science fiction has become reality. The soldier is the most important of the systems.

While the project literature often speaks of 13 or 14 subsystems, there are several logical groups of systems.

Intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and target acquisition (IRSTA)

ISR systems, arguably, are the second most important component of FCS after the soldier, continuing a widespread Army saying, "If you can find it, you can hit it. If you can hit it, you can kill it." Wise adversaries know, therefore, that their first imperative is not to be found; the first part of actual warfare is the reconnaissance-counterreconnaissance duel. The priority given to this system and mission is already obvious in brigade combat teams, which operate with RSTA systems that take up an unprecedented amount of resources in units of brigade size: the RSTA Squadron and Military Intelligence Company.

Unattended ground sensors (UGS) are a major component, for genneral tactical and urban-specific environments. While ISR is not the only functions for the FCS UAVs, they strongly support ISR.

Manned vehicles and weapons

All the manned vehicles of the FCS share some common automotive mechanical and electronic components.

The actual systems that ISRTA directs fall into two categories, kinetic kill and non-kinetic-kill. Kinetic kill mechanisms continue the principles of traditional weaponry: physical destruction of the target by explosive force, heat or mechanical impact. Most of the kinetic weapons are Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS), so they can shelter while firing and have their projectiles guided into the target.

Nonkinetic kill, however, using such things as electronic warfare and information operations can neutralize enemy capabilities rather than destroy them. Clearly, the enemy has to use electronics for electronic warfare to be relevant, but electronic warfare is not the only aspect of nonkinetic kill. Information operations include psychological warfare; the principle that the wisest general is the one who wins without fighting goes back to Sun Tzu in 400 BC. BCTs, even before FCS, make psychological warfare, humanitarian relief, and other parts of information operations, effective against low-technology enemies, a basic part of planning. Both for intelligence and information operations, indeed, one of the perceived critical shortfalls is a lack of linguists.

XM1201 Reconnaissance and Surveillance Vehicle (RSVs)

To some extent an improvement on the M3 cavalry fighting vehicle and the Stryker scout vehicle of the BCT RSTA Squadron, the RSV finds the enemy and guides NLOS fires onto it.

Its equipment mast-mounted, long-range electro-optic infrared sensor; an emitter mapping sensor for Radio Frequency (RF) intercept and direction finding; remote chemical detection; and a multifunction RF sensor. The RSV also has onboard processing and analysis, and carries Unattended Ground Sensors (UGS), a Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle (SUGV), and a Class I Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) system.

XM1202 Mounted Combat System (MCS)

One of the MGV family, the XM1202 Mounted Combat System (MCS) officially provides Line of Sight (LOS) and Beyond Line of Sight (BLOS) offensive firepower capability allowing BCTs to close with and destroy enemy forces. It directly supports dismounted infantry in an assault, defeating bunkers, and breaching walls during the tactical assault.

XM3601 gun for the Mounted Combat System

Its role differs from any other recent combat vehicle. Even though it carries a 120mm cannon, it is certainly not a replacement for the M1 Abrams tank. While the M2 Bradley infantry carier can provide fire support to troops in the assault, M2 weapons are much lighter than those of the XM1202.

In providing direct assault functions, it has some parallels to the retired M729 Combat Engineer Vehicle, to the defunded, Abrams-derived Grizzly breaching vehicle. The Grizzly was a modified Abrams tank, with a dozer blade and a powered arm for loading or moving. Small quantities of Abrams-derived Assault Breacher Vehicles have been built for the United States Marine Corps, but these are optimized against minefields and berms, not bunkers. The XM1202 does not have a dozer blade or a crane, as did the M728.

Bradley engineer squad vehicles (EBFV, or M2A2-ODS-E) carry engineers and their equipment onto the battlefield, but do not have the short-range, line-of-sight 165mm gun that was on the M729, or any equivalent.

When employing the Mid-Range Munition (MRM), the MCS also provides BLOS fires to destroy point targets through the integrated sensor network. This BLOS capability never existed in the M729.

XM1203 NLOS cannon (NLOS-C)

Of the non-individual kinetic kill mechanisms, among the first is the non-line-of-sight cannon (NLOS-C). Physically, it is an advanced 155mm howitzer, self-propelled on a manned vehicle, which will succeed the U.S. M109 Paladin series, but with smaller crews and more capabiity. Perhaps even more important than crew and weapon capability, however, is that the M109s, even though self-propelled and lightly armored, are too slow, as vehicles, to stay in formation with Abrams and Bradley vehicles at cruising speed.

Ammunition handling, loading and firing are mechanized and automatic, provide an unprecedentedly high rate of fire. Most munitions fired will be guided shells with great accuracy. This is one of the early spinoff projects.

