Convincing Congress that it should fund a next-generation combat
vehicle is only half the battle for the Army. The other half is
persuading industry that it should invest its engineering talent
and dollars in this program, because the Army is serious about it.
This particular project is unlike any previous attempt to build
a new Army vehicle. It is called the "future combat system,"
or FCS, a moniker that was made purposely vague, because the Army
did not specify the vehicle's design, nor did it provide contractors
with detailed guidance as to how the vehicle should be built.
For the FCS program, the Army wants industry to come up with innovative
concepts for building a family of multi-role vehicles-which would
serve as troop carrier, missile launcher, direct and indirect fire
platform, scout, ambulance, and in other battlefield applications.
This jack-of-all-trades also would need to be stealthy, or nearly
undetectable, should have state-of-the-art communications, command
and control capabilities and, most importantly, should be small
and light enough to fit on a C-130 medium-lift cargo plane. That
means it should be less than one-third the weight of the current
workhorse, the Abrams tank, which weighs 70 tons.
Because of its size, FCS will not be the kind of battle juggernaut
that the Army now has with the Abrams. It will not be able to take
direct anti-tank weapon hits and survive. For that reason, the Army
wants it to be highly maneuverable and digitally connected to all
the other manned and unmanned platforms in the theater-so it can
stay abreast of enemy movements and move quickly to dodge incoming
strikes.
The Army needs FCS, because the current tank is too heavy and logistically
cumbersome to transport on short notice to hot spots around the
world. FCS, in other words, is the Army's ticket to military efficiency
and relevance in the post-Cold War world of fast-erupting regional
conflicts.
Under the traditional Army procurement paradigm, the service would
have issued specific instructions for contractors to follow in order
to meet the Army's requirements for a particular vehicle. Contractors
then would build prototypes according to the Army's directives,
and the companies would compete for a large production contract
award.
That is not how it's done with FCS.
In another departure from conventional acquisition practices, the
Army partnered with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA) for the FCS program. DARPA is known for its cutting-edge
work, and the Army believes that DARPA can help the Army think "outside
the box," which is Pentagon jargon for being innovative.
The DARPA/Army team awarded $10 million contracts last May to four
industry consortia, for a two-year design phase, during which the
contractors will develop FCS concepts from a "clean sheet of
paper." Each industry team also will invest its own corporate
dollars in the project.
"FCS is the most complex science and technology endeavor undertaken
by the Army," said A. Michael Andrews, deputy assistant secretary
of the Army for research and technology. He explained the goal is
to present the chief of staff of the Army with final FCS concepts
by April 2003, move into the development phase by 2006 and equip
an Army unit with FCS vehicles by 2012.
The Army's investment in FCS during the next five years will be
about $2 billion.
"We have ourselves an uphill fight. It's not going to go smoothly,"
said Frank L. Fernandez, director of DARPA.
Digital Environment
Meanwhile, the Army also is recruiting Hollywood's creative talent
to develop advanced simulations and digital environments that will
help soldiers train with the new FCS.
"We will be working on immersive virtual-reality training
tools, leveraging capabilities in the computer-game and entertainment
industry," said James Korriss, creative director at the Institute
for Creative Technologies, a research center which opened in August
1999, at the University of Southern California, as a liaison between
the Army and the film-entertainment industry.
"FCS is really intriguing to an outsider," Korriss said
during a conference on FCS technologies sponsored by the Association
of the U.S. Army. "It's almost an effort to try to reinvent
yourselves ... to ensure [the Army's] continued relevance."
Korriss said the Army could benefit from the unconventional thinking
that occurs in Hollywood. "I kept hearing that the Army was
encouraging its constituency to look 'outside the box.' It occurred
to us that [it should] go to the place where they don't know boxes-Hollywood."
Some "interesting work" often is accomplished by people
known primarily as artists, such as Leonardo da Vinci, said Korriss.
"He was a man who imagined human flight, imagined machineries
of war before they were technologically possible." At the Institute
for Creative Technologies, he said, "we decided to round up
some people who, like Leonardo, might imagine."
Culturally speaking, the Army and Hollywood are not as far apart
as most people would think, Korriss said. "They have much in
common: they are hierarchical, political, very intense, [with] a
lot at stake."
The team working on a virtual 3-D environment for the FCS at the
institute has a director, a script writer, a production designer,
a graphic artist, two game designers and subject-matter experts,
such as retired military officers. The crew was recruited from the
movie industry and includes accomplished professionals, said Korriss.
"We try to imagine the world in 15 years. It can be square
block in Kosovo, or an invasion of China." The goal is to think
about circumstances in the future and to tell a story.
It is too early, however, to predict whether the FCS story will
have a happy ending.
The Army, for now, must continue to build confidence in this program,
which will exist only in computer models for several more years.
Retired Lt. Gen. Thomas G. Rhame, who served as a corps commander
in Operation Desert Storm, believes the Army is moving in the right
direction by "drawing the parties together from the science
and technology community and industry to let people know that this
is serious business." There is "no question in my mind,"
said Rhame in an interview, that "industry understands that
this Army is serious about improving its strategic relevance and
capability in the future."