United States Government Accountability Office

GAO Report to Congressional Committees

DEFENSE 

ACQUISITIONS 

Key Decisions to Be 

Made on Future 

Combat System 

March 2007 

 

GAO-07-376 
What GAO Found

United States Government Accountability Office

Why GAO Did This Study

Highlights

Accountability Integrity Reliability

March 2007

DEFENSE ACQUISITIONS 

Key Decisions to Be Made on Future 

Highlights of GAO-07-376, a report to Combat System 

congressional committees 

The Future Combat System (FCS)

is central to Army transformation

efforts, comprising 14 integrated

weapon systems and an advanced

information network. In previous 

work, GAO found that the elements 

of a sound business case—firm 

requirements, mature technologies, 

a knowledge-based acquisition 

strategy, a realistic cost estimate, 

and sufficient funding—were not

present. As a result, FCS is

considered high risk and in need of

special oversight and review. 

Congress has mandated that the 

Department of Defense (DOD) 

decide in early 2009 whether FCS 

should continue. 

GAO is required to review the 

program annually. In this report, 

GAO analyzes FCS development, 

including its requirements 

definition; status of critical 

technologies, software 

development, and complementary

programs; soundness of its

acquisition strategy related to 

design, production and spin-out of 

capabilities to current forces; and 

reasonableness of costs and 

sufficiency of funding. 

What GAO Recommends

GAO is making recommendations 

to the Secretary of Defense that 

specific criteria should be

considered during the 2009

milestone review and alternatives 

to the program analyzed should 

FCS fail to deliver needed

capabilities when and as expected. 

DOD concurred with GAO’s 

recommendations. 

The Army has been granted a lot of latitude to carry out a large program like FCS

this far into development with relatively little demonstrated knowledge. Tangible

progress has been made during the year in several areas, including requirements 

and technology. Such progress warrants recognition, but confidence that the

program can deliver as promised depends on high levels of demonstrated

knowledge, which are yet to come. Following the preliminary design review in 

2009, there should be enough knowledge to demonstrate the soundness of the 

FCS business case. If significant doubts remain about the program’s 

executability at that time, DOD will have to consider alternatives to proceeding

with the program. Currently, GAO sees the FCS business case as follows: 

Requirements. Progress has been made in defining requirements and making

some difficult trade-offs, but key assumptions about the performance of

immature technologies and other technical risks remain to be proven. 

Technology. The Army has made progress in maturing technologies, but it will 

take several more years to reach full maturity. All key technologies should have 

been mature in 2003 when the program began. FCS software has doubled in size 

compared to original estimates and faces significant risks. The Army is

attempting a disciplined approach to managing software development. 

Acquisition Strategy. The FCS acquisition strategy is compressed. Key testing

to demonstrate FCS performance will not be completed, and maturity of design

and production will not be demonstrated until after the production decision. 

Program Costs. New estimates place FCS costs significantly above the current 

estimate of $163.7 billion. The Army has recently proposed a plan to buy fewer 

systems and slow production rates. This recent program adjustment will affect

program costs, but details are not yet available. 

FCS Core Systems 

Source: U.S. Army.

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-376.

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact Paul Francis, 

202-512-4841, francisp@gao.gov. 
Contents 

Letter 1

Results in Brief 2 

Background 3

Despite Progress, FCS Requirements Must Still Prove Technically 

Feasible and Affordable 10 

Army Reports Significant Progress, but Major Technological

Challenges Remain 18 

Concurrent Acquisition Strategy Will Provide for Late 

Demonstration of FCS Capabilities 30 

Likely Growth of FCS Costs Increases Tension between Program 

Scope and Available Funds 40 

Conclusions 47

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 49 

Appendix I Scope and Methodology 52 

Appendix II Comments from the Department of Defense 53 

Appendix III Technology Readiness Levels 56 

Appendix IV Technology Readiness Level Ratings 58 

Related GAO Products 60 

Page i GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
Tables 

Table 1: FCS Software Blocks, Percentage of Completion, and 

Delivery Dates 28 

Table 2: Key FCS Test Event Schedule 35 

Table 3: Comparison of the Original Cost Estimate and Recent Cost 

Estimates for the FCS Program (in billions of dollars) 41 

Table 4: Annual and Cumulative FCS Funding and Planned Events 

and Achievements 43 

Table 5: Technology Readiness Level Descriptions 56 

Figures 

Figure 1: FCS’s Core Systems 5 

Figure 2: Flow of FCS’s Overarching Requirements to System-Level 

Requirements 11

Figure 3: TRL 6 Projections over Time 19 

Figure 4: FCS Projected Software Lines of Code (in thousands) 27 

Figure 5: Acquisition Compared with Commercial Best Practices 32 

Abbreviations 

DOD Department of Defense 

FCS Future Combat System 

JTRS Joint Tactical Radio System 

TG Terminal Guidance 

TRL Technology Readiness Level 

WIN-T Warfighter Information Network-Tactical 

This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright protection in the 

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reproduce this material separately. 

Page ii GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548 

March 15, 2007 

Congressional Committees 

As the centerpiece of the Army’s transformation to a lighter, more agile, 

and more capable combat force, the Future Combat System (FCS) 

program—which comprises 14 integrated weapon systems and an 

advanced information network needed for a brigade combat team—is 

considered to be, according to the Army, the greatest technology and

integration challenge it has ever undertaken. The Army started its FCS 

program in May 2003 without fulfilling the basic elements of a business 

case—that is, determining if the program’s requirements and concept were 

valid and that the concept could be successfully developed with existing 

resources including proven technologies, stable design, adequate funding, 

and adequate time. The Army projects the FCS program will cost 

$163.7 billion, which has been adjusted for inflation, but does not include 

key complementary programs. As a result, the program is recognized as 

being high risk and in need of special oversight and review. In 2006, 

Congress mandated that the Department of Defense (DOD) hold an FCS 

milestone review, essentially a “go/no-go” decision, following its 

preliminary design review, which is now scheduled for early 2009. 

Given its cost, scope, and technical challenges, section 211 of the National

Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006 requires GAO to report 

annually on the FCS program.1

 The specific objectives of this report are to

assess FCS progress in terms of (1) definition of requirements; (2) status 

of critical technologies, software development, and complementary 

programs; (3) the soundness of the acquisition strategy as it relates to 

design and production as well as the spin-out of capabilities to current 

forces; and (4) reasonableness of program costs and whether funds have 

been committed to complete the program as planned. 

In conducting our work, we have contacted numerous DOD and Army 

offices. We reviewed documents pertaining to the FCS program, attended 

meetings at which DOD and Army officials reviewed program progress, 

and held discussions with key DOD and Army officials on various aspects 

of the program. Officials from DOD and the Army have provided us access 

 1

Pub. L. No. 109-163, § 211. 

Page 1 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
to sufficient information to make informed judgments on the matters in 

this report. In addition, we drew from our body of past work on weapon 

systems acquisition practices. We performed our work from March 2006 to 

March 2007 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 

standards. Appendix I further discusses our scope and methodology. 

To date, the FCS program has spent about $8 billion despite having 

significantly less knowledge—and less assurance of success—than 

required by best practices or DOD policy. By early 2009, enough 

knowledge should be available about the key elements of the FCS business 

case to make a well-informed decision on whether and how to proceed 

with the program. If significant doubts remain regarding the program’s 

executability, DOD will have to consider alternatives to proceeding with 

the program as planned. Central to the go/no-go decision will be 

demonstrable soundness of the FCS business case in the areas of 

requirements, technology, acquisition strategy, and finances. Our 

assessment of these elements today is as follows: 

Results in Brief 

Requirements: Progress has been made in defining requirements in greater

detail, and some difficult trade-offs have been made. The Army believes 

that the FCS requirements are feasible, but that will not be certain until 

key assumptions about the performance of immature technologies and 

other technical risks are proven. Replacing these assumptions with 

knowledge is essential for completing the requirements process for the 

individual FCS systems, as additional performance trade-offs may be 

necessary. 

Technology: The Army has made progress in maturing technologies in the 

past year, but major challenges remain. It assesses about 80 percent of 

FCS technologies to be mature—double last year’s number. The Army uses 

a lower standard for maturity than what GAO has found to be a best 

practice. The current assessment was not done independently as last 

year’s had been. A sound business case would require FCS to have had all

technologies mature in 2003 when the program began. It will still take 

several more years to mature key technologies to that point. Current 

estimates of FCS software—the most in any weapon system program—are

double initial estimates. The Army is attempting to incorporate a number 

of best practices into its development effort, and some initial increments 

of software have been delivered on time. 

Acquisition Strategy: Even if all goes as planned, the FCS strategy will 

provide for late demonstration of performance. Similar to technologies, 

Page 2 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
design reviews of FCS systems will be done quite late in the program and 

key testing will not begin until just prior to the initial production decision.

Relative to best practices, maturity of design and production will not be 

demonstrated until after the production decision. The Army has started to 

implement its plans to spin out some early FCS technologies and systems 

to current Army forces and that effort is expected to place more demands 

on FCS test resources. 

Program Costs: FCS costs are likely to grow, which will increase the 

tension between the program’s scope and available funds. While the Army 

has only slightly changed its cost estimate of $160.7 billion since last year, 

independent cost estimates put costs at between $203 billion to nearly 

$234 billion. The tension between program scope and available funds has 

led to the Army’s recent announcement to buy fewer systems and slow 

production rates. This will be the second restructuring in 4 years. These 

changes will affect program costs, but full details are not yet available. 

Anticipating that further changes will need to be made to the program, 

we are making several recommendations to the Secretary of Defense on 

specific criteria that should be considered during the 2009 milestone 

review and the need to analyze alternatives to the program should the 

FCS fail to deliver needed capabilities within reasonable time frames and 

expected funding. In commenting on a draft of this report, DOD concurred 

with our recommendations. 

The FCS concept is designed to be part of the Army’s Future Force, which 

is intended to transform the Army into a more rapidly deployable and 

responsive force that differs substantially from the large division-centric 

structure of the past. The Army is reorganizing its current forces into 

modular brigade combat teams, each of which is expected to be highly

survivable and the most lethal brigade-sized unit the Army has ever 

fielded. The Army expects FCS-equipped brigade combat teams to provide 

significant warfighting capabilities to DOD’s overall joint military 

operations. The Army is implementing its transformation plans at a time 

when current U.S. ground forces continue to play a critical role in the 

ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army has instituted plans to

spin out selected FCS technologies and systems to current Army forces 

throughout the program’s system development and demonstration phase. 

Background 

As we were preparing this report, the Army made a number of adjustments 

to its plans for the FCS program. The revised program will no longer 

include all 18 systems as originally planned. The FCS family of weapons is 

Page 3 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
now expected to include 14 manned and unmanned ground vehicles, air 

vehicles, sensors, and munitions that will be linked by an advanced 

information network. The systems include 

• eight new types of manned ground vehicles to replace current 

tanks, infantry carriers, and self-propelled howitzers; 

• two classes of unmanned aerial vehicles; 

• several unmanned ground vehicles; and 

• an attack missile. 

Fundamentally, the FCS concept is to replace mass with superior 

information—allowing soldiers to see and hit the enemy first rather than 

to rely on heavy armor to withstand a hit. This solution attempts to 

address a mismatch that has posed a dilemma to the Army for decades: the

Army’s heavy forces had the necessary firepower needed to win but 

required extensive support and too much time to deploy while its light 

forces could deploy rapidly but lacked firepower. If the Future Force 

becomes a reality, then the Army would be better organized, staffed, 

equipped, and trained for prompt and sustained land combat, qualities 

intended to ensure that it would dominate over evolving, sophisticated 

threats. The Future Force is to be offensively oriented and will employ 

revolutionary concepts of operations, enabled by new technology. The 

Army envisions a new way of fighting that depends on networking the 

force, which involves linking people, platforms, weapons, and sensors 

seamlessly together in a system-of-systems. 

Page 4 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
Figure 1: FCS’s Core Systems 

Source: U.S. Army.

Mounted Combat

System (MCS)

Infantry Carrier

Vehicle (ICV) Command and

Control Vehicle (C2V)

Common Chassis

Non-Line of Sight Cannon

(NLOS-C)

FCS Recovery and Maintenance 

Vehicle (FRMV)

Medical Vehicle

Treatment (MV-T)

Non-Line of Sight Mortar

(NLOS-M)

Reconnaissance 

And Surveillance 

Vehicle (RSV)

Medical Vehicle

Evacuation (MV-E) Armed Robotic Vehicle – Assault (Light) (ARV-A-L)

MULE-C MULE-T

Multifunction Utility

/ Logistics and

Equipment

Countermine

and Transport

Small UGV (SUGV)

T-UGS U-UGS

Class I UAV Class IV UAV

Tactical and Urban Unattended

Ground Sensors

Non-Line of Sight

Launch System

(NLOS-LS)

Unattended Ground Systems (UGS)

Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV)

Manned Ground Vehicles Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) (MGV)

Sensors

Battle Command

SOSCOE Transport

If successful, the FCS system-of-systems concept will integrate individual 

capabilities of weapons and platforms, thus facilitating interoperability 

and open system designs. This would represent significant improvement 

over the traditional approach of building superior individual weapons that 

must be retrofitted and netted together after the fact. This transformation, 

in terms of both operations and equipment, is under way with the full 

cooperation of the Army warfighter community. In fact, the development 

and acquisition of FCS is being accomplished using a uniquely 

Page 5 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
collaborative relationship among the Army’s developers, the participating

contractors, and the warfighter community. 

