So we're going back to the drawing board:
“The ground combat vehicle blue ribbon panel is in response to the recent decisions regarding the Future Combat Systems (FCS) manned ground vehicle program,” said Gen. Chiarelli. “However, the Army is still in need of a vehicle that can protect soldiers, and cope with 21st century operational requirements. The blue ribbon panel will take a fresh look at these requirements including capabilities, technologies and lessons learned from the FCS program.”
I've been worried about replacing the Abrams with some small thing as if the Abrams is a dinosaur and the FCS was the new mammal on the block that would turn the giant main battle tank extinct.
But I've accepted that we need an armored vehicle to give us deployable forces in between leg infantry and 70-ton M-1 tanks. And despite my initial skepticism, the Stryker has proven itself in Iraq (although with added on protection that at least validates my primary worry about the system). So we have that light armored vehicle, especially if we use the chassis for variants like the one with the 105mm cannon mounted on it.
I hope that the panel notices that Abrams and Bradleys completed their missions while protecting our soldiers--and did it in the 21st century. As I noted in the Military Review article I linked in the post noted above:
Barring successfully fielding exotic technologies to make the FCS work, the Army must consider how it will defeat future heavy systems if fighting actual enemies and not merely suppressing disorder becomes its mission once again. The tentative assumptions of 2001 will change by 2025. When they do, the Army will rue its failure today to accept that the wonder tank will not be built.
We may need something better than these heavy systems, but we need systems that do what they did so well from 1991 to today--win and survive.
