Army's high-tech future is near
Some see Buck Rogers in the technology, others the bucks in the price tag - $200-billion.
By Washington PostPublished December 28, 2007
EL PASO, Texas - A $200-billion plan to remake the largest war machine in history unfolds in one small way on a quiet country road in the Chihuahuan Desert.
Jack Hensley, one of a legion of contractors on the project, is hunkered in a slowly moving sport-utility vehicle, serving as target practice for a baby-faced soldier in a Humvee aiming a laser about 700 yards away. A moment later, another soldier in the Humvee punches commands into a computer transmitting data across an expanse of sand and mesquite to a site 21/2 miles away. On an actual battlefield, this is when a precision attack missile would be launched, killing Hensley almost instantly.
For soldiers in an experimental Army brigade at the sprawling Fort Bliss base, it's the first day of field training on a new weapon called the Non-Line of Sight Launch System, or NLOS-LS, a box of rockets that can automatically change direction in midair and hit a moving target about 24 miles away. The Army says it has never had a weapon like it. "It's not the Spartans with the swords anymore," says Emmett Schaill, the brigade commander, peering into the desertscape.
In the Army's vision, the war of the future is increasingly combat by mouse clicks. It's as networked as the Internet, as mobile as a cell phone, as intuitive as a video game. The Army has a name for this vision: Future Combat Systems, or FCS. The project involves creating a family of 14 weapons, drones, robots, sensors and hybrid-electric combat vehicles connected by a wireless network. It has turned into the most ambitious modernization of the Army since World War II and the most expensive Army weapons program ever, military officials say.
It's also one of the most controversial. Even as some early versions of these weapons make their way onto the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, members of Congress, government investigators and military observers question whether the Defense Department has set the stage for one of its biggest and costliest failures. At risk, they say, are billions of taxpayer dollars spent on exotic technology that may never come to fruition, leaving the Army little time and few resources to prepare for new threats.
Future Combat Systems "has some serious problems," said Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, chairman of the House air and land forces subcommittee. "Since its inception, costs have gone up dramatically while promised capability has steadily diminished. I don't see how the Army can afford to rebuild itself and pay for the FCS program as it stands today."
To hear the military tell it, there's a hint of Buck Rogers in the program, including an unmanned craft that hovers like a flying saucer between buildings and detects danger. The idea of Future Combat Systems is to create a lighter, faster force that can react better to tomorrow's unpredictable foes.
The last time the Army tried anything so far-reaching was more than half a century ago when it introduced mechanized forces, moving soldiers en masse by machine rather than by foot.
Others say the Army has pushed too far. The Government Accountability Office and the Congressional Budget Office have questioned the cost and management of Future Combat Systems.
The project originated in part in 1995 when Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales Jr., now retired, launched a series of war games. As director of the Army After Next project, his job was to divine the nature of war a quarter-century hence. So Scales assembled a team of about 700, including members of the Army, Air Force, Marines, the CIA and civilian scientists, who warred over the next two years in a huge simulation center at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa. "The Army had never done it - they thought I was off my rocker," he said.
The blue team represented the Americans. The red were the Iranians, who in one scenario captured Riyadh and began executing the royal Saudi family on live television. That drew the blue team into the streets of Riyadh, which, choked with heavy armor, became a bloody mess. Scales, building on earlier military research, realized that the United States needed a lighter, mobile force.
He called it the "Aha moment."
Then a fiasco hastened the Army's commitment to modernize. In 1999, the Army was bogged down in muddy logistics as it sought to move Apache helicopters into Albania so they could be used in the Kosovo war. They didn't make it before the fight ended, an embarrassment that prompted Army Chief of Staff Eric K. Shinseki to declare that the service needed to get lighter and faster - quickly.
EL PASO, Texas - A $200-billion plan to remake the largest war machine in history unfolds in one small way on a quiet country road in the Chihuahuan Desert.
Jack Hensley, one of a legion of contractors on the project, is hunkered in a slowly moving sport-utility vehicle, serving as target practice for a baby-faced soldier in a Humvee aiming a laser about 700 yards away. A moment later, another soldier in the Humvee punches commands into a computer transmitting data across an expanse of sand and mesquite to a site 21/2 miles away. On an actual battlefield, this is when a precision attack missile would be launched, killing Hensley almost instantly.