The Army has employed a management approach for FCS that centers on a 

lead systems integrator to provide significant management services to help

the Army define and develop FCS and reach across traditional Army 

mission areas. Because of its partner-like relationship with the Army, the 

lead systems integrator’s responsibilities include requirements 

development, design, and selection of major system and subsystem 

subcontractors. The team of Boeing and Science Applications 

International Corporation is the lead systems integrator for the FCS 

system development and demonstration phase of acquisition, which is 

expected to extend until 2017. The FCS lead systems integrator acts on 

behalf of the Army to optimize the FCS capability, maximize competition, 

ensure interoperability, and maintain commonality in order to reduce lifecycle costs. Boeing also acts as an FCS supplier in that it is responsible for 

developing two important software subsystems. The Army advised us that 

it did not believe it had the resources or flexibility to use its traditional 

acquisition process to field a program as complex as FCS under the 

aggressive timeline established by the then-Army Chief of Staff. The Army 

will maintain oversight and final approval of the lead systems integrator’s 

subcontracting and competition plans. The FCS lead systems integrator 

originally operated under a contractual instrument called an “other 

transaction agreement.” In 2006, the Army completed the conversion of 

that instrument to a more typical contract based on the Federal 

Acquisition Regulation. As required by section 115 of the John Warner 

National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007, we are reviewing 

the contractual relationship between the Army and the lead systems 

integrator and will be reporting on that work separately.2

Elements of a Business 

Case 

We have frequently reported on the wisdom of using a solid, executable 

business case before committing resources to a new product development 

effort. In the case of DOD, a business case should be based on DOD 

acquisition policy and lessons learned from leading commercial firms and 

successful DOD programs. The business case in its simplest form is 

demonstrated evidence that (1) the warfighter’s needs are valid and that 

they can best be met with the chosen concept, and (2) the chosen concept 

can be developed and produced within existing resources—that is, proven 

 2

Pub. L. No. 109-364, § 115 (2006). 

Page 6 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
technologies, design knowledge, adequate funding, adequate time, and 

management capacity to deliver the product when it is needed. A program 

should not go forward into product development unless a sound business 

case can be made. If the business case measures up, the organization 

commits to the product development, including making the financial 

investment. 

At the heart of a business case is a knowledge-based approach to product

development that is both a best practice among leading commercial firms 

and the approach preferred by DOD in its acquisition policies. For a 

program to deliver a successful product within available resources, 

managers should demonstrate high levels of knowledge before significant 

commitments are made. In essence, knowledge supplants risk over time. 

This building of knowledge can be described as three levels or points that 

should be attained over the course of a program. 

• First, at program start, the customer’s needs should match the 

developer’s available resources—mature technologies, time, 

funding, and management capacity. An indication of this match is 

the demonstrated maturity of the technologies needed to meet 

customer needs.3

 The ability of the government acquisition 

workforce to properly manage the effort should also be an

important consideration at program start. 

• Second, about midway through development, the product’s design 

should be stable and demonstrate that it is capable of meeting 

performance requirements. The critical design review is the vehicle 

for making this determination and generally signifies the point at 

which the program is ready to start building productionrepresentative prototypes. 

• Third, by the time of the production decision, the product must be 

shown able to be manufactured within cost, schedule, and quality 

targets and have demonstrated its reliability. It is also the point at 

which the design must demonstrate that it performs as expected 

through realistic system-level testing.

 3

Technology readiness levels (TRLs) are a way to measure the maturity of technology.

According to best practices, technology is considered sufficiently mature to start a program 

when it reaches a readiness level of 7. This involves a system or prototype demonstration

in an operational environment. The prototype is near or at the planned operational system. 

Appendix III lists the definitions for all TRLs. 

Page 7 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
A delay in attaining any one of these levels delays the points that follow. If 

the technologies needed to meet requirements are not mature, design and 

production maturity will be delayed. In successful commercial and 

defense programs that we have reviewed, managers were careful to 

develop technology separately from and ahead of the development of the 

product. For this reason, the first knowledge level is the most important 

for improving the chances of developing a weapon system within cost and 

schedule estimates. DOD’s acquisition policy has adopted the knowledgebased approach to acquisitions. DOD policy requires program managers to 

demonstrate knowledge about key aspects of a system at key points in the 

acquisition process. Program managers are also required to reduce 

integration risk and demonstrate product design prior to the design 

readiness review and to reduce manufacturing risk and demonstrate 

producibility prior to full-rate production. 

The FCS program is about one-third of the way into its scheduled product 

development. At this stage, the program should have attained knowledge 

point one, with a strategy for attaining knowledge points two and three.

Accordingly, we analyzed the FCS business case first as it pertains to 

firming requirements and maturing technologies, which indicate progress 

against the first knowledge point. We then analyzed FCS’s strategy for 

attaining design and production maturity. Finally, we analyzed the costs 

and funding estimates made to execute the FCS business case. 

Agency and Congressional 

Actions Since Our Last 

Report 

In our previous report on the FCS program, released in March 2006, we 

reported that the program entered the development phase in 2003 without 

reaching the level of knowledge it should have attained in the predevelopment phase.4

 The elements of a sound business case were not 

reasonably present, and we noted that the Army would continue building 

basic knowledge in areas such as requirements and technologies for 

several more years. We concluded that in order for the FCS program to be 

successful, an improved business case was needed. 

The Defense Acquisition Board met in May 2006 to review the FCS 

program. That review approved the Army approach to spin out certain 

FCS technologies to current Army forces in 2008 and directed the Army to 

continue with yearly in-process reviews and a Defense Acquisition Board 

 4

GAO, Defense Acquisitions: Improved Business Case Is Needed for Future Combat

System’s Successful Outcome, GAO-06-367 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 14, 2006). 

Page 8 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
meeting in the late 2008 timeframe. Performance expectations were also 

established for the review. During the meeting, it was noted that 

significant cost and schedule risk remains for the program and that 

reductions in scope and more flexibility in schedule are needed to stay 

within current funding constraints. 

Also in 2006, Congress mandated that the Secretary of Defense conduct a 

milestone review for the FCS program, following the preliminary design 

review scheduled for early 2009.5

 Congress stated that the review should 

include an assessment of whether (1) the needs are valid and can be best

met with the FCS concept, (2) the FCS program can be developed and 

produced within existing resources, and (3) the program should continue 

as currently structured, be restructured, or be terminated. The Congress 

required the Secretary of Defense to review specific aspects of the 

program, including the maturity of critical technologies, program risks, 

demonstrations of the FCS concept and software, and a cost estimate and 

affordability assessment and to submit a report of the findings and 

conclusions of the review to Congress. Additionally, Congress has required 

the Secretary of Defense to provide an independent cost estimate that will 

encompass costs related to the FCS program and a report on the estimate. 

The Institute for Defense Analyses is expected to deliver this analysis to 

Congress by April 2007. 

Finally, in response to concerns over funding shortfalls and other resource 

issues for fiscal years 2008 to 2013, the Army has recently made a number

of changes to its plans for the FCS program. Although complete details are 

not yet available, the Army plans to 

• reduce the number of individual systems from 18 to 14 including 

eliminating 2 unmanned aerial vehicles; 

• slow the rate of FCS production from 1.5 to 1 brigade combat team 

per year; 

• change the total quantities to be bought for several systems; and 

• reduce the number of planned spin-outs from four to three. 

Full details of the Army’s plans were not available at the time of this 

report. Based on what is known, program officials expect that the 

production period for the 15 brigade combat teams would be extended

 5

John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007, Pub. L. No. 109-364,

§ 214 (2006). 

Page 9 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
from 2025 to 2030. The initial operating capability date would also be 

delayed by 5 months to the third quarter of fiscal year 2015. 

The Army has made considerable progress in defining system-of-systems 

level requirements and allocating those requirements to the individual FCS 

systems. This progress has necessitated making significant trade-offs to 

reconcile requirements with technical feasibility. A key example of this 

has been to allow a significant increase in manned ground vehicle weight 

to meet survivability requirements which in turn has forced trade-offs in 

transportability requirements. The feasibility of FCS requirements still 

depends on a number of key assumptions about immature technologies, 

costs, and other performance characteristics like the reliability of the 

network and other systems. As current assumptions in these areas become

known, more trade-offs are likely. At this point, the Army has identified 

about 70 high technical risks that need to be resolved to assure the 

technical feasibility of requirements. 

The Army has defined 552 warfighter requirements for the FCS brigade 

combat team that are tied to seven key performance parameters: networkready, networked battle command, networked lethality, transportability, 

sustainability/reliability, training, and survivability. Collectively, the Army 

has stated that the FCS-equipped brigade combat teams must be as good 

as or better than current Army forces in terms of lethality, responsiveness, 

sustainability, and survivability. In August 2005, the Army and the lead 

systems integrator translated the warfighter requirements into 11,500 more

specific system-of-systems level requirements, established the functional 

baseline for the program, and allocated requirements to individual FCS 

systems. Since then, the contractors have clarified their design concepts 

and provided feedback on the technical feasibility and affordability of the 

requirements. 

Despite Progress, FCS

Requirements Must 

Still Prove Technically 

Feasible and 

Affordable 

Army Has Made Progress 

in Defining System-Level 

Requirements 

In an August 2006 review, the Army and its lead systems integrator 

reduced the number of warfighter requirements to 544, but increased the 

system-of-systems requirements to 11,697. Of the system-of-system 

requirements, 289 have “to be determined” items and 819 have open issues

to be resolved. At this review, the FCS requirements were translated 

further down to the individual system level, totaling about 90,000. The 

system level requirements provide the specificity needed for the 

contractors to fully develop detailed designs for their individual systems. 

While the stages of translating requirements for FCS are typical for 

weapon systems, the enormous volume suggests the complex challenge 

that a networked system-of-systems like FCS presents. 

Page 10 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
Figure 2 illustrates how the FCS requirements are translated from the 

warfighter to the individual systems. 

Figure 2: Flow of FCS’s Overarching Requirements to System-Level Requirements 

Net ready

Networked battle command

Networked lethality

Transportability

Sustainability/reliability

Training

Survivability

544 requirements

7 key performance parameters

·

· 11, 697 Requirements with 

threshold and objective 

values

Brigade combat team 

functionality

·

·

90,000 System level 

requirements

System and platform

functionality

·

· ·

·

·

·

·

·

·

8 types of Manned Ground Vehicles

2 types of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

1 unattended sensor

1 unattended munitions

2 types of Unmanned Ground Vehicles

Information network

Soldier systems

Training systems

Logistics systems

Plus complementary 

and associated programs

·

·

·

·

·

·

·

·

·

·

FCS operational

requirements document

System of systems

requirements

System-level

requirements

Hardware subsystems

Software subsystems

Source: U.S. Army (data); GAO (analysis and presentation).

Leading up to the review, the lead systems integrator and the 

subcontractors identified over 10,000 “to-be-determined” items and issues 

to be resolved related to the flow-down of the system-of-systems 

requirements to the FCS system-level requirements. The “to-bedetermined” items generally involve the need for the user community and 

the developers to come to an understanding on a way to better specify or

quantify the requirement. A common issue to be resolved involves the 

need for compromise between the users and developers when the design 

solution may not be able to fully meet the initially allocated requirement. 

The Army and lead systems integrator plan to resolve the “to-bePage 11 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
determined” items and issues prior to the preliminary design review in 

early 2009.6

The Army and lead systems integrator are also developing a network 

requirements document that is intended to provide end-to-end network 

requirements in an understandable format to inform the system-level 

requirements. The number of network requirements in this document has 

not yet been determined. However, the Army and lead systems integrator 

have identified about 2000 “to-be-determined” items and issues to be 

resolved in this area that need to be addressed and clarified. The Army and 

lead systems integrator expect to complete this work by the time of the 

preliminary design review. 

The Army and its subcontractors have already made some trade-offs as 

they continue to refine their system design concepts and the FCS systemlevel requirements. One key trade-off came in the area of the projected 

weight of the manned ground vehicles and their transportability by 

aircraft. Originally, the manned ground vehicles were to weigh less than 

20 tons so they could be carried on the C-130 aircraft. These vehicles were

to be lightly armored at 19 tons and with add-on armor bringing the total

vehicle weight up to about 24 tons. However, the Army and its contractor 

team found that this design did not provide sufficient ballistic protection. 

Currently, the vehicle designs with improved ballistic protection are 

estimated to weigh between 27 and 29 tons. At this weight, it is practically 

impossible to transport the vehicles on the C-130s, and they are now being 

designed to be transported by the larger C-17 aircraft. Illustrative of the

FCS design challenges, the added weight of the vehicles could have ripple 

effects for the designs of the engine, suspension, band track, and other 

subsystems. The Army still wants vehicles to be transportable by the C-130 

when stripped of armor and other equipment, so that C-130 cargo size and 

weight limits will still serve to constrain the design of the manned ground 

vehicles. As these are primarily paper and simulated designs, the potential

for future trade-offs is high. 

Some Key Requirements and 

Design Trade-offs Have Been 

Made 

Another example involves the requirement that the manned ground 

vehicles be able to operate for several hours on battery power and without 

the engine running. Based on the analyses to date, it has been determined 

that current battery technologies would permit less than one hour of this 

 6

The Army will hold system level preliminary design reviews leading up to the system-ofsystems level preliminary design review in early 2009. 

Page 12 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
“silent watch” capability. The Army, lead systems integrator, and the FCS 

subcontractors are continuing their assessments, as is the user 

community, which is re-evaluating which internal manned ground vehicle 

subsystems may need to operate in these situations. With less demand for 

power, the batteries are expected to last somewhat longer. As that work 

concludes, the Army will be able to determine the specific level of silent 

watch capability it can expect for the manned ground vehicles and how 

best to change the operational requirements document. The Army plans to 

finalize this and other requirement changes and numerous clarifications by 

the time of the preliminary design review in early 2009. 

Technical Feasibility of 

System-Level 

Requirements Based on 

Numerous Assumptions 

The Army and lead systems integrator believe that most of the FCS 

system-level requirements are technically feasible and have decided that 

design work should proceed. However, as the design concepts and 

technologies mature, their actual performance does not necessarily match 

expectations, and trade-offs have to be made. To date, the Army has had to

make a number of requirements and design changes that recognize the 

physical constraints of the designs and the limits of technology. Ideally, 

these trade-offs are made before a program begins. Because many 

technologies are not yet fully mature, significant trade-offs have been 

made and will continue to be necessary. The technical feasibility of FCS 

requirements still depends on a number of key assumptions about the 

performance of immature technologies, thus more trade-offs are likely as

knowledge replaces assumptions. The challenge in making additional 

changes to requirements is at least two-fold: first is assessing the potential 

ripple effect of changing a requirement for one system on the thousands of 

other system requirements; the second is assessing the cumulative effect 

of numerous system level requirements changes on the overall

characteristics of survivability, lethality, responsiveness, and 

supportability. 

