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i 

50–824 2010

[H.A.S.C. No. 111–35] 

STATUS OF THE FUTURE COMBAT 

SYSTEMS PROGRAM 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

AIR AND LAND FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

MARCH 26, 2009 
(II) 

AIR AND LAND FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE 

NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii, Chairman 

JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina 

SILVESTRE REYES, Texas 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina 

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California 

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

JIM MARSHALL, Georgia 

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania 

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona 

NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts 

LARRY KISSELL, North Carolina 

FRANK M. KRATOVIL, Jr., Maryland 

ERIC J.J. MASSA, New York 

BOBBY BRIGHT, Alabama 

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland 

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

JOHN C. FLEMING, Louisiana 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, California 

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri 

JEFF MILLER, Florida 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

ROB BISHOP, Utah 

MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio 

DOUG BUSH, Professional Staff Member 

JOHN WASON, Professional Staff Member 

BEN GLERUM, Staff Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2009 

Page 

HEARING: 

Thursday, March 26, 2009, Status of the Future Combat Systems Program .... 1 

APPENDIX: 

Thursday, March 26, 2009 ...................................................................................... 37 

THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 2009 

STATUS OF THE FUTURE COMBAT SYSTEMS PROGRAM 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Abercrombie, Hon. Neil, a Representative from Hawaii, Chairman, Air and 

Land Forces Subcommittee ................................................................................. 1 

Bartlett, Hon. Roscoe G., a Representative from Maryland, Ranking Member, 

Air and Land Forces Subcommittee ................................................................... 5 

WITNESSES 

Francis, Paul L., Director, Acquisition and Sourcing Management, U.S. Government Accountability Office; accompanied by William R. Graveline, Assistant Director, Acquisition and Sourcing Management, U.S. Government 

Accountability Office; and Marcus Ferguson, Senior Analyst, U.S. Government Accountability Office .................................................................................. 6 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Francis, Paul L. ................................................................................................ 41 

Thompson, Lt. Gen. N. Ross, III, Principal Military Deputy to the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology 

and Director, Acquisition Career Management; joint with Maj. Gen. 

John R. Bartley, Program Manager, Future Combat Systems ................. 55 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

Four charts submitted by Mr. Francis ............................................................ 67 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted post hearing.] 

(1) 

STATUS OF THE FUTURE COMBAT SYSTEMS PROGRAM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, AIR AND LAND FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE, Washington, DC, Thursday, March 26, 2009. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:05 p.m., in room 

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Neil Abercrombie 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. NEIL ABERCROMBIE, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM HAWAII, CHAIRMAN, AIR AND LAND 

FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Hi everybody. Thank you for coming today. 

The Subcommittee on Air and Land Forces is meeting to receive 

testimony on the Army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS) program 

from the Government Accountability Office, the GAO. The Army 

was invited to provide witnesses and had agreed to do so; in fact, 

submitted a statement last week. I was indisposed, and the hearing 

had to be postponed until today. 

As of yesterday, at least, the staff of the committee was notified 

the Army didn’t see fit to inform me as the chairman that no witnesses from the Army would be available to discuss the FCS program and the GAO report today. 

I want to make it clear to everybody the hearing is not about 

FCS in 2010. There are budget considerations under way right 

now, program considerations under way right now among the 

President’s staff and the Department of Defense (DOD), internal 

discussions going on there. I had indicated to General Casey that 

I understood that and, in fact, indicated to him, so that there 

would be no question in his mind, that these were serious issues 

to be discussed, that we are not in a contest. We are trying to determine what is the best path forward. Serious decisions had to be 

made, and I wanted to try and make them together on the basis 

of what was good for the Nation. 

I also indicated that, as far as the hearing was concerned, it was 

about the GAO report, which I considered a critique as opposed to 

criticism, i.e., an analysis bent on discussing merits or demerits of 

the program or adding to or subtracting from positions that were 

taken about either individual parts of the FCS system, the Future 

Combat System, and/or the overall philosophy even behind it. That 

the GAO report as I read it had nothing to do with any of that, 

rather tried to, and I think successfully did, address what are the 

premises of the program, what were the procedures and processes 

in place and implemented to—or not implemented—to try to accomplish the goals and purposes, and critique that with the idea of 
2 

then presenting findings and observations as to the success or lack 

of it in terms of the premises established by the Army itself. 

