From the "That Would Certainly Be Nice if Possible" file:
"The Next Generation Combat Vehicle needs to be revolutionary," Gen Robert Abrams, commander of Forces Command, told an audience at the Association of the United States Army's Global Force Symposium.
"It's got to be 10X better than our current fleet and guarantee our overmatch into the future."
I see the Army wants to build a wonder tank--again.
But as I warned in 2002 (See "Equipping the Objective Force") about the Future Combat Systems that would leap-frog technology and create a lethal, survivable combat vehicle that would be strategically mobile, as well:
Building the FCS, however, is a high-risk venture. The Army should not spend whatever it takes attempting to meld multiple revolutionary technologies into one vehicle for all missions. The FCS should be different from the Abrams and Bradley but must be designed with near-term technology that incorporates modular improvements if the Army is to turn “gee whiz” ideas into actual hardware. Separated missiles and a sensor grid; active defenses; EGTs; and exotic engines, fuels, and weapons can be retrofitted to defeat more capable enemies. 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.
What the Hell, it's 16 years later. I'm sure now we can build the wonder tank that in no way is a high-risk venture to build armored fighting vehicles ten times as good as our current models and destined to overmatch opponents well into the future.
Good grief. Just aim for twice as good as current vehicles and leave room to add improvements over the next decades.
Or is the Army going to claim that the most recent models of the Abrams tank and Bradley fighting vehicle aren't far better than the original models?
And funny enough, my warning was prophetic. The assumptions of 2001 were indeed changed to recognize the need to fight actual heavy enemies--and well before 2025.