The Army has identified numerous known technical risks, about 70 of 

which are considered to be at a medium or high level. These involve the 

information network, characteristics like weight and reliability that cut

across air and ground vehicles, and several system-specific risks. The 

Army is focusing management attention on these risks and has risk 

reduction plans in place. Nonetheless, the results of these technology 

development efforts will have continuing implications for design and 

requirements trade-offs. 

Technical Feasibility 

Dependent on Addressing 

Some High Level Risks 

Page 13 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
Network 

FCS survivability depends on the brigade-wide availability of networkbased situational awareness plus the inherent survivability of the FCS 

platforms. There is hardly any aspect of FCS functionality that is not 

predicated on the network, and for many key functions, the network is 

essential. However, the FCS program manager has stated that the Army 

still has a lot yet to learn on how to successfully build such an advanced 

information network. Some of the network medium and high level risks 

include: 

• End-to-end quality of service on mobile ad-hoc networks. The 

probability is high that the FCS network will not be able to ensure 

that the information with the highest value is delivered to the

recipients. Failure to support the warfighter in defining and 

implementing command intent for information management will 

result in substantially reduced force effectiveness, in a force that 

trades information for armor. 

• Wideband waveform availability. The current Joint Tactical Radio 

System Ground Mobile Radio program continues to pose risks 

because its schedule is not yet synchronized with the schedule for 

the core FCS program or FCS spin-outs. Any schedule slip in this 

area could lead to further delays. This consequence will mean 

integrators will not have Joint Tactical Radio System hardware in 

sufficient quantities, capability, and function to support the FCS 

schedule. In addition to schedule delays this could also jeopardize 

the network spin-outs, experiments, and the integration of the core 

program requirements. 

• Soldier radio waveform availability. The soldier radio waveform 

provides functional capabilities that are needed to support many 

FCS systems but may not be completed in time to support FCS 

development. These functional capabilities facilitate interoperability 

and gateway functions between the FCS family of systems. These 

systems are critical to FCS performance and delays of these 

functional capabilities will negatively impact the FCS schedule. 

• Spectrum availability and usage. There is a high likelihood that 

more frequency spectrum is required for all of the communications 

needs than will be available given current design assumptions. Lack 

of system spectrum may force a choice to operate without critical 

data due to reduced data throughput, reducing mission 

effectiveness and leading to possible failure. 

Page 14 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
• Unmanned vehicle network latency. Unmanned ground and air 

vehicles are completely dependent on the FCS network for 

command and control interaction with their soldier/operators. 

Inadequate response time for unmanned payload tele-operation and 

target designation will result in degraded payload performance and 

targeting when these modes are required. 

• Net-ready critical performance parameter verification and 

testability. The Army recognizes the risk that FCS will not be able to 

adequately verify and test compliance with this parameter as it 

relates to the Global Information Grid.7 FCS is expected to have 

extensive connectivity with other services and agencies via the 

Grid. The risk is due to, among other things, the many yet-to-bedefined critical or enterprise interfaces which are being delivered in 

parallel. Failure to meet the net-ready testability requirements could 

result in, among other things, fielding delays and cost and schedule 

overruns. 

Weight and Reliability 

All of the unmanned and manned ground vehicles and several other FCS 

systems are expected to have difficulty meeting their assigned weight 

targets. According to program officials, about 950 weight reduction 

initiatives were being considered just for the manned ground vehicles. The 

Army expects the FCS program to make substantial progress toward 

meeting these goals by the time of the preliminary design review. It is not 

yet clear what, if any, additional trade-offs of requirements and designs 

may be needed to meet the FCS weight goals. 

High levels of reliability will be needed for the FCS brigade combat teams 

to meet their requirements for logistics footprint and supportability. 

Current projections indicate that many FCS systems—including the Class 

IV unmanned aerial vehicle, communications subsystems, and sensors—

may not meet the Army’s high expectations for reliability. The Army plans 

to address these issues and improve reliability levels by the time of the 

preliminary design review in 2009. 

 7

The Global Information Grid is a large and complex set of programs and initiatives

intended to provide internet-like capability allowing users at virtually any location to 

access data on demand; share information in real time; collaborate in decision making, 

regardless of which military service produced which weapon system; and have greater joint

command of a battle situation. 

Page 15 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
System-Specific Risks 

The Army and lead systems integrator have also identified other medium 

to high risk issues that could affect the requirements and design concepts 

for individual FCS systems. These include: 

• Class I unmanned aerial vehicle heavy fuel engine. The Class I 

vehicle requires a heavy fuel engine that is small in size, lightweight, 

and operates with high power efficiency. Such an engine does not 

currently exist, and no single candidate system will meet all FCS 

requirements without additional development. An engine design 

that cannot balance size and power will critically affect compliance 

with several key requirements. 

• Lightweight track component maturation. Current band track 

designs do not meet mine blast requirements and may not meet the 

FCS durability requirement or the critical performance parameter 

requirements for reducing logistics footprint and reduced demand 

for maintenance and supply. Without enhanced mine blast 

resistance, vehicle mobility will be diminished, which could result 

in survivability impacts. 

• Vehicular motion effects. There is likelihood that system design may 

not preclude vehicular-induced motion sickness capable of

degrading the crews’ ability to execute their mission. These effects 

may reduce the ability of the crew to perform cognitive tasks while 

in motion, thereby reducing operational effectiveness. 

• Safe unmanned ground vehicle operations. If necessary operational 

experience and technology maturity is not achieved, the brigade 

combat teams may not be able to use these vehicles as planned. 

Also, if a high level of soldier confidence in the reliability and 

accuracy of fire control of weapons on moving unmanned ground 

vehicles is not achieved, the rules of engagement of these systems 

may be severely restricted. 

Unit cost reduction goals have been established at the FCS brigade combat 

team level and have been allocated down to the individual FCS systems 

and major subsystems. Many FCS systems are above their assigned 

average cost levels, and stringent reduction goals have been assigned. In 

particular, the manned ground vehicles have a significant challenge ahead

to meet their unit cost goals. In order to meet these goals, requirements 

and design trade-offs will have to be considered.

Cost Could Force Additional 

Requirements Trade-offs 

Page 16 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
The Army faces considerable uncertainty about how much investment 

money it will have in the future for FCS. The Army has capped the total 

amount of development funding available for FCS, and the contract 

contains a provision to identify trade-offs to keep costs within that cap. 

Hence, if costs rise, trade-offs in requirements and design will be made to

keep within the cap. Recent events provide a good example of this 

situation. In 2006, the Army conducted a study to determine the number 

and type of unmanned aerial vehicles it can and should maintain in its 

inventory. All four of the FCS unmanned aerial vehicles were included in 

that study, and a decision has recently been made to remove the Class II 

and III vehicles from the core program. While this will free up money for 

other needs, the Army will have to reallocate the requirements from those

unmanned aerial vehicles to other FCS systems. 

Considerations for the 

2009 FCS Milestone 

Review 

As it proceeds to the preliminary design review and the subsequent go/nogo milestone, the Army faces considerable challenges in completing the

definition of technically achievable and affordable system-level 

requirements, an essential element of a sound business case. Those 

challenges include 

• completing the definition of all system-level requirements for all 

FCS systems and the information network (including addressing the 

“to-be-determined” items and issues to be resolved); 

• completing the preliminary designs for all FCS systems and 

subsystems; 

• clearly demonstrating that FCS key performance parameters are 

achievable with confidence; 

• obtaining a declaration from the Army user community that the 

likely outcomes of the FCS program will meet its projected needs; 

• clearly demonstrating that the FCS program will provide 

capabilities that are clearly as good as or better than those available 

with current Army forces, a key tenet set out by the Army as it 

started the FCS development program in 2003; 

• mitigating FCS technical risks to significantly lower levels; and 

• making demonstrable progress towards meeting key FCS goals 

including weight reduction, reliability improvement, and average 

unit production cost reduction. 

Page 17 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
The Army has made progress in the areas of critical technologies, 

complementary programs, and software development. In particular, FCS 

program officials report that the number of critical technologies they 

consider as mature has doubled in the past year. While this is good 

progress by any measure, FCS technologies are far less mature at this 

point in the program than called for by best practices and DOD policy, and 

they still have a long way to go to reach full maturity. The Army has made 

some difficult decisions to improve the acquisition strategies for some key 

complementary programs, such as Joint Tactical Radio System and 

Warfighter Information Network-Tactical, but they still face significant 

technological and funding hurdles. Other complementary programs had 

been unfunded, but Army officials told us that these issues have been 

addressed. Finally, the Army and the lead systems integrator are utilizing 

many software development best practices and have delivered the initial 

increments of software on schedule. On the other hand, most of the 

software development effort lies ahead, and the amount of software code 

to be written—already an unprecedented undertaking—continues to grow

as the demands of the FCS design becomes better understood. The Army 

and lead systems integrator have recognized several high risk aspects of 

that effort and mitigation efforts are underway. 

Last year, we reported that an independent review team assessment 

revealed that 18 of the program’s 49 critical technologies had reached 

Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6—a representative prototype system 

in a relevant environment.8

 The independent team projected that by 2006, 

22 of FCS’s 49 critical technologies would reach TRL 6.9

 The FCS program 

office currently assesses that 35 of 46 technologies are at or above TRL 

6—a significantly faster maturation pace than predicted last year.10 Figure 

3 compares the readiness levels of FCS technologies over a 3-year period.

Army Reports 

Significant Progress, 

but Major 

Technological 

Challenges Remain 

FCS Critical Technologies 

Are Maturing Faster Than 

Predicted Last Year 

 8

A full explanation of technology readiness levels is presented in appendix III. 

9

Previous FCS critical technology assessments have been evaluated by an independent 

review team. Although the latest assessment has not been independently reviewed, the

Army expects to have an independently-reviewed critical technology assessment available 

for the preliminary design review in early 2009. 

10Since our previous report, a Critical Technology Working-Level Integrated Product Team 

recommended that the Army remove three critical technologies from its assessment. The 

team concluded that these technologies did not conform to DOD’s definition of critical 

technologies because, in its view, the technologies did not constitute a unique or novel 

application. 

Page 18 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
Figure 3: TRL 6 Projections over Time 

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

Percent of technology at TRL6

Source: Army (data); GAO (analysis and presentation).

Year of the assessment

April 2003 assessment

April 2005 assessment

Sept. 2006 assessment

Several of these technologies jumped from a TRL 4 (low-fidelity 

breadboard design in a laboratory environment) to a TRL 6 including cross 

domain guarding solutions and the ducted fan for the Class 1 unmanned 

aerial vehicle. The program’s technology officials maintain that such a leap

can be made, even though it was not anticipated by the independent 

assessment. They cited the ducted fan technology for small unmanned 

aerial vehicles as an example. This technology was largely considered 

immature until a single demonstration showcased the system’s capabilities 

in demanding conditions, which convinced Army leadership that the 

ducted fan technology was at a TRL 6. Appendix IV lists all critical 

technologies, their current TRL status, and the projected date for reaching 

TRL 6. 

However, not all of the FCS technologies are truly at a TRL 6. Two of the 

most important technologies for the success of manned ground vehicles 

and the overall FCS concept are lightweight armor and active protection. 

The Army has previously been more optimistic about the development 

pace for these technologies. However, during the past year, the Army 

Page 19 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
recognized that the particular solutions they were pursuing for lightweight 

armor were inadequate and active protection only satisfied the conditions

for a TRL 5.

An active protection system is part of the comprehensive FCS hit 

avoidance system architecture that will protect the vehicles from incoming 

rounds, like rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank missiles. The active 

protection system would involve detecting an incoming round or rocket 

propelled grenade and launching an interceptor round from the vehicle to

destroy the incoming weapon. In mid-2006, the lead systems integrator 

(with Army participation) selected Raytheon from among numerous 

candidates to develop the architecture to satisfy FCS short-range active 

protection requirements. A subsequent trade study evaluated several 

alternative concepts and selected Raytheon’s vertical launch concept for 

further development. 

Active Protection System 

While the FCS program office’s most recent technology readiness 

assessment indicates that the active protection system is at TRL 6, a 2006

trade study found that the Raytheon concept had only achieved a TRL 5. 

Active protection system is a vital technology for the FCS concept to be 

effective, and the FCS manned ground vehicles survivability would be 

questionable without that capability. Not only will the active protection 

system concept chosen need additional technology development and 

demonstration, but it also faces system integration challenges and the 

need for safety verifications. Indeed, the Army recognizes that it faces a

challenge in demonstrating if and how it can safely operate an active 

protection system when dismounted soldiers are nearby. 

A fundamental FCS concept is to replace mass with superior 

information—that is to see and hit the enemy first rather than to rely on 

heavy armor to withstand a hit. Nonetheless, the Army has recognized that

ground vehicles cannot be effective without an adequate level of ballistic 

protection. As a result, the Army has been developing lightweight hull and

vehicle armor as a substitute for traditional, heavier armor. In the past 

year, the Army concluded that it would need additional ballistic protection 

and the Army Research Laboratory is continuing armor technology 

development to achieve improved protection levels and to reduce weight.

The Army now anticipates achieving TRL 6 on the new armor formulation 

in fiscal year 2008, near the time of the manned ground vehicle preliminary 

design review. Armor will continue to be a technology as well as 

integration risk for the program for the foreseeable future. 

Lightweight Hull and Vehicle 

Armor 

Page 20 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
As noted above, the Army’s progress in FCS technology is notable 

compared with the progress of previous years. This progress, however, 

does need to be put in a broader context. The business case for a program 

following best practices in a knowledge-based approach is to have all of its 

critical technologies mature to TRL 7 (fully functional prototype in an 

operational environment) at the start of product development. For the 

FCS, this would mean having had all technologies at TRL 7 by May 2003. 