I am speaking a little bit to our witnesses here from the GAO 

with the idea of establishing what is in my mind; and if you have 

something different as I am outlining my reading of your report, 

you, of course, are not only free to do so but I hope you will indicate it. 

But I see some heads nodding a little bit, and the body language 

I am getting is I do believe that I am stating this correctly. 

And the idea of the subcommittee taking up the GAO at this 

time was to provide illumination, I would have hoped, for the—for 

not just the Army but the Pentagon and the Executive to be able 

to come up with conclusions and recommendations that we could 

incorporate into the defense bill. 

The fact that the Army has chosen not to even appear but to 

leave standing, I guess, the public relations announcements that 

were made in the wake of the original publication of the GAO report and its summary as reported in the news media leads me to 

conclude, I guess, that they don’t have any real argument with 

what you are saying. Otherwise, they would be here today. 

So taking the Thomas More approach, silence is assent. So as far 

as I am concerned the Army has given its assent to the conclusions 

and observations and the approach, that is to say the methodology, 

that was used in the GAO report. If they have a different point of 

view, they, apparently, are reserving it to themselves. 

Transparency is the byword and watchword these days. It certainly is that of the Obama Administration. I had no reason before 

today to believe that would be otherwise with Secretary Gates and/ 

or the Chief of Staff of the Army, but the actions speak for themselves. They are not here. They had the opportunity to be here. As 

I say, I will take their silence to mean assent. 

So no explanation for this change in willingness to provide the 

Congress and the American people with an update on where the 

program stands today has been forthcoming. 

The goal of this hearing is to lay out for members and the public 

where the program is today, what has been learned, and where we 

might go from here. After authorizing and appropriating—forgive 

me, members of the committee and for you folks from the GAO. 

Most of this is known to you, but this is in fact a public hearing, 

and there may be many people out there for whom this information 

is new. 

After authorizing and appropriating more than $18 billion in taxpayer dollars for the Future Combat Systems program since 2003, 

it is important that the Congress review what has been accomplished and how much work remains to be done. 

The President appears to have some views on defense programs, 

which those views being relevant I believe to the FCS program 

when he said as follows, and I quote: ‘‘It is time to end the extra 

costs and long delays that are all too common in our defense contracting. We need to invest in technologies that are proven and 

cost-effective. If a system isn’t ready to be developed, we shouldn’t 

pour resources into it. If a system is plagued by cost overruns, it 

should be reformed. No more excuses. No more delays. The days of 

giving defense contractors a blank check are over.’’ Unquote. 
3 

Today’s hearing hopefully will help Congress and the public—and 

perhaps even the Army if it is tuning in—I presume that they can 

get their C-SPAN channels on as well, which will help them understand I hope those qualities that apply to the FCS program. 

With regard to the GAO, over the past several years, it has been 

my experience certainly personally, and I think the experience of 

the Armed Services Committee in the House, that the GAO has 

done excellent work in its oversight role, not just in the FCS program but in every other area that we have asked for the observations and recommendations of the GAO. While the Army at times 

has disagreed with judgments made by the GAO and its analysts, 

the reports the GAO has produced have helped Congress focus its 

oversight on critical issues; and it has provided in my judgment 

independent and dispassionate views not just of this program but 

of all the other programs that it has made recommendations and 

observations upon. 

I believe that the 2009 report on the FCS continues this tradition. Since its inception, the program has faced serious questions 

regarding technical feasibility, cost estimates and basic conceptual 

tenets. From a technical aspect, the fielding dates have moved from 

2008 to 2010 to 2015. That speaks for itself. 

It is clear now that the Army from a technical standpoint has 

had little real idea of what exactly development of FCS would entail. As a result, the Army has constantly changed the requirements for individual elements of the FCS program as reality began 

to intrude on each element’s design. I could give several examples 

which I will produce for the record, but they will probably come out 

as we explore. 

