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| FCS Gets Mugged By Evolutionists |
| 2005-05-06 |
| May 6, 2005: The tank has becomes something of a zombie weapon. You can't kill it. Although everyone has declared it obsolete, it keeps kicking ass on the battlefield. The tank was invented 90 years ago. These first tracked, armored fighting vehicles were crude. But they did the job, and continued to do so for another thirty years. But for the last half century, the demise of armored vehicles has always been just around the corner. And for good reason, as the appearance of ATGMs (Anti-Tank Guided Missiles) and larger ATRL (anti-tank rocket launchers, like the bazooka and RPG) seemed capable of doing to tanks what the machine-gun did to horse cavalry in the late 19th century. But the tank refused to be defeated. Unlike horses, tanks can be given more and better armor, and more powerful engines. Faster tanks can do all sorts of things to protect themselves. Moreover, the ATGMs proved difficult to use, and too expensive to buy in large quantities. Thus began a race between tanks, and the cheaper, portable weapons designed to make them obsolete. So far, cheaper and lighter has not been able to gain an edge. The major problem has been the cost of the ATGMs. An army that can afford them is usually from an industrialized democracy that has no reason to make war on the United States. Moreover, when ATGMs were first used widely, in the 1973 war between Egypt (which got them free from Russia) and Israel, the Israelis promptly (within days) developed new tactics that made the ATGMs much less effective. In 1991, American armor made short work of the Iraqis. Better vehicles, and much better crews provided what many saw as the swan song for the age of big tank battles. The Cold War was over, with most of Russia's 50,000 tanks being left to rust. The age of armor was over. Or was it? The U.S. Army saw it's future combat vehicles as being smaller and lighter, relying more on missiles, better communications and lots of electronic gadgets. All this was called FCS (Future Combat Systems), and it would change everything. Then came 2003, and three American divisions invaded Iraq and, within three weeks, had seized Baghdad and conquered the country. When the dust had settled, and the battles were carefully examined, it was discovered that the key to rapid victory were the "obsolete" M-1 tanks and M-2 Infantry Fighting Vehicles. This didn't faze the FCS developers, for the 20 ton FCS vehicles could have done the same thing. The key was being resistant to the RPG rockets, which the M-1 and M-2 was. But that got people thinking. We got all these M-1s and M-2s, and money is tight, and the FCS crowd are asking for over $100 billion to buy new armored vehicles. Why not just keep upgrading the armor we got, and we know work? This bold idea, reeking of practicality and thrift, has been met with a cool reception. It took years for the FCS crowd to get enough support for the money to start flowing, and now these retards want to face the future with refurbs. The FCS is seen as a breakthrough system. Actually, it's over fifty systems (depending on how you count them), and a lot of technologies that haven't been invented yet. The tried and true crew respond with an offer to try out each of the new technologies as they become available. Whenever that might be. Meanwhile, FCS faces a more formidable problem than reality checks; lack of money. Not only is Iraq reminding everyone how well existing armor works, but it's sucking up the billions that FCS was hoping to feast on. FCS is nothing if not ambitious, with its plan to militarize many new technologies before anyone else does, and give the army powerful armored vehicles that can be airlifted anywhere in the world in a few days, and then be easier to maintain because the FCS vehicles guzzle a lot less fuel. But that depends on the air force coming up with more transports (C-17s), something the air force is reluctant to do. The air force has its own FCS (the F-22 and F-35), and that's where all the money is going. What a lot of officers, and troops, are expecting now is evolution, not revolution. There's no longer any big land army out there that needs to be shut down. The Red Army is gone, the Chinese army is largely obsolete and shrinking, the North Korean army is falling apart, and the Iranians are more concerned about another civil war. The few nations that are still building new tanks are trying to keep up with the M-1, not leap-frog it using unproven technologies. Continued efforts to keep FCS alive are going to evolutionary as well, because the money just isn't there. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #2 Sure! The Chinese also decided to adopt the popular ''there'll never be another large scale war - only little ones'' mantra. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2005-05-06 21:05 |
| #1 the Chinese army is largely obsolete and shrinking Do they know that? |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-05-06 14:58 |