By comparison, even with the progress the program has made in the last 

year, fewer than 35 of FCS’s 46 technologies have attained a lower 

maturity—TRL 6—31⁄2 years after starting product development. Immature 

technologies are markers for future cost growth. In our 2006 assessment of 

selected major weapon systems, development costs for the programs that 

started development with mature technologies increased by a modest 

average of 4.8 percent over the first full estimate, whereas the 

development costs for the programs that started development with 

immature technologies increased by a much higher average of 

34.9 percent.

11

Technology Maturity Must Be 

Seen in a Broader Context 

FCS program officials do not accept these standards. Rather, they 

maintain they only need to mature technologies to a TRL 6 by the time of 

the critical design review which is now scheduled for 2011. According to 

the Army’s engineers, once a technology achieves TRL 6, they are no 

longer required to track the technology’s progress. They maintain that 

anything beyond a TRL 6 is a system integration matter and not necessarily

technology development. Integration often involves adapting the 

technologies to the space, weight, and power demands of their intended 

environment. To a large extent, this is what it means to achieve a TRL 7. 

This is work that needs to be accomplished before the critical design 

reviews and is likely to pose additional trade-offs the Army will have to

make to reconcile its requirements with what is possible from a 

technology and engineering standpoint. Accordingly, the FCS program has 

singled out several critical technologies that have been assessed at TRL 6 

but yet continue to have moderate or high risk that could have dire 

consequences for meeting program requirements if they are not 

successfully dealt with. Examples include: 

• High density packaged power. Current battery technology may not 

meet the performance levels needed to support the initial 

 11GAO, Defense Acquisitions: Assessments of Selected Major Weapon Programs, 

GAO-06-391 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 31, 2006). 

Page 21 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
production of FCS. Among other things, calendar life, cost, cooling 

methods, safety, and thermal management have not been 

demonstrated. The potential impacts of this risk could affect not 

only vehicle propulsion but also lethality and supportability. 

• High power density engine. The Army has recognized that there is a 

risk that engine manufacturers may not have the capability to build 

a reliable, cost effective engine that will meet FCS requirements 

within the FCS program schedule. Engines have been tested that 

meet the power density required but not at engine power levels 

consistent with manned ground vehicle needs. The mitigation 

strategy includes engine testing to identify and correct potential 

engine design issues as soon as possible. 

• Hull anti-tank mine blast protection. The Army recognizes that there 

is a probability, given the weight constraints on FCS platforms and 

evolving blast mitigation technology, that the FCS hull and crew 

restraints will not protect the crew from life threatening injury due 

to anti-tank blast mines equal to (or greater than) the threshold 

requirement. The potential consequence is that the mobility and 

survivability of the brigade combat team will be affected. The FCS 

program and Army Research Laboratory are developing an anti-tank 

mine kit for each manned ground vehicle to meet requirements. 

• Highband networking waveform. FCS needs a high data rate 

capability to send sensor data and to support the FCS transit 

network. The Wideband Information Network-Tactical does not yet 

meet the performance requirements for size, weight, and power; 

signature management; and operational environments. There may 

be significant schedule and cost risk involved in getting that radio to 

meet the requirements. Without the high data rate capability, sensor 

data may not be presented in an adequate or timely fashion to

perform targeting or provide detailed intelligence data to the 

warfighter. 

• Cross-domain guarding solution. FCS needs this technology to

ensure the security of information transmitted on the FCS 

information network. The Army recognizes that it will be difficult to 

obtain certification and accreditation as well as to meet the space, 

weight, and power and interface requirements of FCS. Failure to 

address these concerns in a timely manner will result in delays in 

fielding FCS-equipped units and additional costs. 

The FCS program will continue to face major technological challenges for 

the foreseeable future. The independent technology assessment planned to

Page 22 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
coincide with the preliminary design review in early 2009 should provide 

objective insights regarding the Army’s progress on technology maturity 

and system integration issues. 

Army Reassessing 

Complementary Programs 

The FCS program may have to interoperate or be integrated with as many 

as 170 other programs, some of which are in development and some of 

which are currently fielded programs. These programs are not being 

developed exclusively for FCS and are outside of its direct control. 

Because of the complementary programs’ importance to FCS—52 had 

been considered essential to meeting FCS key performance parameters—

the Army closely monitors how well those efforts will synchronize with 

the FCS program. However, many of these programs have funding or 

technical problems and generally have uncertain futures. We reported last 

year that the Army is reassessing the list of essential complementary 

programs given the multiple issues surrounding them and the budgetary 

constraints the Army is facing. In addressing the constrained budget 

situation in the 2008 to 2013 program objective memorandum, program 

officials said the Army is considering reducing the set of systems. When 

the set of complementary programs is finalized, the Army will have to

determine how to replace any capabilities eliminated from the list. 

Two complementary programs that make the FCS network possible, the 

Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) and the Warfighter Information 

Network-Tactical (WIN-T), were restructured and reduced in scope. A 

challenge in making changes in these programs is their individual and 

cumulative effects on FCS performance. 

JTRS is a family of software-based radios that is to provide the high 

capacity, high-speed information link to vehicles, weapons, aircraft, 

sensors, and soldiers. The JTRS program to develop radios for ground 

vehicles and helicopters—now referred to as Ground Mobile Radio —

began product development in June 2002 and the Army has not yet been 

able to mature the technologies needed to generate sufficient power as 

well as meet platform size and weight constraints. A second JTRS program 

to develop variants of small radios that will be carried by soldiers and 

embedded in several FCS core systems—now referred to as Handheld, 

Manpack, and Small Form Factor radios—entered product development 

with immature technologies and a lack of well-defined requirements. In 

2005, DOD directed the JTRS Joint Program Executive Office to develop

options for restructuring the program to better synchronize it with FCS 

JTRS 

Page 23 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
and to reduce schedule, technology, requirements, and funding risks.12 The 

restructuring plan was approved in March 2006 and is responsive to many 

of the issues we raised in our June 2005 report.13 However, the program 

still has to finalize details of the restructure including formal acquisition 

strategies, independent cost estimates, and test and evaluation plans. 

Further, there are still cost, schedule, and technical risks associated with 

the planned delivery of initial capabilities, and therefore it is unclear 

whether the capabilities will be available in time for the first spin-out of 

FCS capabilities to current forces in 2008. Fully developed prototypes of 

JTRS radios are not expected until 2010 or later. 

The Army is developing WIN-T to provide an integrated communications 

network to connect Army units on the move with higher levels of 

command and provide the Army’s tactical extension to the Global 

Information Grid. Although the program has been successful in developing 

some technologies and demonstrating early capabilities, the status of its 

critical technologies is uncertain. As a result of an August 2005 study, the

WIN-T program is being re-baselined to meet emerging requirements as 

well as a shift in Army funding priorities. The Army’s proposal for 

restructuring would extend system development for about 5 years, and 

delay the production decision from 2006 to about 2011, while seeking 

opportunities to spin out WIN-T technologies both to FCS and to the 

current force. Despite this improvement, several risks remain for the 

program, and the restructuring does have consequences. Coupled with 

new FCS requirements, the restructure will increase development costs by 

over $500 million. Critical technologies that support WIN-T’s mobile ad 

hoc networking must still be matured and demonstrated, while the new 

FCS requirements will necessitate further technology development. Also, 

some WIN-T requirements are unfunded, and the Office of the Secretary of 

Defense recently non-concurred with part of the program’s Technology 

Readiness Assessment. In order to obtain concurrence, the WIN-T 

program manager is updating the body of evidence material to reaffirm the 

technology maturity estimates. 

WIN-T 

 12Joint Program Executive Office was established in February 2005 after Congress directed 

DOD to strengthen the joint management of all the JTRS program components. 

13GAO, Defense Acquisitions: Resolving Development Risks in the Army’s Networked

Communications Capabilities is Key to Fielding Future Force, GAO-05-669 (Washington,

D.C.: June 15, 2005). 

Page 24 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
The FCS software development program is the largest in DOD history, and 

the importance of software needed for FCS performance is 

unprecedented. The Army is attempting to incorporate a number of best 

practices into their development, and some initial increments of software 

have been delivered on time. However, since the program started, the 

projected amount of software needed for FCS has almost doubled, to 

63.8 million lines of code. Further, the Army must address a number of 

high risk issues that could impact delivery schedules, operational 

capabilities, and overall FCS performance. 

Several numbers help illustrate the magnitude of the FCS software 

development effort 

• 95 percent of FCS’s functionality is controlled by software, 

particularly the network; 

Army Is Devoting 

Considerable Attention to 

Software Development, 

but Major Risks Need to be 

Addressed 

Disciplined Approach 

Needed to Manage 

Unprecedented Amount of 

Software 

• 63 million lines of code are currently projected to be needed for 

FCS, more than 3 times the amount being developed for the Joint 

Strike Fighter; 

• FCS will have its own operating system, like Microsoft Windows, 

called the System-of-Systems Common Operating Environment; and 

• Over 100 interfaces or software connections to systems outside FCS 

will have to be developed. 

Of primary importance to the success of FCS is the System-of-Systems 

Common Operating Environment software. This software is expected to

act as the infrastructure for other FCS software. It is to standardize 

component-to-component communications within computers, vehicles, 

the virtual private networks, and the Global Information Grid, enabling

interoperability with legacy Army, joint, coalition, government, and nongovernment organizations. Finally, it is to provide the integration 

framework for the FCS family of systems and enable integrated system-ofsystems functionality and performance. 

We have previously reported that software-intensive weapon programs are 

more likely to reach successful outcomes if they used a manageable 

evolutionary environment and disciplined process and managed by 

metrics.14 The Army is attempting to follow such an approach to meet the 

 14GAO, Defense Acquisitions: Stronger Management Practices Are Needed to Improve 

DOD’s Software-Intensive Weapons Acquisitions. GAO-04-393 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 1,

2004). 

Page 25 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
software challenges on FCS. Specifically, FCS software will be developed 

in four discrete stages, or blocks. Each block adds incremental 

functionality in eight functional areas (command and control, simulation, 

logistics, training, manned ground vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles, 

unmanned ground vehicles, and warfighting systems). The Army and lead 

systems integrator are also partitioning software into at least 100 smaller, 

more manageable subsystems. The FCS program is also implementing 

scheduled and gated reviews to discipline software development and have

developed a set of metrics to measure technical performance in terms of 

growth, stability, quality, staffing, and process. 

Apart from the sheer difficulty of writing and testing such a large volume 

of complex code, a number of risks face the FCS software development 

effort. As requirements have become better understood, the number of 

lines of code has grown since the program began in 2003. Specifically, in 

2003, the Army estimated that FCS would need 33.7 million lines of code, 

compared to today’s estimate of 63.8 million. As the Army and its 

contractors learn more about the limits of technology and its design 

concepts, the amount and functionality to be delivered by software may 

change. 

Considerable Risks Remain 

with Software Development 

FCS’s 63 million lines of software code can be broken down further into 

code that is new, reused, or commercial-off-the-shelf, as seen in figure 4. 

Page 26 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
Figure 4: FCS Projected Software Lines of Code (in thousands) 

New, 12,228

Reuse, 14,559

Commercial off-the-shelf, 36,948

Source: Army (data); GAO (analysis and presentation).

19%

23% 58%

The Army maintains that new software code presents the greatest 

challenge because it has to be written from scratch. Reused code is code 

already written for other military systems that is being adapted to FCS. 

Similarly, commercial-off-the shelf software is code already written for 

commercial systems that is being adapted to FCS. A program official told 

us that estimates of software code that will be reused are often overstated 

and the difficulty of adapting commercial software is often understated in 

DOD programs. This optimism translates into greater time and effort to 

develop software than planned. An independent estimate of reuse and 

commercial software has concluded that these efforts have been 

understated for the FCS program, which will translate into higher cost and 

schedule slippage.15 If the independent estimate proves correct, more 

software development could be pushed beyond the production decision.

A foundational block of software (Build 0) has already been completed 

and an interim package of the System-of-Systems Common Operating 

Environment software was recently tested and delivered. However, as can 

 15The estimate was conducted by the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Cost Analysis and 

Improvement Group in support of the FCS Milestone B review from May 2003. 

Page 27 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
be seen in table 1, even if FCS stays on schedule, a portion—10 percent—

of FCS software is planned to be delivered and tested after the early 2013 

production decision that will limit the knowledge available to decision 

makers at that point.16

Table 1: FCS Software Blocks, Percentage of Completion, and Delivery Dates 

Block Percentage of total software completed Delivery date 

0 5 September 2005

1 30 December 2007

2 61 May 2010

3 90 October 2011

4 100 October 2013

Source: U.S. Army (data); GAO (analysis and presentation). 

Currently, the Army estimates that 45 percent of the total 63 million source 

lines of code will have been written and tested by the early 2009 

preliminary design review and 75 percent will be done by the 2011 critical

design review. Although there has been no significant schedule slippage to

date on the initial increments of software, both of these estimates may 

prove to be ambitious. Additionally, according to program officials, the 

most difficult part of software development is the last 10 percent. 

Although the Army is attempting to implement several software best 

practices, there are a number of factors that may complicate those efforts. 

One of the leading problems in software development is the lack of 

adequately defined requirements. Without adequate definition and 

validation of requirements and design, software engineers could be coding

to an incorrect design, resulting in missing functionality and errors. As we 

discussed earlier, the ultimate system-level requirements may not be 

complete until the preliminary design review in 2009. The Army 

acknowledges that the FCS’s lack of adequate requirements and 

incomplete system architecture could result in software that does not 

provide the desired functionality or performance. This lack of top-level

requirements and architecture definition also affects the accuracy of 

projected lines of code. Program risk charts suggest that software 

 16In the recent adjustments to the FCS program, the Army has moved the Milestone C 

decision about 5 months to early 2013. Based on the available information on the program

adjustments, it is not clear if the software delivery dates have been impacted. 

Page 28 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
estimates could be understated by as much as 70 percent, which could 

impact overall schedule and performance. 

The Army has identified specific aspects of FCS software development as

high risk and is developing plans to mitigate the risks: 

• System-of-Systems Common Operating Environment Availability and 

Maturity. There is a recognized risk that the software may not reach the

necessary technical maturity level required to meet program 

milestones. 