One point I do want to make, though, just last June, while making claims of acceleration of the program, which was made in fact 

to me face-to-face when I first heard about it in my office that the 

program was actually going to accelerate—that was the word 

used—the Army was in fact forced to delay the limited user test 

for spinout number one equipment by a full year because the 

equipment was simply not working well enough to proceed with the 

test as planned. That constituted an acceleration. Just don’t do the 

test. Well, if you don’t do the test, you can accelerate the spinout. 

The assumption being is that there will be absolutely nothing to go 

wrong and that when it comes forward it will be able to be utilized 

on the spot. 

So the cost estimates has faced challenges. The programs cost 

has grown from $91 billion in 2003 to $159 billion today by their 

own estimates. It does not include the cost of the spinout equipment estimated at $17 billion to $21 billion alone for spinout number one. It does not include the cost of the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) program or the Warfighter Information Network Tactical (WIN-T) program, both of which the FCS program requires for 

fielding. 

This has been one of the issues that I have raised over and over 

again. If you cannot get the radio system and the information system integrated, then what is the efficacy then of pursuing the rest 

of the program for which the information and exchange system is 

crucial? 
4 

So, finally then, I want to go to the basic conceptual ideas, that 

the idea was that, through technology and computer network, sufficient knowledge of the enemy’s position could be achieved to conduct most engagements at standoff range, thus allowing very lightweight vehicles to survive in the battlefield. 

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan I believe have called some of 

this into question, but that remains to be seen. A case can still be 

made. The point is that every single vehicle deployed to Iraq and 

Afghanistan now weighs more, not less, and has more armor, not 

less, than the original design entailed. So while it is always a worthy goal to put the enemy at a distance and avoid putting troops 

at risk, I think the reality of 4,000 years of military history shows 

that achieving a perfect situational awareness is very difficult if 

not impossible to achieve and that the troops faced thinking enemies, not static dummies or static situations. So the question of 

concept, technology, and implementation and cost all are relevant 

here; and I think the GAO report addresses those elements. 

So in today’s hearing we also—I would be disingenuous if I didn’t 

indicate that we are looking then not just at one program in isolation but how that fits into the big picture of readiness and capabilities of the Army as a whole. 

For the Army, the fundamental choice appears to be keeping the 

new, larger Army we have today and the larger Army we are pursuing and pursuing at the same time a massive list of Army acquisition programs of which FCS is just one on the books. General 

Casey himself has indicated with the term, out of balance, quote, 

unquote, that this is a difficulty. 

Whatever foreign phrase one uses, however, the basic facts remain the same: The people in the Army are wearing down from 

years of deployments. The equipment in the Army’s inventory is 

just barely keeping up with the demands the two wars we now are 

engaged in require. 

So we face a choice, not just with the FCS program but a choice 

as to where the Army is going. And I will lay that out as I conclude, what I think is at stake in our decisionmaking. 

It could choose to end the program entirely, which might save 

money but would also negate much of the work that has been done 

to date. It could continue as planned and hope things work out as 

the program now assumes and that the funding for the Army’s 

other needs will somehow materialize even as the FCS program 

costs continue to grow. Or it could fundamentally reorganize the 

FCS program now to take advantage of some of the work done so 

far but take a much more sober and realistic and disciplined approach to moving forward with the program while investing the 

savings in less risky modernization plans. 

This committee, of course, and the committee as a whole would 

be delighted to work with all concerned to achieve that. So the purpose of today’s hearing then, finally, is to set the stage for that discussion which we expect to have once the Army’s fiscal 2010 budget 

proposal is delivered to the Congress. 

I will turn now to my good friend, Mr. Bartlett, for his opening 

remarks. 
5 

STATEMENT OF HON. ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MARYLAND, RANKING MEMBER, AIR AND LAND 

FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, regretting the absence of the Army, I nevertheless want to thank our panel for being here. We are very fortunate 

to have each of you here. You provide a very valuable service to 

our country. Thank you for coming today. 

As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, I have always been guided by President Ronald Reagan’s wisdom that 

America will ensure peace through strength. Upholding our Constitution and maintaining a strong defense should be our highest 

priorities as Federal elected officials, because if we don’t get these 

priorities right nothing else will matter. 

