Future_Combat_Systems

The Future Combat Systems (FCS) is the Army’s first full-spectrum modernization in nearly 40 years. This is stated as fact in the white paper approved for release on 14 March 2007. This maybe the case now, however, the Army may not have another five years to wait before it is fully tested and fielded. The world we live in today is called the information age for a good reason. The amount of time it takes to field the FCS will cause it to be obsolete before it can become the future of warfare. Technology is measured by the nano and pico second in the world we live in today. By the time the FCS is fielded to the units it was designed to aid in 2015, technology will have passed it by. I believe that the Army is taking too long to field this program. The 2015 date should be revised and the system should be fielded within the next two years, if not sooner. The white paper lays out a timeline that in black and white make sense, however, the world we live in today is not black and white. The world we live in today is texting and tweeting, and if you remain complacent, technology will pass you by. It may be true that the hardware spec’d out in the FCS is designed to be upgraded. But consider this: the military may have planned for the upgrades but what about the technological lag time between each one of the spin outs' I don’t feel that enough consideration has been given to this lag time. No one wants to buy the first edition of software or hardware these days because of the bugs that haven’t been worked out. Many people simply wait for the 2.0 version. The problem I see is that over a long duration of time, soldiers and civilians that program, update and patch this new system may not even be in uniform or working for the military by 2015. Consider a laptop which may have cost over two thousand dollars one year ago. At the time it was state the art and the fastest hardware available. Today, that same laptop manufacturer doesn’t even sell that model, instead it offers a much faster one, rendering last year’s model old and slow. The FCS was announced over six years ago. How much has technology changed in that time' Consider the technology that humans cannot live without. The cell phone or nowadays, the “smart” phone, complete with news, weather and sports. If a phone the size of a wallet is this advanced now, what can it do five years from now' Or take, for example, the Intel Pentium processer. When it was first introduced in the mid 90’s it was the fastest processer available in home computer systems. Today we have dual and quad-core processors that are five hundred times more powerful than the single-core Pentium that ruled the 90’s. There is a law named after Gordon E. Moore which explains how computer processing capabilities doubles each year due to advancements in the type, size, and amounts of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuit. This law is known as Moore’s law. Moore wrote about his law in a paper published in 1965. The paper was based on what he had observed starting in the 1958 with the invention of the integrated circuit. He created a chart that shows a doubling effect and just how much technology would grow until, coincidentally, the year 2015. According to this law there is still much more growing to do before 2015. The Army should consider Moore’s law when planning technological upgrades because it has proven to be so accurate. We can’t delay the fielding of such a life saving and combat enhancement system. The Army says this is an accelerated delivery timeline. By the time the future service members have the opportunity to train on this system, we run the risk that they may have already played on their Play Station III. Another example I give that Army technology is in danger of being obsolete before it is fielded is the automotive industry. The auto industry has the ability to copy technology and place it our cars at a record pace. Take, for instance, the Global Positioning Systems (GPS). Four years ago GPS’s increased in popularity until today it almost seems if you don’t have one you can’t get to your destination. Need I remind anyone that we used these in our military vehicles as a way of getting from point A to point B long before the public did. Look at the items that are in vehicles today. Many upscale models come with a system that offers hands-free parallel parking. Now many new vehicles come with this as a standard package. Technology is out-running our fielding timelines. In this paper I have shown that the amount of time it takes to field the FCS will cause it to be obsolete before it can be used effectively. Given the rapid pace of the electronic and computer industry today it is not logical to believe that the FCS will still be the cutting edge of warfare by 2015. We must field this system within the next two years if not much sooner. Any time wasted could be lives wasted.