• FCS software integration performance and development. Due to the 

complexity, functional scope, net-centric focus, and real-time 

requirements for the command and control software, software 

integration may not yield fully functional software that performs as 

desired. 

• Block 1 incompatible software components during integration. There 

are a large number of diverse groups working on software components 

that need to be integrated into full units. A lack of early integration 

process and collaboration among the suppliers represents substantial 

risk to rework during integration and subsequent schedule impact. 

• Software estimating accuracy. To date, estimating accuracy has been 

hampered by changing requirements, immature architecture, and 

insufficient time to thoroughly analyze software subsystems sizing. The 

difficulties associated with accurate software estimating is an 

indication that complexity increases as the design is better understood 

and this serves to increase the level of effort. 

• Software supplier integration. The unprecedented nature, volatility, and 

close coupling of FCS suppliers’ software will frequently require 

various combinations of suppliers to share information and rapidly 

negotiate changes in their products, interfaces, and schedules. As these 

suppliers are traditionally wary competitors that are used to 

performing to fixed specifications, there are significant risks of slow 

and inflexible adaptation to critical FCS sources of change. Failure to 

do so will translate directly into missed delivery schedules, 

significantly reduced operational capabilities, and less dependable 

system performance. 

Page 29 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
As it approaches the preliminary design review and the subsequent go/nogo milestone review, the Army should have made additional progress in 

developing technologies and software as well as aligning the development 

of complementary programs with the FCS program. The challenges that 

will have to be overcome include 

• demonstrating that all critical technologies are mature to at least 

the TRL 6 level. This assessment should be reviewed and validated 

by an independent review team; 

• mitigating the recognized technical risks for the FCS critical 

technologies, including their successful integration with other FCS 

subsystems and systems; 

• clearly demonstrating that the risks inherent in the active protection 

system and the lightweight hull and vehicle armor have been 

reduced to low levels; 

• synchronizing the JTRS and WIN-T development schedules with 

FCS system integration and demonstration needs for both the 

spinouts and core program; 

• mitigating the cost, schedule, and performance risks in software 

development to acceptably low levels; and 

• establishing the set of complementary programs that are essential 

for FCS’s success, ensuring that that are fully funded, and aligning 

theirs and the overall FCS program schedules. 

The FCS acquisition strategy and testing schedule have become more 

complex as plans have been made to spin out capabilities to current Army 

forces. The strategy acquires knowledge later than called for by best 

practices and DOD policy. In addition, knowledge deficits for

requirements and technologies have created enormous challenges for 

devising an acquisition strategy that can demonstrate the maturity of 

design and production processes. Even if requirements setting and 

technology maturity proceed without incident, FCS design and production 

maturity is not likely to be demonstrated until after the production 

decision is made. The critical design review will be held much later on 

FCS than other programs, and the Army will not be building productionrepresentative prototypes with all of their intended components to test 

before production. Much of the testing up to the 2013 production decision

will involve simulations, technology demonstrations, experiments, and 

single system testing. Only after that point, however, will substantial 

testing of the complete brigade combat team and the FCS concept of 

operations occur. However, production is the most expensive phase in 

which to resolve design or other problems found during testing. Spin-outs, 

Considerations for the 

2009 FCS Milestone 

Review 

Concurrent 

Acquisition Strategy 

Will Provide for Late 

Demonstration of FCS 

Capabilities 

Page 30 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
which are intended to accelerate delivery of FCS capabilities to the 

current force, also complicate the acquisition strategy by absorbing 

considerable testing resources and some tests. 

Acquisition Strategy Will 

Demonstrate Design 

Maturity after Production 

Begins 

The Army’s acquisition strategy for FCS does not reflect a knowledgebased approach. Figure 5 shows how the Army’s strategy for acquiring 

FCS involves concurrent development, design reviews that occur late in

the program, and other issues that are out of alignment with the 

knowledge-based approach that characterizes best practices and is 

supported in DOD policy. 

Page 31 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
Figure 5: Acquisition Compared with Commercial Best Practices

Best practices approach

FCS approach

Development 

start

Production

start

PDR CDR

KP 3

FCS KP 1, KP 2, and KP 3?

2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016

KP 1: (Knowledge Point 1): technologies and resources match requirements

KP 2: (Knowledge Point 2): design performs as expected

KP 3: (Knowledge Point 3): production can meet cost, schedule, and quality targets

PDR: Preliminary design review

CDR: Critical design review

Source: Army (data); GAO (analysis and presentation).

System development and demonstration

Technology development System development and demonstration

KP 2

and

CDR

Technology development

Production

Production

KP 1

and

PDR

Ideally, the preliminary design review occurs at or near the start of 

product development. Activities leading up to the preliminary design 

review include, among others, translating system requirements into design 

specifics. Doing so can help reveal key technical and engineering 

challenges and can help determine if a mismatch exists between what the 

customer wants and what the product developer can deliver. Scheduling 

the preliminary design review early in product development is intended to

help stabilize cost, schedule, and performance expectations. The critical 

design review ideally occurs midway into the product development phase. 

The critical design review should confirm that the system design performs 

as expected and is stable enough to build production-representative 

prototypes for testing. The building of production-representative 

prototypes helps decision makers confirm that the system can be 

Page 32 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
produced and manufactured within cost, schedule, and quality targets. 

According to the knowledge-based approach, a high percentage of design 

drawings should be completed and released to manufacturing at critical

design review. The period leading up to critical design review is referred to 

as system integration, when individual components of a system are 

brought together, and the period after the review is called system 

demonstration, when the system as a whole demonstrates its reliability as 

well as its ability to work in the intended environment. 

The Army has scheduled the preliminary design review in early 2009, 

about 6 years after the start of product development. The critical design

review is scheduled in fiscal year 2011, just 2 years after the scheduled 

preliminary design review and 2 years before the initial FCS production 

decision in fiscal year 2013. This will leave little time for product 

demonstration and correction of any issues that are identified at that 

time.17 This is not to suggest that the two design reviews for the FCS could 

have been conducted earlier but rather that commitments to build and test 

prototypes and begin low-rate production are scheduled too soon 

afterward. The timing of the design reviews is indicative of how late 

knowledge will be attained in the program, even if all goes according to 

plan. With requirements definition not being complete until at least the 

final preliminary design review in early 2009 and technology maturation 

not until after that, additional challenges will have to be addressed within

the system integration phase. System integration will already be a 

challenging phase due to known integration issues and numerous 

technical risks. The best practice measure for the completion of the 

system integration phase is the release of at least 90 percent of engineering 

drawings by the time of the critical design review. 

The Army is planning to have developmental prototypes of all FCS systems 

available for testing prior to low-rate initial production. For example, most 

of the manned ground vehicle prototypes are expected to be available in 

2011 for developmental and qualification testing.

18 However, these 

prototypes are not expected to be production-representative prototypes 

and will have some surrogate components. Whereas the testing of fully 

 17The early 2009 preliminary design review and the 2011 critical design review are 

culminating events; system-level preliminary design reviews and critical design reviews will 

be conducted prior to those dates.

18The Army will have early prototypes of the non line-of-sight cannon vehicle available as 

early as fiscal year 2008 in order to meet congressional direction. 

Page 33 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
integrated, production-representative prototypes demonstrate design 

maturity and their fabrication can demonstrate production process 

maturity, neither of these knowledge points will be attained until after the 

initial production decision is made. 

System-Level Testing 

Compressed into Late 

Development and Early 

Production 

The FCS test program is unique because it is designed to field a new 

fighting unit and concept of operations to the Army, not just new 

equipment. To help do this, the Army has incorporated a new evaluation

unit, known as the Evaluation Brigade Combat Team, to help with 

development and testing of the FCS systems and the tactics, techniques, 

and procedures necessary for the unit to fight. The test effort will involve 

four phases during development, which examine how the program is 

maturing hardware and software, during development. These phases are 

intended as check points. The first phase has a corresponding spin-out of

mature FCS capabilities to current forces. 

The Army is proceeding with its plans to reduce FCS risks using modeling, 

simulation, emulation, and system integration laboratories. This approach

is a key aspect of the Army’s acquisition strategy and is designed to reduce 

the dependence on late testing to gain valuable insights about many 

aspects of FCS development, including design progress. However, on a 

first-of-a-kind system—like FCS—that represents a radical departure from 

current systems and warfighting concepts, actual testing of all the 

components integrated together is the final proof that the FCS system-of -

systems concept works both as predicted and expected. FCS program test 

officials told us that while they understand the limitations involved, the 

use of emulators, surrogates, and simulations gives the Army a 

tremendous amount of early information, particularly about the system-ofsystems and the network. This early information is expected to make it 

easier for the Army to deal with the compressed period between 2010 and 

2014 and give the Army the ability to fix things quicker. As we were 

preparing this report, it was not clear what, if any, impact the Army’s 

program adjustments would have on its testing and demonstration plans 

and schedules. Table 2 describes the key test events, as currently 

scheduled, throughout the FCS program. 

Page 34 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
Table 2: Key FCS Test Event Schedule 

No. Event Systems Description Dates

1 Experiment 1.1 Ground sensors and other emulators, radio 

systems, and other systems 

Provides early and limited assessment of 

abilities of selected network systems 

7/2006 to 6/2007 

2 Experiment 2 Command and control, ground sensors, 

communications, lethality enablers, and 

other systems 

Early experiment with several FCS 

systems at the battalion, company, and 

platoon echelons 

1/2008 to 1/2009 

3 Spin-Out 1 Limited 

User Test 1 

Various computer systems, ground 

sensors, and missile launch system 

Battalion level test with current force 

equipment and selected systems being 

“spun” out to current forces 

3/2008 to 4/2008

Preliminary design review 2nd quarter 

fiscal year 2009 

Defense acquisition board milestone review 3rd quarter 

fiscal year 2009 

4 Early Ground

Vehicle Delivery

Early prototype of the non line of sightcannon manned ground vehicle Initial prototype with commonality with later 

prototypes 

3rd Quarter 

Fiscal Year 2008

5 Integrated Mission

Test 2

Integration laboratory, simulations, 

common operating system and other items

First system-of-systems test in integration 

phase 2 and indicator of network 

functionality 

8/2009 to 11/2010 

6 Aerial Vehicle Prototype of the Class IV Fire Scout Early prototype delivery and demonstration 3/2010 

7 Limited User Test 

2 

Small number of unmanned aerial vehicles 

and a task organized platoon

Assess network maturity and capabilities 

of aerial vehicles in operational 

environment 

2/2010 to 4/2010 

8 Spin-Out 1 Initial 

Operational Test 

Various computer systems, ground 

sensors, and missile launch system 

Operational test of selected systems and 

their effectiveness being “spun out” to 

current forces 

4th Quarter Fiscal 

Year 2010 

Critical design review 2nd quarter 

fiscal year 2011 

9 Pre-Production

Prototypes 

Delivery 

Non-Line-of-Sight Cannon and other 

manned ground vehicles 

Pre-production prototype delivery of 

manned ground vehicles with common 

features 

3rd Quarter 

Fiscal Year 2010 to 

4th Quarter 

Fiscal Year 2011 

10 Technical Field

Test 3

Field test of the brigade combat team with 

prototypes 

Important test that deals with maturing the 

network and confirms important interfaces 

and interoperability 

10/2011 to 3/2012 

11 Integrated

Qualification Test 

3

All manned ground vehicles and remaining 

unmanned ground vehicles, aerial vehicles 

and ground sensors 

Integrated qualification tests for majority of 

FCS systems including pre-production 

representative prototypes in their core 

threshold configurations 

8/2010 to 1/2012 

12 Limited User Test 

3

Some of all systems deployed in two 

companies with the network 

Assesses the brigade combat team small 

unit capabilities 

4/2012 to 5/2012 

Initial low-rate production decision 2nd quarter 

fiscal year 2013 

13 Production and

Deployment 

Limited User Test 

All manned ground vehicles and some 

unmanned systems 

Complete full-up system-level tests of all 

systems to production standards 

4th Quarter Fiscal 

Year 2014 

Page 35 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
No. Event Systems Description Dates

Initial operating capability 3rd quarter 

fiscal year 2015 

14 Live Fire Test All individual systems Live fire tests with complete and functional 

systems 

2014 to 2016 

15 Initial Operational

Test 

Brigade combat team and all of the 

systems involved 

Full spectrum operations with production 

representative systems in a realistic, 

operational live environment 

3rd and 4th 

Quarter Fiscal Year 

2016 

Full rate production decision 2nd quarter 

fiscal year 2017 

Full operating capability 3rd quarter 

fiscal year 2017 

Source: FCS Test and Evaluation Master Plan and FCS Program Office (data); GAO (analysis and presentation). 

The majority of testing through 2012 is limited in scope and is more about 

confidence building than demonstrations of key capabilities. Much like the 

overall acquisition strategy, the FCS testing plan will provide key 

knowledge late in the systems development phase. Early test efforts will 

focus on experiments and development testing of individual systems. 

Some early systems will be tested as part of the Army’s efforts to spin out 

technologies to current forces, including unmanned ground sensors and 

the non-line-of-sight-launch system. The bulk of the developmental 

prototypes will not be available until 2010 and later for testing and 

demonstrations. 

The first large scale FCS test that will include a majority of the 

developmental prototypes and a large operational unit will not take place 

until 2012, the year before production is now slated to begin. This will 

mark the start of the Army’s testing of the whole FCS, including the 

overarching network and the FCS concept. For example, a limited user 

test in 2010 involves only a platoon and a few unmanned aerial vehicles 

while a similar test, in 2012, will involve two companies and 

developmental prototypes for each of the manned ground vehicles as well 

as other systems being tested at the brigade level.

Starting in 2012, several key tests will occur that should give decision 

makers a clearer understanding of whether the FCS system-of-systems and 

concept actually work as expected. By the end of 2014, production 

representative vehicles are expected to be available and tested in a 

production limited user test. Another important test is the initial 

operational test and evaluation in 2016, which provides the first full 

assessment of the entire program including all of the FCS systems, the 

brigade combat team, network operations, and the actual operating 

Page 36 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
concept. This test involves full spectrum operations in a realistic 

environment. 