Today, we are here to talk about the Army’s Future Combat Systems program. The Government Accountability Office has recently 

released its yearly report on the FCS system. 

By the way, as you know, Mr. Chairman, the requirement to generate this report came from this subcommittee. In fact, there have 

been multiple legislative provisions in regard to this program that 

were all generated from this subcommittee. And, Mr. Chairman, although in recent years we have differed in regards to decrementing 

the program, every one of the FCS legislative provisions was done 

in a bipartisan manner; and I applaud your leadership. 

There have been recent media reports about a pending major restructure to the FCS program. I would add, Mr. Chairman, that 

while I understand that we in Congress have many difficult decisions to make in this upcoming budget cycle, that it would be premature for us to condemn the program going forward until we have 

seen the results of the 2010 budget, full transparency regarding the 

potential restructured program and, finally, the results of the congressionally mandated go/no-go review. And, again, Mr. Chairman, 

this review is another provision that originated in this subcommittee. 

One last point. While I understand the primary purpose of this 

hearing is to discuss programmatic issues and concerns, I believe 

it is difficult to have such a conversation without a thorough understanding of what led the Army down this path. I have heard 

that some believe that this is a Cold War system. I am not really 

sure what that means, but it is a good bumper sticker. I believe 

the Army could benefit from thoroughly explaining what the future 

threat is and what the capability gaps are that have led the Army 

down this path. Is the foundation that launched the Army into this 

program in 2003 still valid today? What lessons have been applied 

from Iraq and Afghanistan? 

At the end of the day, whatever happens, the Army must be allowed to modernize. Parents are reluctant to send their children to 

school without the latest and greatest cell phones. They certainly 

aren’t going to want them to join the Army so they can defend our 

Nation in vehicles that were designed in the 1960’s and built in the 

1970’s. 

And forcing the Army to choose between personnel and modernization isn’t a choice at all. I believe that there should be a bal-
6 

ance between acquisition and procurement needs and research and 

development for future opportunities. 

I am a farmer as well as a scientist and engineer. I would caution if the Army is forced to eat its seed corn, which is its Research 

and Development (R&D), then we will forego in large measure the 

potential of future harvest of better technologies. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today, and I want 

to thank you again for your service to our country and for appearing before us this afternoon. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Thank you very much. 

Before I get to our witnesses, I am going to, on my authority, 

with the acquiescence of the subcommittee, put into the record a 

statement by Lieutenant General Ross Thompson, III, which was 

originally submitted on March 17th—given to us for testimony on 

March 17th. And it said, ‘‘Not for publication until released by the 

Committee on Armed Services’’, and so I am going to put this into 

the record. 

I regret that General Thompson isn’t here to speak to this statement, but I think it is important to be in the record, whether or 

not the Army is here, so that at least the public has the opportunity to see what the Army thought last week. 

[The prepared statement of General Thompson can be found in 

the Appendix on page 55.] 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. One other administrative point. We will allow 

members present at the start of the hearing to ask questions in reverse seniority order. I alternate between senior members one 

hearing and then the least senior members the next hearing being 

able to start the questions so that everybody has the opportunity. 

So, with that in mind, we will go to Mr. Francis, the Director of 

Acquisition and Sourcing Management from the GAO; Mr. 

Graveline—is it Graveline? 

Mr. GRAVELINE. It is Graveline, sir. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Pardon me? 

Mr. GRAVELINE. Graveline. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Graveline. Mr. Graveline, Assistant Director for Acquisition and Sourcing Management; and Mr. Ferguson, the Senior Analyst from the GAO. And I read it in that 

order, but that doesn’t necessarily have to be the order in which 

you testify. It is up to you gentlemen. 

Mr. FRANCIS. I thought I might surprise my colleagues and go in 

reverse order. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Okay. 

STATEMENT OF PAUL L. FRANCIS, DIRECTOR, ACQUISITION 

AND SOURCING MANAGEMENT, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; ACCOMPANIED BY WILLIAM R. 

