FCS in future conflicts

[Ski]

There's no way in hell that 15 EBCT/FBCT's are activated. A single FCS equipped BCT costs well into the mutiple BILLION dollar range. Hell, a Stryker BCT costs $1.2B.

This is the fallacy of the Army and FCS - they continue to expect to have these massive defense budgets with gigantic procurement programs. Hell, the FCS program was just tagged with an additional $13B rise in costs, now bringing it up to $174B for the entire program.

And as Mountain Runner states, it isn't even going to be that useful outside a high intensity conflict. A buried 500lb bomb will blow one of these to hell like any other vehicle.

I've read the argument about why FCS is needed - to counter hyper-kinetic rounds. We can't even get LOSAT right, and that sucker is 9 feet long and almost 200 pounds.

[MountainRunner]

FYI: In the spirit of this thread, over in another part of SWC I posted this link to a brief survey on robots in war. Thanks in advance for filling out the survey.

[Granite_State]

There's no way in hell that 15 EBCT/FBCT's are activated. A single FCS equipped BCT costs well into the mutiple BILLION dollar range. Hell, a Stryker BCT costs $1.2B.

This is the fallacy of the Army and FCS - they continue to expect to have these massive defense budgets with gigantic procurement programs. Hell, the FCS program was just tagged with an additional $13B rise in costs, now bringing it up to $174B for the entire program.

And as Mountain Runner states, it isn't even going to be that useful outside a high intensity conflict. A buried 500lb bomb will blow one of these to hell like any other vehicle.

That's my fear in a nutshell.

[Kreker]

There's no way in hell that 15 EBCT/FBCT's are activated. A single FCS equipped BCT costs well into the mutiple BILLION dollar range. Hell, a Stryker BCT costs $1.2B.

This is the fallacy of the Army and FCS - they continue to expect to have these massive defense budgets with gigantic procurement programs. Hell, the FCS program was just tagged with an additional $13B rise in costs, now bringing it up to $174B for the entire program.

And as Mountain Runner states, it isn't even going to be that useful outside a high intensity conflict. A buried 500lb bomb will blow one of these to hell like any other vehicle.

I've read the argument about why FCS is needed - to counter hyper-kinetic rounds. We can't even get LOSAT right, and that sucker is 9 feet long and almost 200 pounds.

Ski,
I only state the facts as I know them. What the future holds is anyones best guess. As of today, the Army leadership supports FCS. It's the Army's major modernization program. To put it in perspective funding wise across DOD it is the ONLY
Army program in the top 10!

Don't know where you can up with the additonal $13B.

Yes, a 500lb buried bomb will blow up an FCS vehicle. But, hopefully with the sensor array, UGVs, UAVs, that 500lb bomb will be detected, either during emplacement or prior to contact.

Thanks for the opportunity to dialogue.