There are two major risks in the FCS testing approach: schedule 

compression and testing of the network. The first risk centers on the lack 

of time available to identify, correct, and retest for problems that come up

during early testing and the second on the lack of capabilities to test an 

essential element of the FCS concept, the information network. 

Independent test officials noted that it is unclear what the Army expects 

from the network. With the network identified as a major risk element of 

the program, as well as a major risk, test officials noted that the Army 

needs to set benchmarks for what will be demonstrated over time. 

Independent testing officials have also told us that the FCS test schedule is

very tight and may not allow adequate time for “test-fix-test” testing. The 

test and evaluation master plan recognizes this possibility by noting that 

within each integration phase there is only time to test and fix minor 

issues. More substantial problems would have to be fixed in a succeeding 

integration phase. Overall, testing officials are concerned that the FCS 

program is driven by its schedule and that the Army may rush prematurely 

into operational testing and perform poorly when it is too late to make 

cost effective corrections. 

Testing of the network is critical because it must provide secure, reliable 

access and distribution of information over extended distances and, 

sometimes, when operating in complex terrain. Testing the large number 

of FCS sensors and the network’s ability to process the information will 

not be effective since test capabilities, methodologies, and expertise 

needed to test a tactical network of this magnitude are incomplete and 

insufficient. The first major test of the network and FCS together with a 

majority of prototypes will not take place until 2012, the year before lowrate production is now expected to begin. 

The FCS program is thus susceptible to late-cycle churn, that is, the effort 

required to fix a significant problem that is discovered late in a product’s 

development. In particular, churn refers to the additional—and 

unanticipated—time, money, and effort that must be invested to overcome 

problems discovered through testing. Problems are most serious when 

they delay product delivery, increase product cost, or escape to the 

customer. The discovery of problems through testing conducted late in

development is a fairly common occurrence on DOD programs, as is the 

attendant late-cycle churn. Often, tests of a full system, such as launching 

a missile or flying an aircraft, become the vehicles for discovering 

problems that could have been found earlier and corrected less 

Page 37 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
expensively. When significant problems are revealed late in a weapon 

system’s development, the reaction—or churn—can take several forms: 

extending schedules to increase the investment in more prototypes and 

testing, terminating the program, or redesigning and modifying weapons 

that have already made it to the field. While DOD has accepted such 

problems over the years, FCS offers particular challenges, given the 

magnitude of its cost in an increasingly competitive environment for 

investment funds. Problems discovered at the production stage are 

generally the most expensive to correct. 

Spin-Outs Support the 

Current Force but Place 

More Demands on FCS 

Test Resources 

When the Army restructured the FCS program in 2004, it revised its 

acquisition strategy to include a way to field various FCS capabilities—

technologies and systems—to current forces while development of the 

core FCS program is still underway. This restructuring was expected to 

benefit the current forces as well as provide early demonstrations that 

would benefit the core FCS program. Known as spin-outs, the Army plans 

to begin limited low-rate production of the systems planned for Spin-Out 

1 in 2009 and field those systems to current Army forces 2 years later. 

Leading up to the production decision in 2009 will be system development 

tests and a limited user test. Additional spin-outs are now planned to occur 

in 2010 and 2012. Using this method, the Army plans to deliver significant 

capabilities to the current force earlier than previously planned. Over the 

long-term, these capabilities include enhanced battle command 

capabilities and a variety of manned and unmanned ground and air 

platforms that are intended to improve current force survivability and 

operations. 

Currently, FCS Spin-Out 1 involves the non-line-of sight launch system and 

unmanned ground sensors as well as early versions of the System-ofSystems Common Operating Environment and Battle Command software 

subsystems. Also included are the kits needed to interface with current 

force vehicles. These capabilities will be tested and validated using the 

Evaluation Brigade Combat Team, which will provide feedback to help 

refine the FCS doctrine and other matters. These systems are expected to

be fielded to operational units starting in 2010, although it is unclear yet if 

these elements of FCS will provide significant capability to the current 

forces at a reasonable cost. 

There are two test-related concerns with spin-outs. One is that spin-outs 

have complicated the FCS acquisition strategy because they focus early 

testing and test resources on a few mature systems that will be spun out to

current Army forces. FCS program test officials told us that the primary 

Page 38 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
focus of the program’s first integration phase will be on events supporting

systems in that spin-out. It is unclear if subsequent integration phases will 

be similarly configured. If that were to occur, fewer overall FCS systems 

would be looked at and tested in each phase, and testing to evaluate how 

the FCS system-of-systems and concept of operations could come later 

than originally planned. A program official has noted that the schedule to 

deliver the needed hardware and software to the evaluation brigade 

combat team is ambitious and the schedule for tests leading up to a 

production decision for Spin-Out 1 is compressed. Some individual 

systems developmental and other testing began in 2006, but key user and 

operational tests will not occur until 2008, just prior to the production 

decision for systems in Spin-Out 1. Independent test officials have 

expressed concern not only over whether there will be enough time to 

test, fix and test again during these key tests but also whether there will be 

enough time to “reset” or refurbish the equipment being used from one test 

to another. For example, the technical field test, force development test 

and evaluation and pilot test, and the limited user tests for Spin-Out 1 are 

to be conducted back-to-back over a several month period just before the 

production decision. In addition, key tests including a limited user test for 

the non-line-of-sight launch system will take place after the Spin-Out 

1 production decision. FCS program test officials have told us, however, 

that the program does not plan to fix and test again any problems 

discovered in a particular integration phase until the next integration 

phase. They also noted that the compressed event schedule allowed them

to use the same resources and soldiers in each test. 

Considerations for the 

2009 FCS Milestone 

Review 

As the Army proceeds to the preliminary design review, the FCS 

acquisition strategy will likely continue to be aggressive, concurrent, and

compressed and one that develops key knowledge later in the 

development process than called for by best practices. Few FCS platforms 

will have been tested by this point. The majority of testing and the proof of 

whether the systems can be integrated and work together are left to occur 

after prototypes are delivered starting in the next decade. The Army faces 

a number of key challenges as it proceeds to and beyond the preliminary 

design review including

• completing requirements definition and technology maturity (at 

least to TRL 6) to be able to complete the final preliminary design 

review; 

• clearly demonstrating spinout capabilities prior to committing to 

their initial production and fielding;

Page 39 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
• completing system integration and releasing at least 90 percent of 

engineering drawings by the critical design review in 2011; 

• allocating sufficient time, as needed, for test, fix and retest 

throughout the FCS test program; and 

• allocating sufficient time to thoroughly demonstrate each FCS 

system, the information network, and the FCS concept prior to 

committing to low rate initial production in 2013. 

Last year, we reported that FCS program acquisition costs had increased 

to $160.7 billion—76 percent—since the Army’s original estimate (figures 

have been adjusted for inflation.) While the Army’s current estimate is 

essentially the same, an independent estimate from the Office of the 

Secretary of Defense puts the acquisition cost of FCS between $203 billion 

and $234 billion. The comparatively low level of technology and design 

knowledge at this point in the program portends future cost increases. Our 

work on a broad base of DOD weapon system programs shows that most 

developmental cost increases occur after the critical design review, which 

will now be in 2011 for the FCS. Yet, by that point in time, the Army will 

have spent about 80 percent of the FCS’s development funds. Further, the 

Army has not yet fully estimated the cost of essential complementary 

programs and the procurement of spin-out items to the current force. The 

Army is cognizant of these resource tensions and has adopted measures in 

an attempt to control FCS costs. However, some of these measures involve 

reducing program scope in the form of lower requirements and 

capabilities, which will have to be reassessed against the user’s demands. 

Symptomatic of the continuing resource tension, the Army recently 

announced that it was restructuring several aspects of the FCS program, 

including the scope of the program and its planned annual production 

rates to lower its annual funding demands. This will have an impact on 

program cost, but full details are not yet available. 

The Army’s official cost estimate for FCS has changed only slightly from 

last year’s estimate, which reflected a major program restructuring from 

the original estimate. In inflated dollars, the program office estimates the 

acquisition cost will be $163.7 billion, up from the original 2003 estimate of

$91.4 billion. However, independent cost estimates are significantly higher,

as presented in table 3. 

Likely Growth of FCS 

Costs Increases 

Tension between 

Program Scope and 

Available Funds

New Independent 

Estimates Indicate Higher 

FCS Acquisition Costs 

Page 40 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
Table 3: Comparison of the Original Cost Estimate and Recent Cost Estimates for 

the FCS Program (in billions of dollars) 

Original 

Army estimate

Current 

Army estimate

Independent

cost estimate

Base year 2003 dollars May 2003 December 2005 May 2006

Research, development, test, 

and evaluation

$18.1 $26.4 $31.8—44.0

Procurement $59.1 $92.8 $118.7

Total $77.2 $119.2 $150.5—162.7

Inflated dollars May 2003 December 2005 May 2006

Research, development, test, 

and evaluation

$19.6 $30.6 $36.6—52.7

Procurement $71.8 $133.1 $166.7—181.2

Total $91.4 $163.7 $203.3—233.9

Source: U.S. Army, Office of the Secretary of Defense (data); GAO (analysis and presentation). 

Recent independent estimates from the Office of the Secretary of 

Defense’s Cost Analysis Improvement Group indicate that FCS acquisition 

costs could range from $203 billion to $234 billion in inflated dollars. The 

independent estimate reflected several additional years and additional 

staffing beyond the Army’s estimate to achieve initial operational 

capability. The difference in estimates is also attributable to the Cost 

Analysis Improvement Group’s assessment that FCS software 

development would require more time and effort to complete than the 

Army had estimated. The independent estimate also provided for 

additional risks regarding the availability of key systems to support the 

FCS network, such as the JTRS radios. Neither the Army nor the Defense 

Acquisition Board has accepted the independent estimate. Program 

officials believe the independent estimate of research and development 

costs is too high because it is too conservative regarding risks. 

The higher estimates of procurement costs reflect additional quantities of

individual systems needed to provide full capabilities to the Brigade 

Combat Team. Neither the Army nor independent estimate reflects the 

recent decision to reduce the number of FCS systems and slow down the 

production rate. Prior to that decision, the Army had actually been 

contemplating expanding the scope of FCS to include additional Class IV 

unmanned aerial vehicles, additional unattended ground sensors, 

intelligent munitions systems, and test assets for the Army user 

community, as well as two new systems—a centralized controller device

and a rearming module for the manned ground vehicles. This expansion 

Page 41 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
would have increased the Army’s estimate to about $208 billion, but 

appears obviated by the recent decision to reduce scope. 

Cost estimates for any program are limited by the level of product 

knowledge available. All of the FCS estimates are thus limited by the 

relatively low level of knowledge in the FCS program today. If the FCS 

program had been following knowledge-based acquisition practices, its

2003 estimate would have been based on mature technologies and the 

current estimate would have had the benefit of a complete preliminary 

design review and a considerable amount of work towards the critical

design review. The program’s estimate would be based much more on 

demonstrated knowledge and actual cost versus assumptions. Instead, the 

current FCS estimates are built on a knowledge base without mature 

technologies, a preliminary design that is at least 2 years away, and a 

critical design review that is 3 to 4 years away. The Army must, therefore,

make significant assumptions about how knowledge will develop. As 

experience has shown, in many DOD weapon systems, assumptions 

generally prove optimistic and result in underestimated costs. 

Soft Knowledge Base for Cost 

Estimates Portends Future 

Cost Growth 

As it is currently structured, the Army is planning to make substantial 

financial investments in the FCS program before key knowledge is gained 

on requirements, technologies, system designs, and system performance. 

Table 4 shows the annual and cumulative funding, as reported in the 

program’s current cost estimate, and the level of knowledge to be attained 

each fiscal year. 

The impact of the Army’s recent program adjustments on the research and 

development funding stream were not known at the time this report was 

written. 

Page 42 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
Table 4: Annual and Cumulative FCS Funding and Planned Events and Achievements 

Fiscal 

Year 

Percentage of

funding spent to 

date

Annual research, 

development, test, and

evaluation funding (in 

millions of dollars)

Cumulative research, 

development, test, and

evaluation funding (in 

millions of dollars) Planned events and achievements 

2003 0.5 $165.2 $165.2 Start of product development

2004 6.1 1701.3 1,866.5 Program restructured 

2005 15.7 2929.9 4,796.4 System-of-Systems Functional Review; systemof-systems requirements stabilized; cost 

estimate updated 

2006 26 3162.4 7,958.8 Initial system level requirements 

2007 38.2 3717.7a11,676.5 Preliminary design work in progress 

2008 50.2 3674.8 15,351.3 Most technologies reach TRL 6; final systemlevel requirements. 

2009 61.5 3457.9 18809.2 Preliminary design review; all technologies 

reach TRL 6; mandated “go/no-go” review.

2010 71.9 3187.8 21,997 Limited user test 2; some prototypes available 

2011 80.7 2695.4 24,692.4 Critical design review; design readiness review; 

all system prototypes available 

2012 88.1 2253.7 26,946.1 Technologies reach full TRL 7 maturity; limited 

user test 3; initial system-of-systems 

demonstration

2013 92.7 1436.2 28,382.3 Milestone C—initial program production 

decision 

2014 96.6 1189.4 29,571.7 Limited user test 4; full system-of-systems 

demonstration; fielding start brigade combat 

teams 

2015 99.6 919.8 30,491.5 Initial operational capability 

2016 100 110.6 30,602.1 Initial operational test and evaluation; full-rate

production decision 

2017 Full operational capability 

Source: U.S. Army (data); GAO (analysis and presentation). 

a

Research and development funding was cut by $254 million in the fiscal year 2007 budget. 