GRAVELINE, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, ACQUISITION AND 

SOURCING MANAGEMENT, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; AND MARCUS FERGUSON, SENIOR ANALYST, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Mr. FRANCIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Bartlett, and members of the subcommittee. We are pleased to be here to discuss Fu-
7 

ture Combat Systems today. I would ask that our statement be 

submitted for the record. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Without objection. 

Mr. FRANCIS. What we have been asked to do is to walk through 

our March 12th report. So how I would propose to do that is each 

of us will just basically take a section of the report and walk 

through it, if that is all right with you. 

I was surprised when we read the press accounts from the Army 

and the reaction to our report. We do have, I think, a pretty robust 

process for vetting the draft report, meeting with the Army, soliciting comments. We got full concurrence from the Department of 

Defense on all the recommendations. So indeed I was rather surprised by the Army’s reaction. 

So I think our analysis is clear, as you will see. We don’t have 

a position on whether the program is a good or bad program or 

whether it should or shouldn’t be pursued but simply can it be executed for the resources that are estimated. And I think that is our 

job and that is the counsel we would provide to you. 

I will just start off by talking a little bit about FCS. I think many 

of you know these things, but in the interest of it being a public 

hearing I thought I should cover them, in any event. 

FCS is a revolutionary program for a variety of reasons. The 

weapons that it embodies, the fighting concept that comes with it, 

and the organizational communication systems that come with FCS 

are all revolutionary. It is a system of 14 systems whose combat 

capability largely comes from an unprecedented information network. 

The FCS does present a smaller, lighter force than what is currently fielded but does offer or advertise that that smaller lighter 

force will be as lethal and survivable as the current M1 and Bradley force. It is a system that will rely a lot on robots—unmanned 

air vehicles (UAVs), unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), unattended sensors, unattended munitions. 

But the heart of FCS is the communications network or the information network, and in a very basic sense the network is going 

to enable the Army to substitute information for mass. 

So the vehicles in FCS, as I mentioned, are going to be lighter; 

and they are going to be designed not so much to withstand the 

hit but rather to avoid taking the hit. I think that is sort of the 

design philosophy for FCS. 

The network that we are talking about is not like any network 

that we are familiar with. If you think of a cell phone network or 

the Internet, those are basically fixed infrastructures. So your cell 

phone, while it is mobile, as soon as you make a call—like if I was 

going to call Mr. Abercrombie, my cell phone doesn’t connect to his 

cell phone; rather, it connects to a cell tower and into a fixed infrastructure which then eventually gets to Mr. Abercrombie’s phone. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I better turn it off. 

Mr. FRANCIS. I thought you were a Luddite, Mr. Abercrombie. I 

am surprised you have one. 

Even the Internet, if you have a wireless laptop, you are one connection away from a fixed server; and, right away, you are into a 

fixed infrastructure driven by fiber-optic cable. The network does 

not move. 
8 

But the FCS network is quite different. It is a mobile, self-forming network whose linchpin is what Mr. Abercrombie mentioned in 

his opening statement, the joint tactical radio. All of the vehicles, 

both manned and unmanned, all of the sensors, even the unattended munitions, have some form of this radio in them. And the 

radio is software programmable. It is a computer that functions 

both as a radio and it is your cell tower, if you will. So all the communications, all the relays go through these radios. 

So, again, if I am going to make a call, say, to Mr. Ferguson on 

the end here, if I call him or I want to send him information, the 

FCS network will decide how to route that communication, and it 

may route through all the members of the panel before it gets to 

Mr. Ferguson. And then if he is going to respond to me, we are all 

in vehicles or on foot, we have all moved before he responds, so 

that when he does respond that message could take a different 

route coming back. And so the network will decide what radios it 

is going to use as relays to send that information. 

So the real challenge is what happens if you have 5,000 radios 

operating and you are really dependent on getting that information 

right away. So it is quite a different network. There isn’t anything 

like it today. 

Having said that, a lot of things about FCS that we do like and 

we do appreciate, the idea of having an architecture where you conceive how you are going to fight before you design individual systems, I think is a very good approach and something the Army has 

not done in the past. I think it would have been easier for the 

Army to have designed and built a new Bradley or a new M1, but 

they didn’t do that. They wanted to look ahead and see what they 

really needed, and they broke with tradition. So they didn’t do 

what was easy. They did what was hard. And I admire that, and 

I think the Army leaders deserve our respect for that. 

