Army's high-tech plans hit cost snag

Military supporters in Congress are questioning the cost of the Army's plan to transform itself into a futuristic force.
The New York Times
Photos: The networked soldier

The story "Army's high-tech plans hit cost snag" published March 28, 2005 at 5:55 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

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[David Arbogast]

Public FCS Info

For more information, Boeing's public FCS page is here:

<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/ic/fcs/bia/index.html" target="_newWindow">http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/ic/fcs/bia/index.html</a>

[zeroplane]

What about flak jackets

This is a great idea, now wasn't this the same Army that required personnel to buy their own flak and protective armor?

Rather sad.

Designed for IT in a Materials War of the Worlds

Lets face it

Unless IEDs(roadside bombs) and terrorists dissappear overnight as the years progress, better armor and materials science will be needed to make things lighter while protecting soldiers. The last I looked it takes "atoms not bits" to make a tank lighter. The actual balance of technologies perhaps needed is somewhere between 100% network enabled and 100% materials science driven.

The old internet culture trully wants its share of excitement, however guard duty in IRAQ is not on the agenda it appears. Like the old "War of the Worlds", we are indeed in a new war. We need not only better materials, but better failure analysis on systems in the war to prevent wars years from now. As in the old martian invaders movie, by bringing back the martian "eye" we can diagnose and find its weaknesses to exploit in new strategies.

Perhaps solving this issue via new war like the old "browser wars" is one way to get the best of both worlds into soldiers hands; access to IT and ligher materials. Couple this with industry helping defense along the way to better tools. My best guess is it has alot to do with lighter, faster, cheaper &#38; higher bandwidth driving both networks and better materials to a common goal to help our brave soldiers. For this I trully pray.

-JChan

[TheMidnightCoder]

An endevor of this magnitude can no longer

be completed by our government. The price tag would hit a couple of trillion in no time, and the military would actually get only a few gadgets that would probably be outdated.
Better to target a single weapons system or robot that watchdog groups could actually monitor. (I'm a combat veteran myself).