When SecDef Gates cancelled the Army’s FCS program last year, the service’s flagship modernization effort didn’t really stop, it just got a name change and a bit of reorganization. This week, GAO highlighted reliability problems that continue to plague a number of the FCS remnants, saying the Army and OSD prematurely approved low rate production of new technologies.

While the Marines don’t like the difficult maintenance required for MRAPs, their top operations officer says the service is keeping them rolling and relying on the ungainly trucks to get them to the fight. The MRAPs and their smaller, more mobile cousins, the M-ATVs, are a “big plus, really performing well,” in the Afghanistan fight, Brig. Gen. David H. Berger, operations director Marine Corps HQ. They are sustaining readiness levels of 92 or 93 percent, he added.

After a two-year effort, an international ban on the use of cluster bombs will go into effect on Aug. 1. And, just as it did with the landmark landmine ban, the United States refused to sign the treaty and has no plans to scrap its inventory of cluster bombs. But the world’s sole superpower may find it more difficult to use them thanks to European allies who agreed to the ban last month.

Army officials say they want to open up the Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) competition to any company that builds combat vehicles, not just BAE and General Dynamics. They are hoping other builders can gain entry into the niche armored fighting vehicle market, said GCV PM Col. Bryan McVeigh. He also laid out the requirements for the new vehicle.

The number one priority of the GCV, according to what’s written in the initial capabilities document and the capability development document, is to provide armored protection to the soldier, particularly against IEDs. Close behind it is mobility. “The MRAP is not mobile off the roads… protect the individual soldier, having a mobile off-​​road capability and having it networked… are the three [priorities] that come to mind,” said Army Maj. Gen. Keith Walker, the service’s Future Force Integration Directorate Commander.

The Army received approval from Ashton Carter to release the Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) Request For Proposal (RFP) to industry today. We have a copy of it here; additional attachments to the RFP can be found at the TACOM procurement web site. Industry proposals are due no later than 1 p.m. on 26 April, Army officials say.

At the Army’s annual winter symposium underway in Florida, Textron unveiled a new vehicle called the Small Combat Tactical Vehicle Capsule (SCTVC), it’s a bolt-on armored capsule that fits onto the existing Humvee chassis, giving the vehicle Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) level protection from IED and mine blasts. Textron hopes to get a piece of the Army’s $1 billion-plus, 60,000 vehicle up-armored Humvee recap contract due out this spring.

Larry Dodgen, the retired Army lieutenant general who led the Army Space and Strategic Command before joining Northrop Grumman, died Saturday of an apparent heart attack while playing tennis near his home in Huntsville, Ala. He was 60. A memorial service will be held Thursday morning in Huntsville, with burial at Arlington National Cemetery in early March. A company official said Dodgen’s unexpected death “is significant on many levels” for the company.

The Marines are using Ospreys to help set up ambush kill boxes as they hunt the Taliban around Marja, a source familiar with the issue tells us. This may help put paid to the criticism that Ospreys are basically really fancy flying buses. If they are being used where lead is flying and playing a key combat role it’s pretty hard to disregard them, unless you can also disregard assets like Bradleys and Strykers.

Did the Army really pitch chief Pentagon weapons buyer Ashton Carter on a new infantry fighting vehicle weighing in at 70 tons? That’s what a Reuters news story claims. Defense consultant and analyst Loren Thompson thinks the Army’s future Ground Combat vehicle plan is unraveling.

The Army has decided that Oshkosh will keep the $3 billion contract to build the Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles (FMTV). The company won the contract last summer in a surprise win, beating out competitors BAE Systems, which had previously built the trucks, and Navistar. The Army has lifted the stop work order it issued following the protests.

Marine Commandant Gen. James Conway says the Marines have gotten too heavy buying heavily armored vehicles tuned to fighting the current wars. He wants the Marines to return to their expeditionary roots and so is out buying lots of small jeeps and other weapons that fit the Corps’ new “distributed operations” war fighting concept.

In what could prove a significant improvement to the U.S. military’s ability to move fast and far over tough terrain, Lockheed Martin and Kaman Aerospace say they have demonstrated the ability to use a unmanned helicopter to resupply in conditions similar to an FOB in Afghanistan.

The Army is working on a new and improved version of its Stryker wheeled vehicle, given the designation Stryker A1, intended to boost its performance with a more powerful engine, beefier transmission and suspension, better brakes as well as adding a new sensor suite, high-tech shot detection and location system, an upgraded communications network and an improved remotely operated weapons turret. The Army plans to spend $134 million on the upgraded eight wheeled vehicle in 2011, according to service budget documents, and nearly $880 million over the next five years.

Reviews of the 2010 QDR have been pretty harsh. Last week, we asked Kathleen Hicks, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense and lead QDR author, to responsd to critics who say the report focuses too much on the current wars and neglects the rise of high-end challengers such as China. In a defiant tone, Hicks challenged critics to show where the report failed to address emerging threats.

The Army plans to spend at least $7 billion over the next five years to develop its new Ground Combat Vehicle and is determined to get a jump on the project, with $934 million slotted for work in 2011 and nearly $2 billion the next year in what is clearly an accelerated development. The GCV will replace the FCS manned ground vehicles, cancelled last year, as the base model for future combat vehicles; the Army has said the initial vehicle will be an infantry carrier

Reviews of the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review are pouring in from Washington’s defense cognoscenti and so far they come with a strong tilt towards disappointed. The lack of any real news or major program or policy shifts has led a number of defense wonks to question the value of the whole QDR process.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates sent a clear signal to Democrats who might be eager to make cuts to the Defense Department’s budget: if you cut us below current levels you will “have to sacrifice force structure. We cannot do it any other way.” Making such cuts will mean that the United States will suffer from “a reduction in military capability and a reduction in our flexibility.” Gates was replying to a question from Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), who cited the Obama administration’s domestic spending freeze, adding that the U.S. “may need to trim defense budgets as well.”

The Missile Defense Agency is struggling with lousy quality control among its contractors, its executive director said today. David Altwegg told reporters that he and his colleagues stood watching a recent THAAD test. A drogue parachute pulled the target out of a C-17. “We all stood there and watched it fall into the water,” said an obviously disgusted Altweg. A failure review board was convened and found the test failed due to “a quality control problem.”

Today, the Army requested $143 billion for 2011 in the base budget, a modest increase over the $140 billion the service received last year from congress, and an additional $102 billion in the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) account, formerly known as the supplemental war requests. While the design of the Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV), the replacement for the cancelled FCS ground vehicles, has yet to be finalized, the Army is still spending nearly $1 billion on the program.