Where GAO comes in is our analysis is on can they do it. It is 

not enough for it to be a good idea. It is not enough to want it. It 

is not enough even to need it. You have to be able to do it. And 

we have a number of concerns on that regard. So I thought I would 

talk a little bit about our methodology, how we look at this program. Because that is part of the contention between us and how 

the Army looks at the program. 

So I have the first chart there, and I believe you each have a 

handout if you can’t read the chart. But I just direct your attention 

to the top bar there. 

When we look at programs we basically look for three knowledge 

points. Does everyone have a chart? 

[The chart referred to can be found in the Appendix on page 67.] 

Mr. FRANCIS. So if you look on that top bar, there is a black triangle there called (Knowledge Point) KP 1 and (Preliminary Design 

Review) PDR. That is knowledge point one and—— 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Hang on one second on the charts. 

Mr. FRANCIS. It may be at the end of your statement. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. We will pass them out. I thought it was in the 

back of the statement, but it may not be in here inadvertently. 

It is in the back of the GAO testimony, but we will pass it out 

anyway. 

Go ahead. 
9 

Mr. FRANCIS. So on that, on chart one, there is—on that top bar 

there is a black triangle called—it is knowledge point one and preliminary design review. What we look for early in a program, that 

is the milestone B decision when you start a system development, 

we look for mature technologies and stable requirements. And the 

way you get a dot check on whether you have that is through a preliminary design review where you are actually matching requirements with technologies. 

This is also codified in DOD’s acquisition policy. So it is not just 

our methodology, it is DOD policy. So we look for that when a program starts. 

About halfway through, just move to the right, the next triangle, 

knowledge point two, that is critical design review. About halfway 

through system development we are looking for the design of the 

system to be stable. And stability is achieved by having integrated 

all the different subsystems, the technologies are done, and you are 

actually ready to build high-fidelity production-representative prototypes. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Excuse me. Mr. Francis, that can be replicated, right? 

Mr. FRANCIS. Yes. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. That when you do something one time you 

can do it 2, 5, 10, 20, 100 times. 

Mr. FRANCIS. Yes. And then when you build those prototypes 

after that point you are actually establishing your ability to be able 

to repeat. 

The third thing we look for, knowledge point three, the third 

black triangle there, coincides with the milestone C or the initial 

low rate production decision. What we are looking for there, and 

again in DOD policy, is a mature design that has been proven 

through testing. It proves that it meets requirements and that it 

is reliable and that it can be produced. So that is the lens we use. 

FCS is in the sixth year of a 10-year program, and it is nowhere 

near the level of knowledge it should have using this as a guide. 

That is why we believe, and our report says, we think it is unlikely 

that the remainder of the program can be executed as planned, because there aren’t many resources left. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. For purposes—the committee can see this. I 

am not sure that those who are viewing it can see the chart. I am 

not sure how the camera—they can’t see it, is that right? 

Could you explain then the second line where the technology development start, the PDR in the ideal setting is—— 

Mr. FRANCIS. That is what I just went through. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Now, where is it in the second line? 

Mr. FRANCIS. I am going to turn that over to Mr. Ferguson, and 

he is going to walk you through that. So we have a game plan. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Okay, very good. 

Mr. FRANCIS. This is not to be a criticism of FCS in the sense 

that we think FCS should have gone better, shouldn’t have had any 

problems. It is just where it is. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. That is not an issue. Let’s put this to rest 

right now. We are not here throwing rocks. We are here to try to 

analyze where we are and what the situation is. We are dealing in 

real time with real numbers in a real situation in which we have 
10 

a defense bill that we have to put forward shortly. That is what 

this is all about. That is all it is about. 

Mr. FRANCIS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. We are not here to throw rocks in the green. 

I am not interested in that, never have been. 

Mr. FRANCIS. So I will just wrap up here by saying 2009 is going 

to be a very big year. There is a go/no-go decision that is scheduled 

for late summer which this subcommittee championed. We look at 

that as a grassroots look at the program to see if it should continue 

or not. 

