US Army defends progress on modernization program
WASHINGTON, May 13 (Reuters) - A senior U.S. Army official on Tuesday defended progress on a mammoth modernization program known as the Future Combat Systems (FCS), saying it was on cost and on schedule despite some technological challenges.
FCS, managed by prime contractors Boeing Co (BA.N) and SAIC (SAI.N), is a system of 14 major weapons systems linked by computer networks. The Army estimates it will cost $160 billion, but the Government Accountability Office says the program's cost could balloon to $200 billion.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Tuesday urged the U.S. military to focus on winning the war in Iraq and preparing to fight other insurgencies. Speaking in Colorado Springs, Gates said that to remain viable, programs like FCS would have to show they were relevant to counterinsurgency warfare.
Four initial technologies, including a portable missile system and unattended ground sensors, are being tested now and are due to be sent into combat with troops in 2011.
Lt. Col. Scott Turner, the Army's deputy director for FCS integration, said he was confident that the overall program and its 44 critical technologies were "on track" to allow the fielding of the four systems in 2011 and the overall roll-out of the first FCS brigade combat team in 2015.
He said Gates was questioning the system because of its overall cost, but he remained convinced that the additional capabilities it would give the Army were well worth the investment.
"If you look at the capability it brings ... I don't think the price is that bad," Turner told Reuters at an exhibition of Army programs to Congress.
The Army has restructured the FCS program twice since its start in 2003 to allow the fielding of individual technologies, to reduce the scope of the program from 18 to 14 weapons systems, and to stretch the program for four years.
Turner said there were no current plans to restructure the program again or scale it back further. (Reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)