As can be seen in table 4, through fiscal year 2007, the program will have 

spent about a third of its development budget—over $11 billion. By the 

time of the preliminary design review and the congressionally mandated 

go/no-go decision in 2009, the Army will have spent about 60 percent of its 

FCS development budget—over $18 billion. At that point, the program 

should have matured most of the critical technologies to TRL 6, and the 

definition of system-level requirements should be nearing completion. This

is the level of knowledge the program should have achieved in 2003 before 

being approved for development start, according to best practices and the

Page 43 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
approach preferred by DOD in its acquisition policies. The FCS critical 

design review is now scheduled for fiscal year 2011. By that time, the 

program will have spent about $24.7 billion, or about 81 percent of its 

expected research and development expenditures. 

The immature state of FCS technologies and the timing of its critical 

design review make the FCS cost estimate vulnerable to future increases. 

In our 2006 assessment of selected major weapon systems, we found that 

development costs for the programs with mature technologies increased 

by a modest average of 4.8 percent over the first full estimate, whereas the 

development costs for the programs with immature technologies increased 

by a much higher average of 34.9 percent.19 Similarly, program acquisition 

unit costs for the programs with mature technologies increased by less 

than 1 percent, whereas the programs that started development with 

immature technologies experienced an average program acquisition unit 

cost increase of nearly 27 percent over the first full estimate. Our work 

also showed that most development cost growth occurred after the critical

design review. Specifically, of the 28.3 percent cost growth that weapon 

systems average in development, 19.7 percent occurs after the critical 

design review. 

The current cost estimates do not fully reflect the total costs to the Army. 

Excluded are the costs of complementary programs, such as the Joint 

Tactical Radio System, which are substantial. Also, the costs to procure 

the FCS spin-out items and needed installation kits—previously estimated 

to cost about $23 billion—are not included. In fact, the procurement of 

FCS spinout items was not previously funded; however, as we were 

preparing this report, Army officials told us that in finalizing its budget 

plans for fiscal years 2008 to 2013, there was a decision to provide 

procurement funding for FCS items to be spun out to current forces. 

Congress recently mandated an independent cost estimate to address the 

full costs of developing, procuring, and fielding the FCS to be submitted by 

April 1, 2007.

The Army has taken steps to manage the growing cost of FCS. Program 

officials have said that they budgeted for development risk by building 

$5 billion into the original cost estimates to cover risk. They have also said 

that they will not exceed the cost ceiling of the development contract, but 

Army Steps to Control FCS 

Program Costs 

 19GAO, Defense Acquisitions: Assessments of Selected Major Weapon Programs, 

GAO-06-391 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 31, 2006). 

Page 44 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
as a result, they may have to modify, reduce, or delete lower-priority FCS 

requirements. However, this approach would reduce capabilities, and a 

lesser set of FCS capabilities may not be adequate to meet the user’s 

expectations. Also, the Army is focusing on reducing the average unit 

production cost of the FCS brigade combat teams, which currently exceed 

the amount at which each brigade combat team is budgeted. The Army has 

established a glide path to reduce the unit costs; however, program 

officials have said they are struggling to further reduce the unit costs in 

many cases, particularly as a result of challenges with the manned ground

vehicles. Further, any additional savings from such initiatives may not be

realized until several years later into the program. 

The FCS contract allows for the program to make what is called “Program 

Generated Adjustments” whereby any known cost overrun or increase in 

scope of work that would require additional funding is offset by identifying 

work scope that can be deleted with minimal impact to the program. Each 

year, the government and lead systems integrator will identify a prioritized 

list of candidates for capabilities that can be partially or completely 

deleted and its associated budget re-directed to the new work scope or to

offset a cost overrun. 

The Army and lead systems integrator monitor the performance of the FCS 

program through an earned value management system, which allows 

program management to monitor the technical, schedule, and cost 

performance of the program. As it proceeds, the Army and lead systems 

integrator can use the information gleaned from the earned value 

management system to make informed program decisions and correct 

potential problems early. According to earned value data, the FCS is 

currently tracking fairly closely with cost and schedule expectations. 

However, it is too early in the program for the data at this point to be 

conclusive. Historically, the majority of cost growth on a development 

program occurs after the critical design review. Further, according to 

program officials, due to the size and complexity of the program, coupled

with an uncertain budget from year to year, detailed planning packages are 

only planned about 3 to 6 months in advance. While this may be 

unavoidable for a program as complex as FCS, the near term status of the 

program, as reported by the earned value management system, does not 

fully represent the extent of the challenges the Army still faces with FCS. 

FCS will command most of the Army’s investment budget and thus must 

compete with other major investments and operations. If FCS costs 

increase, demands outside FCS increase, or expected funding decreases, 

adjustments are likely to be necessary in FCS. Last year, we reported that

Funding Constraints Have 

Forced the Army to 

Restructure Its FCS Plans 

Page 45 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
the large annual procurement costs for FCS were expected to begin in

fiscal year 2012, which was largely beyond the then-current budget 

planning period (fiscal years 2006 to 2011). This situation is called a 

funding “bow wave.” This means that more funds would be required in the 

years just beyond the years covered in the current defense plan that are 

subject to funding limits. As previously structured, the FCS program 

would require over $12 billion annually in its peak procurement years. If 

the Army budget remains at its current levels, FCS could represent 

60-70 percent of the Army’s procurement budget in those years at a time 

that the Army was meeting other demands, including force modularity, 

FCS spin-outs, complementary programs, aviation procurement, missile 

defense, trucks, ammunition, and other equipment. 

Recently, this tension between FCS scope, costs, and competing demands 

has led to another set of changes in the FCS program. The FCS program 

manager has informed us that, in light of budget issues for the 2008 to 2013 

planning period, the Army has reduced annual production rates, and plans 

to forego two of the originally planned unmanned aerial vehicles, among 

other adjustments. While this course of action is necessary to

accommodate funding realities, it has other consequences, as it would 

increase the FCS unit costs and extend the time needed to produce and

deploy FCS-equipped brigade combat teams. It would also necessitate 

evaluating the effects of these changes on individual system requirements 

and on the aggregate characteristics of lethality, survivability, 

responsiveness, and supportability. Details of the adjustment to the FCS 

program are not yet finalized; thus, we have not evaluated the full 

implications of the changes. 

Considerations for the 

2009 FCS Milestone 

Review 

By the time of the preliminary design review and the congressionally 

mandated go/no-go milestone in 2009, the Army should have more of the 

knowledge needed to build a better cost estimate for the FCS program. 

The Army should also have more clarity about the level of funding that 

may be available to it within the long term budget projections to fully 

develop and procure the FCS program of record. Continuing challenges 

include 

• developing an official Army cost position that narrows the gap 

between the Army’s estimates and the independent cost estimate 

planned for that time frame. In the cost estimate, the Army should 

clearly establish if it includes the complete set and quantities of 

FCS equipment needed to meet established requirements; 

Page 46 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
• ensuring that adequate funding exists in its current budget and 

program objective memorandum to fully fund the FCS program of 

record; and

• securing funding for the development of the complementary 

systems deemed necessary for the FCS as well as to procure the 

FCS capabilities planned to be spunout to the current forces. 

The Army has been granted a lot of latitude to carry out a large program 

like FCS this far into development with relatively little demonstrated 

knowledge. Tangible progress has been made during the year in several 

areas, including requirements and technology. Such progress warrants 

recognition, but not confidence. Confidence comes from high levels of 

demonstrated knowledge, which are yet to come. Following the 

preliminary design review in 2009, there should be enough knowledge 

demonstrated to assess FCS’s prospects for success. It is thus important 

that specific criteria—as quantifiable as possible and consistent with best 

practices—be established now to evaluate that knowledge. 

Conclusions 

At the same time, decision makers must put this knowledge in context. 

Specifically, if the FCS is able to demonstrate the level of knowledge that 

should be expected at a preliminary design review, it will be about at the 

point when it should be ready to begin system development and 

demonstration. Instead, by that time, FCS will be halfway through that 

phase, with only 4 years left to demonstrate that the system-of-systems 

design works before the planned production commitment is made. For 

that reason, decision makers will have to assess the complete business 

case for FCS. This will include demonstrative proof not only that 

requirements can be met with mature technologies and the preliminary 

design, but also that the remainder of the acquisition strategy adequately 

provides for demonstration of design maturity, production process 

maturity, and funding availability before the production decision is made. 

Clearly, it is in the nation’s interests for the FCS to be the right solution for 

the future and to be a successful development. FCS has not been an easy 

solution to pursue and underscores the commitment and vision of Army 

leadership. Nonetheless, in view of the great technical challenges facing

the program, the possibility that FCS may not deliver the right capability 

must be acknowledged and anticipated. At this point, the only alternative 

course of action to FCS appears to be current Army weapons, increasingly 

upgraded with FCS spin-out technologies. It is incumbent upon DOD, then, 

to identify alternative courses of action to equip future Army forces by the

time the go/no-go decision is made on FCS. Otherwise, approval to “go” 

Page 47 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
may have to be given not because FCS is sufficiently developed, but 

because there is no other viable course of action.

Recommendations for 

Executive Action 

We recommend that the Secretary of Defense establish criteria now that it 

will use to evaluate the FCS program as part of its go/no-go decision 

following its preliminary design review. At a minimum, these criteria 

should include 

• a definition of acceptable technology maturity consistent with DOD 

policy for a program half way through system development and 

demonstration; 

• determination which FCS technologies will be scored against those 

criteria; 

• use of an independent assessment to score the FCS technologies; 

• a definition of acceptable software maturity consistent with DOD 

policy for a program half way through system development and 

demonstration; 

• an independent assessment to score FCS software; 

• the likely performance and availability of key complementary 

systems; 

• an assessment of how likely the FCS system-of-systems—deemed 

reasonable from the progress in technology, software, and design—

is to provide the capabilities the Army will need to perform its roles 

in joint force operations (Such an assessment should include 

sensitivity analyses in areas of the most uncertainty.); 

• a definition of acceptable levels of technology, design, and 

production maturity to be demonstrated at the critical design 

review and the production decision;

• an assessment of how well the FCS acquisition strategy and test 

plan will be able to demonstrate those levels of maturity; 

• a determination of likely costs to develop, produce, and support the 

FCS that is informed by an independent cost estimate and 

supported by an acceptable confidence level; and

• a determination that the budget levels the Army is likely to receive

will be sufficient to develop, produce, and support the FCS at

expected levels of cost. 

We also recommend that the Secretary of Defense analyze alternative 

courses of action DOD can take to provide the Army with sufficient 

capabilities, should the FCS be judged as unlikely to deliver needed 

capabilities in reasonable time frames and within expected funding levels. 

Page 48 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
DOD concurred with our recommendations and stated that the Defense 

Acquisition Board’s review, aligned with the FCS program’s preliminary 

design review in 2009, will be informed by a number of critical 

assessments and analyses. These include a technology readiness 

assessment, a system engineering assessment, an independent cost 

estimate, an evaluation of FCS capabilities, an affordability assessment, 

and ongoing analyses of alternatives that include current force and 

network alternatives. 

Agency Comments 

and Our Evaluation 

We believe that these are constructive steps that will contribute to the 

Defense Acquisition Board review of the FCS following the preliminary 

design review. We note that it is important that the board’s review be 

recognized as a decision meeting—albeit not technically a milestone 

decision—so that a declarative go/no-go decision can be made on FCS. 

Accordingly, while it is necessary that good information—such as that 

included in DOD’s response—be presented to the board, it is also 

necessary that quantitative criteria that reflect best practices be used to 

evaluate the information. These criteria, some of which were included in 

our recommendations, should be defined by DOD now. For example, while 

FCS technologies need to be independently assessed, it is likewise 

important to establish what level of technology maturity is needed for a 

program at that stage and to evaluate the FCS technologies against that 

standard. This is true for software as well. In the area of cost, Army cost 

estimates should be evaluated against recognized standards, such as 

confidence levels as well as the independent cost estimate. 

We had also recommended that criteria be established to serve as a basis 

for evaluating the FCS acquisition strategy, including what would 

constitute acceptable levels of technology, design, and production 

maturity to be demonstrated at the critical design review and the 

production decision. DOD did not respond to these aspects of our 

recommendations, but a response is important because they have to do 

with the sufficiency of the FCS business case for the remainder of the 

program. Finally, as DOD evaluates alternatives, there are several things to 

keep in mind. First, an alternative need not be a rival to the FCS, but 

rather the next best solution that can be adopted if FCS is not able to 

deliver the needed capabilities. Second, an alternative need not represent 

a choice between FCS and the current force, but could include fielding a 

subset of FCS, such as a class of vehicles, if they perform as needed and 

provide a militarily worthwhile capability. Third, the broader perspective 

of the Department of Defense—in addition to that of the Army—will 

benefit the consideration of alternatives. 

Page 49 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
We also received technical comments from DOD which have been 

addressed in the report, as appropriate. 

We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Defense; the 

Secretary of the Army; and the Director, Office of Management and 

Budget. Copies will also be made available to others on request. In 

addition, the report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at 

http://www.gao.gov. 

Please contact me on (202) 512-4841 if you or your staff has any questions

concerning this report. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional 

Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. 

Other contributors to this report were Assistant Director William R. 

Graveline, William C. Allbritton, Noah B. Bleicher, Marcus C. Ferguson, 

John P. Swain, Robert S. Swierczek, and Carrie R. Wilson. 

Paul L. Francis 

Director 

Acquisition and Sourcing Management 

Page 50 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
List of Committees: 

The Honorable Carl Levin 

Chairman 

The Honorable John McCain 

Ranking Member 

Committee on Armed Services 

United States Senate 

The Honorable Daniel K. Inouye 

Chairman 

The Honorable Ted Stevens 

Ranking Member 

Subcommittee on Defense 

Committee on Appropriations 

United States Senate 

The Honorable Ike Skelton 

Chairman 

The Honorable Duncan L. Hunter 

Ranking Member 

Committee on Armed Services 

House of Representatives 

The Honorable John P. Murtha, Jr. 