Congress has—or in what form. Congress has laid out criteria 

that DOD is to respond to in doing that review; and my colleague, 

Marcus Ferguson, is going to go through—he’ll go through the bottom half of this chart and basically stack up what we think the 

Army will know against those criteria of that milestone decision. 

Mr. FERGUSON. Good afternoon. It is a pleasure being here today. 

I will be discussing the Army’s activities leading up to the congressionally required milestone review happening later this year. 

Congress outlined numerous criteria for that review. These criteria 

relate to four key areas: technology, designs, demonstrations, and 

cost. We found that the FCS program has knowledge gaps in these 

areas; and, as a result, we believe the Army will be challenged to 

convincingly demonstrate the knowledge necessary to warrant an 

unqualified commitment to the FCS program of record at the 2009 

milestone review. 

The first of these key areas is technology maturity. Technology 

readiness levels, or TRLs, are measures pioneered by the National 

Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and adopted by 

DOD to gauge technology maturity. The maturity assessment is 

based on two factors: fidelity of the test article and fidelity of the 

test environment. For instance, a TRL four would be a low fidelity 

breadboard in a laboratory, while a TRL six would be a prototype 

that is very close to form, fit, and function demonstrated in a relevant environment. 

It is TRL six that is the minimum acceptable maturity level required by DOD to begin development. Applying the standard 

means that FCS should have achieved TRL six in 2003. The Army 

now expects to demonstrate TRL six for all technologies by May of 

this year. 

I would like to use an example that illustrates why it is so important to mature FCS technologies. As Mr. Francis pointed out, 

these vehicles break from traditional survivability methods which 

simply used a lot of armor. They rely on a layered approach to survivability that begins with the information network technologies to 

enhance situational awareness and avoid detection. If that first 

layer fails and an FCS vehicle is detected and fired upon, then hit 

avoidance technologies like the active protection system would need 

to counter the incoming threat. If that layer fails, then the FCS vehicle must be able to withstand the impact using the lightweight 

armor technologies that are currently in development. Each of 

these survivability layers depends on the maturation of those associated technologies. 

Technology maturity has been a key predictor of program success. Historically, acquisition programs that proceed with imma-
11 

ture technologies have much more cost growth than those with mature technologies. Extending technology development this late into 

the acquisition process puts FCS at risk for experiencing problems 

that may require large amounts of time and money to fix. 

Mr. FRANCIS. Marcus, could you, on the chart there, show the 

members where we are with technology, because that is the second 

bar there. 

Mr. FERGUSON. Certainly. Right. 

So if you look at the timeline at 2003, the top portion that Mr. 

Francis just discussed has knowledge point one and PDR. If you 

come down to the second area where the FCS approach is, they 

started that second shaded bar, that system development and demonstration, in 2003, but not all their technologies had been matured to a TRL six. So now we have progressed six years and spent 

$18 billion, and now we are at the preliminary design review, and 

technologies are now getting to the point where they should have 

been to start the development process. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Six years? 

Mr. FERGUSON. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. And what point are they now? 

Mr. FERGUSON. They are approaching preliminary design review 

where they have—they plan to demonstrate all technologies to a 

TRL six by the summer. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Demonstrate that? 

Mr. FERGUSON. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Would that mean that the—I want to make 

sure I understand this, because Mr. Francis just said with regard 

to the radio network—I will just refer to it as the radio network. 

Mr. FERGUSON. Okay. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. There isn’t anything like it today, I believe is 

the exact quote. There isn’t anything like it today. Does that mean 

that the radio network is now at a stage—the last time I saw it, 

it was being simulated. 

Mr. FERGUSON. Right. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Is that at a stage now where it is ready to 

be integrated at a six level? 

Mr. FERGUSON. The TRL six would be for the individual radios 

and not the integrated comprehensive network. So that would 

progress in phases. You would have the TRL six demonstration for 

just the individual radio capability, and then you would start netting together all of those individual radios to demonstrate that you 

can actually produce a mobile ad hoc network. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. But wouldn’t that be the level six? Am I misunderstanding you? That would be the level six. An individual 

radio, what is that? That is just a start. Am I misunderstanding? 