In addition, the fire control compputing system allows Multiple Round Simultaneous Impact (MRSI). MRSI is a technique in which a single cannon can put a burst of multiple projectiles in the air, with trajectories calculated such that they will impact near-simultaneously. MRSI salvoes begin by firing the first shell in a trajectory that will have the longest flight time, and then following with automatically loaded shells in individually computed trajectories, each with a shorter flight time.

Additional funding, in Fiscal Year 2007, was $112.3 million. As of February 2008, one thousand test shells had been fired from a preproduction platform. The first NLOS-C shell was fired, from a fully automatic platform, on September 23, 2008.

XM1204 NLOS mortar (NLOS-M)

An intelligent mortar is intended for closer engagement distances, as well as certain engagement geometries, than is practical with the NLOS-C howitzer-based system.

Medical vehicles

• XM1207 Evacuation (MV-E)
• XM1208 Treatment (MV-T)

XM501 NLOS launch system (NLOS-LS)

NLOS-LS test-firing a PAM

This is a lightweight launcher for Precision Attack Missiles (PAM), which have both LOS or short BLOS modes as well as a boost-glide trajectory mode. One of its roles is to bring long-range strike Infantry and Special Operations Forces, which do not have long-range precision fires capability without augmentation from artillery or air support.

It gets targeting information during and after launch, can follow laser designation, or use autonomous sensors.As opposed to current missiles, the PAM can near-real-time information in the form of target imagery prior to impact, simplifying post-strike assessment. They are also under consideration for the United States Navy Littoral Combat Ship.

It is now scheduled as part of FCS Spin Out 1 Limited User Test (LUT) for the summer of 2009. Successfull completion of the LUT would be needed for the planned NLOS-LS deployment to an Infantry Brigade Combat Team in 2011.

Munitions

Intelligent munitions system (IMS)

While unintelligent antipersonnel land mines are being banned by treaty, the mine ban, Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, is specific to that type. Also known as the Ottawa Treaty, it does not preclude antitank mines with even the minimum mechanical fuzes that prevent them from being detonated by anything lighter than a large vehicle, posing little risk to civilians.

The IMS incorporates far more intelligent sensors than the simple weight-actuated fuze of an antitank mine. Indeed, individual IMS components may be "man-in-the-loop": their unattended action is limited to detecting a possible target and requesting human consent to engage it. Autonomous IMS weapons are highly selective; they might, for example, attack a presumed tank only if it met the predefined and specific acoustic and magnetic signatures (i.e., geophysical MASINT) of a specific tank model. "Man-in-the-loop", or "command detonated mines" such as the U.S. M18A1 Claymore are excepted from antipersonnel land mine treaties.

Mid-range munition

Mid-range munitions are a family of precision-guided munitions to be fired from 120mm or 105mm artillery. 120mm is the most common caliber for a main tank gun, and indeed prototypes were fired, in 2004, from M1 Abrams guns. The basic guidance mechanism of the prototypes is semi-active laser, in which the shell homes on a target "painted" by a laser designator. Sensors under development will allow the munition to guide itself. The FCS Mounted Combat Vehicle and NLOS Mortar are 120mm.

Raytheon, the prime contractor, also builds the Excalibur 155mm guided shell (i.e., without a rocket motor) used in the current M109 howitzer and the U.S. Navy's Extended Range Guided Munition (ERGM).

All types under development have a rocket motor for extending range, as well as stabilizing fins. Course adjusting tends to involve small rocket thrusters rather than aerodynamic control surfaces such as rudders.

There are two warhead types, kinetic energy (KE) and chemical energy (CE). Kinetic energy rounds, which are the most common type used against heavily armored targets (e.g., APFSDS) today, accelerate a hard metal "dart" to extreme velocities. Chemical energy warheads carry explosives, and have superior performance against area and unarmored targets.

Unmanned aerial vehicles

There are four classes of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), ranging from Class I units that can be carried in backpacks, larger vehicle-carried Class II, to Class III battalion-level resources and Class IV at Brigade Combat Team control.

Class I and II are primarily for reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition (RSTA), to let soldiers send a robot ahead of them. At classes III and IV, additional functions join basic RSTA, as a multifunction system with the range and endurance to provide communications relay, weather information, chemical/biological/radiological/nuclear (CBRN) survey, and airborne detection of land mines. The Class IV UAV is operational as the MQ-8.

Unmanned ground vehicles

The XM1217 Transport MULE Vehicle (MULE-T), a Multifunctional utility/logistics and equipment (MULE) vehicle: a 2.5-ton unmanned ground vehicle that supports dismounted operations and includes a chassis, autonomous navigation system, operator control unit, and three mission-equipment packages. Besides its basic transport "carry the backpacks" function, it has three major variants:

• XM1216 Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle (SUGV): a small, lightweight, man-portable UGV that can conduct military operations in urban terrain tunnels, sewers, and caves.
• XM1218 Countermine MULE Vehicle (MULE-CM)
• XM1219 Armed Robotic Vehicle-Assault-Light (ARV-A-L), which has been defunded for budgetary reasons.