For soldiers in an experimental Army brigade at the sprawling Fort Bliss base, it's the first day of field training on a new weapon called the Non-Line of Sight Launch System, or NLOS-LS, a box of rockets that can automatically change direction in midair and hit a moving target about 24 miles away. The Army says it has never had a weapon like it. "It's not the Spartans with the swords anymore," says Emmett Schaill, the brigade commander, peering into the desertscape.
In the Army's vision, the war of the future is increasingly combat by mouse clicks. It's as networked as the Internet, as mobile as a cell phone, as intuitive as a video game. The Army has a name for this vision: Future Combat Systems, or FCS. The project involves creating a family of 14 weapons, drones, robots, sensors and hybrid-electric combat vehicles connected by a wireless network. It has turned into the most ambitious modernization of the Army since World War II and the most expensive Army weapons program ever, military officials say.
It's also one of the most controversial. Even as some early versions of these weapons make their way onto the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, members of Congress, government investigators and military observers question whether the Defense Department has set the stage for one of its biggest and costliest failures. At risk, they say, are billions of taxpayer dollars spent on exotic technology that may never come to fruition, leaving the Army little time and few resources to prepare for new threats.
Future Combat Systems "has some serious problems," said Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, chairman of the House air and land forces subcommittee. "Since its inception, costs have gone up dramatically while promised capability has steadily diminished. I don't see how the Army can afford to rebuild itself and pay for the FCS program as it stands today."
To hear the military tell it, there's a hint of Buck Rogers in the program, including an unmanned craft that hovers like a flying saucer between buildings and detects danger. The idea of Future Combat Systems is to create a lighter, faster force that can react better to tomorrow's unpredictable foes.
The last time the Army tried anything so far-reaching was more than half a century ago when it introduced mechanized forces, moving soldiers en masse by machine rather than by foot.
Others say the Army has pushed too far. The Government Accountability Office and the Congressional Budget Office have questioned the cost and management of Future Combat Systems.
The project originated in part in 1995 when Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales Jr., now retired, launched a series of war games. As director of the Army After Next project, his job was to divine the nature of war a quarter-century hence. So Scales assembled a team of about 700, including members of the Army, Air Force, Marines, the CIA and civilian scientists, who warred over the next two years in a huge simulation center at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa. "The Army had never done it - they thought I was off my rocker," he said.
The blue team represented the Americans. The red were the Iranians, who in one scenario captured Riyadh and began executing the royal Saudi family on live television. That drew the blue team into the streets of Riyadh, which, choked with heavy armor, became a bloody mess. Scales, building on earlier military research, realized that the United States needed a lighter, mobile force.
He called it the "Aha moment."
Then a fiasco hastened the Army's commitment to modernize. In 1999, the Army was bogged down in muddy logistics as it sought to move Apache helicopters into Albania so they could be used in the Kosovo war. They didn't make it before the fight ended, an embarrassment that prompted Army Chief of Staff Eric K. Shinseki to declare that the service needed to get lighter and faster - quickly.
Joint Capability Developer: Advancing Warfighter Effectiveness and Combat
Capability
DARPA is working on a program called Adversarial Intelligence and Decision-making (RAID), a tool for semi-automated generation of enemy estimates.
Reading the mind of your enemy may soon become easier. Computers may be able to do so even better than humans, experiments conducted by the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA) Real-time Adversarial Intelligence and Decision-making (RAID) program suggest.
RAID is a tool for semi-automated generation of enemy estimates. Its job is to anticipate the upcoming actions of the enemy, and do so not just before, but also during the unfolding battle, in near real-time. In a way, one may say the purpose of RAID is to read the mind of the enemy. (cont...)
RAID is a tool for semi-automated generation of enemy estimates. Its job is to anticipate the upcoming actions of the enemy, and do so not just before, but also during the unfolding battle, in near real-time. In a way, one may say the purpose of RAID is to read the mind of the enemy. (cont...)
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