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ABSTRACT: Army Seeks to Quiet Skeptics As it Tries New Acquisition Strategy by Stew Magnuson, National Defense, May 2010, page 24
After the cancellation of the Future Combat Systems program, the Army adopted an evolutionary approach to fielding new capabilities. The Army is calling this new approach “affordable modernization.” The affordable modernization strategy is geared towards ending lengthy acquisition and development cycles generally associated with modernizing equipment. .
The Army continues to struggle to field the needed capabilities. Some of the modernization efforts were initiated in 2003 under the FCS program. The surviving FCS technologies — known as the early infantry brigade increment 1 — include: a tactical unattended ground sensor; urban unattended ground sensor, the class I unmanned aerial vehicle; the small unmanned ground vehicle; a non-line-of-sight launch system; and, a network integration kit that is designed to tie the sensors in these technologies together. According to sources identified in the article, “All of the systems have notable performance deficiencies.”
The Army continues to have the same requirements and specifications for fielding new capabilities, and the service is asking for $24 billion from 2011 to 2015 for its modernization efforts. The Army is required to submit a detailed acquisition strategy to GAO by the end of the fiscal year.