Comments on: Helos, Drones Up, FCS Down for Army

By: x-MAN

x-MAN — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 19:36:59 +0000

Mr. cole we went down that up armored vehicle road with the FAAD C2. The good news is one can add on armored, via kits but the bad news is the vehicle’s payload is reduced as well as its performance such as speed and acceleration. An armored kit reduced the HMMWV by 1200lbs.

By: x-MAN

x-MAN — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 15:55:41 +0000

Does anyone know if ATEC is involved with FCS testing. When I was on the program Boeing told you the stuff worked. The program I am on now, ATEC certifies all test results; this helps to ensure that the Warfighter is getting equipment that works according to spec?

By: rial

rial — Tue, 12 May 2009 17:31:31 +0000

“Afghan hates drones and that includes all terrorists as an Ozzy said”.….Iraq is nothing
compared to this!Very dark.…

By: Jackson

Jackson — Tue, 12 May 2009 15:52:20 +0000

Any mention of a termination fee agreement?

By: Colin Clark

Colin Clark — Tue, 12 May 2009 15:27:07 +0000

Jackson,

No. MGV will be cut this week, Army COS Casey just told Senate appropriators.

By: Jackson

Jackson — Tue, 12 May 2009 15:05:14 +0000

Does the budget have to go through Congress before a stop-work order would be issued for all of the MGV variants?

By: Colin Clark

Colin Clark — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:38:04 +0000

avnreader — We had it but we put it in the Air Force budget story.…

By: avnreader

avnreader — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:22:05 +0000

One piece that seems to be missed in all the reporting is that the Weapons Systems Program slides indicated that the Joint Cargo Aircraft program and mission is being completely transferred to the Air Force in this budget request. http://www.defenselink.mil/comptroller/defbudget/fy2010/fy2010_SSJ_Major_Weapons_Systems.pdf

page 9 or (3–9)

By: Armywonk

Armywonk — Fri, 08 May 2009 00:12:43 +0000

What’s interesting is that it appears that there is no money in the FY10 budget to restart the manned ground vehicle effort as Gates promised at the Army War College last month. The money in those accounts is almost certainly for termination costs. Breaking faith is never good…

By: Cole

Cole — Thu, 07 May 2009 22:52:04 +0000

FCS didn’t ignore lesson from Iraq. A V-hull kit was already planned and the suspension of the manned ground vehicle would allow you to elevate the vehicle above its normal 18″ height to fit the kit and still have lots of ground clearance.

In contrast the EFV has a ground clearance of just 16″, cannot fit a V-hull kit, but there is talk of adding 2″ of steel armor underneath as a flat hull kit once on ground. With its extreme 30+ foot length, you can imagine EFV might easily bottom out on uneven terrain.

Let’s calculate. A twelve foot wide vehicle with about 3′ track width leaves about 9′ width times at LEAST 20′ of length under troops to be protected = 180 square feet of surface to be armored.

2″ of armor x .29 x 144 = 83.52 lbs/ft2 but I saw another article that bragged about getting steel armor down to 71 lbs/ft2 for 2″ of steel armor so I’ll use that. 180 square feet of EFV to be armored x 71 lbs = 12,780 lbs of add-on armor. How are you getting THAT to shore and mounted under the EFV?

Now what about side blasts from EFP against armor capable of stopping just 14.5″? A true V-hull would provide added side-protection as well. So a substantial side armor kit would need to be added to the EFV???

By: Aurora

Aurora — Thu, 07 May 2009 22:29:13 +0000

“The budget request fully funded the Army’s expansion to 547,400 active duty soldiers.”

This, at least, is very good news! Given what was revealed here concerning the flaws in the FCS vehicle design, it deserves to be “re-thought”. How on earth they could have ignored the lessons from Iraq and the IEDs is utterly incomprehensible.