Chairman 

The Honorable C. W. (Bill) Young 

Ranking Member 

Subcommittee on Defense 

Committee on Appropriations 

House of Representatives 

Page 51 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 

To develop the information on the Future Combat System program’s 

progress toward meeting established goals, the contribution of critical 

technologies and complementary systems, and the estimates of cost and 

program affordability, we interviewed officials of the Office of the Under 

Secretary of Defense (Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics); the Army 

G-8; the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller); the 

Secretary of Defense’s Cost Analysis Improvement Group; the Director of 

Operational Test and Evaluation; the Assistant Secretary of the Army 

(Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology); the Army’s Training and Doctrine 

Command; Surface Deployment and Distribution Command; the 

Fraunhofer Center at the University of Maryland; the Program Manager for 

the Future Combat System (Brigade Combat Team); the Future Combat 

System Lead Systems Integrator; and Lead Systems Integrator One Team 

contractors. 

We reviewed, among other documents, the Future Combat System’s 

Operational Requirements Document, the Acquisition Strategy Report, the 

Selected Acquisition Report, the Critical Technology Assessment and 

Technology Risk Mitigation Plans, and the Integrated Master Schedule. 

We attended the FCS System-of-Systems Functional Review, In-Process 

Reviews, In-Process Preliminary Design Review, Board of Directors 

Reviews, and multiple system demonstrations. In our assessment of the 

FCS, we used the knowledge-based acquisition practices drawn from our 

large body of past work as well as DOD’s acquisition policy and the 

experiences of other programs. 

We discussed the issues presented in this report with officials from the 

Army and the Secretary of Defense and made several changes as a result. 

We performed our review from March 2006 to March 2007 in accordance 

with generally accepted auditing standards. 

Page 52 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
Appendix II: Comments from the Department Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Defense 

of Defense 

Page 53 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Defense 

Page 54 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Defense 

Page 55 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
Appendix III: Technology Readiness Levels 

Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) are measures pioneered by the 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration and adopted by DOD to 

determine whether technologies were sufficiently mature to be 

incorporated into a weapon system. Our prior work has found TRLs to be 

a valuable decision-making tool because they can presage the likely 

consequences of incorporating a technology at a given level of maturity 

into a product development. The maturity level of a technology can range 

from paper studies (TRL 1), to prototypes that can be tested in a realistic 

environment (TRL 7), to an actual system that has proven itself in mission 

operations (TRL 9). According to DOD acquisition policy, a technology 

should have been demonstrated in a relevant environment (TRL 6) or, 

preferably, in an operational environment (TRL 7) to be considered mature 

enough to use for product development. Best practices of leading 

commercial firms and successful DOD programs have shown that critical 

technologies should be mature to at least a TRL 7 before the start of 

product development. 

Table 5: Technology Readiness Level Descriptions 

Technology 

readiness level Description Hardware and software 

Demonstration 

environment 

1. Basic principles observed 

and reported 

Lowest level of technology readiness. 

Scientific research begins to be translated

into applied research and development. 

Examples might include paper studies of a 

technology’s basic properties

None (paper studies and analysis) None 

2. Technology concept 

and/or application 

formulated

Invention begins. Once basic principles are 

observed, practical applications can be 

invented. The application is speculative and 

there is no proof or detailed analysis to 

support the assumption. Examples are still 

limited to paper studies. 

None (paper studies and analysis) None 

3. Analytical and 

experimental critical 

function and/or

characteristic proof of 

concept 

Active research and development is 

initiated. This includes analytical studies 

and laboratory studies to physically validate 

analytical predictions of separate elements 

of the technology. Examples include 

components that are not yet integrated or 

representative.

Analytical studies and 

demonstration of non-scale 

individual components (pieces of 

subsystem). 

Lab 

4. Component and/or 

breadboard. Validation in 

laboratory environment 

Basic technological components are 

integrated to establish that the pieces will 

work together. This is relatively “low fidelity” 

compared to the eventual system. 

Examples include integration of “ad hoc” 

hardware in a laboratory. 

Low-fidelity breadboard. Integration 

of non-scale components to show 

pieces will work together. Not fully 

functional or form or fit but 

representative of technically 

feasible approach suitable for flight 

articles. 

Lab 

Appendix III: Technology Readiness Levels 

Page 56 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
Appendix III: Technology Readiness Levels 

Technology 

readiness level Description Hardware and software 

Demonstration 

environment 

5. Component and/or 

breadboard validation in 

relevant environment 

Fidelity of breadboard technology increases 

significantly. The basic technological 

components are integrated with reasonably 

realistic supporting elements so that the 

technology can be tested in a simulated

environment. Examples include “high 

fidelity” laboratory Integration of 

components. 

High-fidelity breadboard. 

Functionally equivalent but not 

necessarily form and/or fit (size, 

weight, materials, etc.). Should be 

approaching appropriate scale. 

May include integration of several 

components with reasonably 

realistic support 

elements/subsystems to 

demonstrate functionality. 

Lab demonstrating 

functionality but not 

form and fit. May 

include flight 

demonstrating 

breadboard in 

surrogate aircraft. 

Technology ready for 

detailed design

studies. 

6. System/subsystem model 

or prototype demonstration 

in a relevant environment 

Representative model or prototype system, 

which is well beyond the breadboard tested 

for TRL 5, is tested in a relevant 

environment. Represents a major step up in 

a technology’s demonstrated readiness. 

Examples include testing a prototype in a 

high-fidelity laboratory environment or in 

simulated operational environment. 

Prototype—Should be very close to 

form, fit, and function. Probably 

includes the integration of many 

new components and realistic 

supporting elements/subsystems if 

needed to demonstrate full 

functionality of the subsystem. 

High-fidelity lab 

demonstration or 

limited/restricted

flight demonstration 

for a relevant 

environment. 

Integration of 

technology is well 

defined. 

7. System prototype 

demonstration in an 

operational environment 

Prototype near or at planned operational 

system. Represents a major step up from 

TRL 6, requiring the demonstration of an 

actual system prototype in an operational 

environment, such as in an aircraft, vehicle, 

or space. Examples include testing the 

prototype in a test bed aircraft. 

Prototype. Should be form, fit, and 

function integrated with other key 

supporting elements/subsystems to 

demonstrate full functionality of 

subsystem. 

Flight demonstration 

in representative 

operational 

environment such as 

flying test bed or 

demonstrator 

aircraft. Technology 

is well substantiated 

with test data. 

8. Actual system completed

and “flight qualified” through 

test and demonstration 

Technology has been proven to work in its 

final form and under expected conditions. In

almost all cases, this TRL represents the 

end of true system development. Examples 

include developmental test and evaluation 

of the system in its intended weapon 

system to determine if it meets design 

specifications.

Flight-qualified hardware. Developmental test 

and evaluation in the 

actual system 

application. 

9. Actual system “flight 

proven” through successful 

mission operations 

Actual application of the technology in its 

final form and under mission conditions, 

such as those encountered in operational 

test and evaluation. In almost all cases, this 

is the end of the last “bug fixing” aspects of 

true system development. Examples include

using the system under operational mission

conditions. 

Actual system in final form. Operational test and 

evaluation in 

operational mission 

conditions. 

Source: GAO analysis of National Aeronautics and Space Administration data. 

Page 57 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
Appendix IV: Technology Readiness Level 

Ratings 

FCS Critical Technologies

Last year’s 

TRL 

ratings

Last year’s 

TRL 6

projections

Latest 

TRL 

ratings

Latest 

TRL 6

projections

Software Programmable Radio

1 JTRS Cluster 1 5 2007 6 N/A

2 JTRS Cluster 5 5 2007 6 N/A

3 WIN-T 5 2007 6 N/A

Interface and Information Exchange

4 Army, Joint, Multinational Interface 4 2008 6 N/A

Joint 

Interoperability 

5 WIN-T Strategic Communication 4 2008 6 N/A

Security Systems and Algorithms

6 Cross Domain Guarding Solution 4 2008 6 N/A

7 Intrusion Detection—IP Network 4 2008 4 2008

8 Intrusion Detection—Waveform 4 2008 4 2007

9 Mobile Ad Hoc Networking Protocols 5 2007 6 N/A

10 Quality of Service Algorithms 5 2007 5 2008

11 Unmanned Systems Relay 5 2006 N/R N/A

Wideband Waveforms

12 Wideband Waveform—JTRS 5 2007 6 N/A

13 Wideband Waveform—SRW 4 2007 6 N/A

14 Advanced Man-Machine Interfaces 6 N/A 6 N/A

15 Multi-Spectral Sensors and Seekers 6 N/A 6 N/A

16 Decision Aids/Intelligent Agents 6 N/A 6 N/A

Combat Identification

17 Air (Rotary Wing/UAV)—to—Ground 6 N/A 6 N/A

18 Air (Fixed Wing)—to—Ground (Interim/Robust Solutions N/R N/A N/R N/A

19 Ground—to—Air N/R N/A 6 N/A

20 Ground—to—Ground (Mounted) 6 N/A N/R N/A

21 Ground—to—Soldier N/R N/A N/R N/A

22 Rapid Battlespace Deconfliction 5 2008 5 2008

Sensor/Data Fusion and Data Compression Algorithms

23 Distributed Fusion Management 4 2007 4 2008

24 Level 1 Fusion Engine 6 N/A 6 N/A

Networked

Battle 

Command 

25 Data Compression Algorithms 6 N/A 6 N/A

26 Dynamic Sensor—Shooter Pairing Algorithms and Fire

Control 

6 N/A 6 N/A

LOS/BLOS/NLOS Precision Munitions Terminal Guidance

27 PGMM Precision Munitions, TG 5 2007 6 N/A

Networked

Lethality 

28 MRM Precision Munitions, TG 5 2007 6 N/A

Appendix IV: Technology Readiness Level 

Ratings 

Page 58 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
Appendix IV: Technology Readiness Level 

Ratings 

FCS Critical Technologies

Last year’s 

TRL 

ratings

Last year’s 

TRL 6

projections

Latest 

TRL 

ratings

Latest 

TRL 6

projections

29 Excalibur Precision Munitions, TG 6 N/A 6 N/A

30 NLOS-LS, Terminal Guidance (TG) 6 N/A 6 N/A

Aided/Automatic Target Recognition

31 Aided Target Recognition for RSTA 5 2007 5 2008

32 NLOS-LS ATR for Seekers 6 N/A 6 N/A

33 Recoil Management and Lightweight Components 6 N/A 6 N/A

34 Distributed Collaboration of Manned/Unmanned 

Platforms 

5 2006 6 N/A

35 Rapid Battle Damage Assessment N/R N/A N/R N/A

Transportability

High-Power Density/Fuel-Efficient Propulsion

36 High-Power Density Engine 5 2007 6 N/A

37 Fuel-Efficient Hybrid-Electric Engine 6 N/A 6 N/A

38 Embedded Predictive Logistics Sensors and 

Algorithms

5 2009 N/R N/A

Sustainability/

Reliability 

39 Lightweight Heavy Fuel Engine 4 2007 5 2006

Training 40 Computer Generated Forces 6 N/A 6 N/A

41 Tactical Engagement Simulation 4 2008 5 2008

Active Protection System

42 Active Protection System 5 2008 6 N/A

43 Threat Warning System 4-5 2009 4-5 2009

44 Signature Management 5-6 2006 6 N/A

45 Lightweight Hull and Vehicle Armor 5 2008 5 2008

46 Health Monitoring and Casualty Care Interventions 6 N/A 7 N/A

47 Power Distribution and Control 5 2006 6 N/A

Advanced Countermine Technology

48 Mine Detection 6 N/A 6 N/A

49 Mine Neutralization 6 N/A 6 N/A

50 Efficient Resource Allocation 6 N/A N/R N/A

51 Protection 4 2008 5 2008

52 High-Density Packaged Power 5 2008 6 N/A

Class 1 UAV Propulsion Technology

Survivability 

53 Ducted Fan 4 2006 6 N/A

Source: U.S. Army (data); GAO (analysis and presentation). 

Note: N/A = Not Applicable; N/R = Not Rated 

Page 59 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
Related GAO Products Related GAO Products 

Defense Acquisitions: Improved Business Case Key for Future Combat 

System’s Success, GAO-06-564T. Washington, D.C.: April 4, 2006. 

Defense Acquisitions: Improved Business Case is Needed for Future 

Combat System’s Successful Outcome, GAO-06-367. Washington, D.C.: 

March 14, 2006. 

Defense Acquisitions: Business Case and Business Arrangements Key 

for Future Combat System’s Success, GAO-06-478T. Washington, D.C.: 

March 1, 2006. 

DOD Acquisition Outcomes: A Case for Change, GAO-06-257T. 

Washington, D.C.: November 15, 2005. 

Force Structure: Actions Needed to Improve Estimates and Oversight of 

Costs for Transforming Army to a Modular Force, GAO-05-926. 

Washington, D.C.: September 29, 2005. 

Defense Acquisitions: Resolving Development Risks in the Army’s 

Networked Communications Capabilities is Key to Fielding Future 

Force, GAO-05-669. Washington, D.C.: June 15, 2005. 

Defense Acquisitions: Future Combat Systems Challenges and Prospects 

for Success, GAO-05-428T. Washington, D.C.: March 16, 2005.

Defense Acquisitions: Future Combat Systems Challenges and Prospects 

for Success, GAO-05-442T. Washington, D.C.: March 16, 2005.

NASA’s Space Vision: Business Case for Prometheus 1 Needed to Ensure

Requirements Match Available Resources, GAO-05-242. Washington, D.C.: 

February 28, 2005. 

Defense Acquisitions: The Army’s Future Combat Systems’ Features, 

Risks, and Alternatives, GAO-04-635T. Washington, D.C.: April 1, 2004. 

Defense Acquisitions: Assessments of Major Weapon Programs, 

GAO-04-248. Washington, D.C.: March 31, 2004. 

Issues Facing the Army’s Future Combat Systems Program, 

GAO-03-1010R. Washington, D.C.: August 13, 2003. 

Defense Acquisitions: Army Transformation Faces Weapon Systems 

Challenges, GAO-01-311. Washington, D.C.: May 2001. 

Page 60 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
Related GAO Products 

Best Practices: Better Matching of Needs and Resources Will Lead to 

Better Weapon System Outcomes, GAO-01-288. Washington, D.C.: March 8, 

2001. 

(120521) Page 61 GAO-07-376 Defense Acquisitions
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