Mr. FRANCIS. No. The level six is just the individual technologies. 

The integration of the technologies and whether they can actually 

form a network is to be determined. So the TRL six is your first 

triangle. It is your starting point. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I understand that, but I am still not sure that 

I understand how just simply putting a radio in isolation, that that 

doesn’t have anything to do with the integrative requirement. 

Mr. FRANCIS. Correct. It is the first step to getting there. 
12 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If it is the first step, then how come it would 

be labeled at a six level? Wouldn’t that be at the beginning level? 

Mr. FRANCIS. Well, that is the beginning level, but that is just 

an individual technology to see if you have the building blocks to 

put a network together. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Okay. 

Mr. FERGUSON. The next key criteria area relates to requirements and designs. The first real check to determine whether a 

system’s design is able to meet requirements occurs at that preliminary design review we just discussed, and so if you will turn back 

to our graphic you will see that the PDR ideally would have happened in 2003 for the FCS. This is happening six years later, this 

summer. 

Nevertheless, the Army has worked very hard defining the FCS 

concept, detailed requirements, preliminary designs for the family 

of FCS systems and the information network. The Army plans to 

complete its review of the requirements and designs for individual 

FCS systems and the information network and conduct a comprehensive system of systems preliminary design review before the 

go/no-go review this summer. However, the schedule to close out all 

those reviews may take more time than anticipated. The Army has 

identified key gaps between the requirements and designs for several elements of the information network. Also, the projected 

weight of the FCS manned ground vehicles has grown significantly 

beyond earlier estimates, which could have a number of impacts on 

their cost and performance. In the coming months, the Army will 

have to address these and other issues as it charts its course 

through the next phase of development. 

The third key criteria area pertains to demonstration of the FCS 

information network software and the overall FCS concept. As Mr. 

Francis pointed out, the network is crucial to the FCS concept as 

it is designed to ensure that Army forces know more about what 

is going on in the battle space than does the enemy. The Army has 

been able to demonstrate its capabilities on a limited scale. However, DOD officials tell us that this type of network the Army is 

developing becomes more complex as more radios are added, an 

issue called scalability. As a result, it is hard to have a great deal 

of confidence in the network until demonstrations become more robust and incorporate more real production representative hardware 

components. 

The Army will be challenged to meet the congressional direction 

to demonstrate, rather than just simulate, that the network concept will work by the milestone review. To date, the Army has conducted many simulations but only limited demonstrations of select 

capabilities, including the manned ground vehicles and software. It 

has not yet attempted a broad field demonstration of the FCS concept as a whole. That type of event will not happen until 2012 as 

part of what is called the limited user test three. That is about one 

year before the Army plans to begin low rate initial production for 

core FCS systems. If that demonstration is unsuccessful, it may require major changes to the FCS family of systems at a time when 

change is usually the most costly. 

The final key criteria area for the go/no-go review relates to cost 

and affordability. The Army’s original estimate for developing and 
13 

procuring FCS was $92 billion dollars. The Army’s current estimate 

is $159 billion. These figures do not include the cost for complementary programs or spinouts, as you pointed out, Mr. Abercrombie. 

In the coming months, the Army is expected to update its cost 

estimate for FCS program. Last year, the Army indicated that FCS 

costs may increase substantially, but it has not yet indicated 

whether it would tradeoff FCS capabilities to accommodate those 

higher costs as it has done in the past. 

The Army did signal that it may reduce funding for upgrades to 

current force systems such as Abrams and Bradley to provide additional funding for FCS. While the updated program cost estimate 

should be a better representation of actual cost than previous estimates, the program still has many risks and unprecedented challenges to meet, and thus the estimate will likely change as more 

knowledge is required over time. 

I will now turn to Mr. Graveline, who will discuss several other 

key aspects of the program. Thank you. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Yes. 

Mr. BARTLETT. I want to make sure I understand this flow chart. 

Am I to understand that we have critical design review before technology development is complete? And, if so, how do you do that? 

Mr. FRANCIS. Mr. Bartlett, where are you looking on the chart? 

Mr. BARTLETT. I am on the bottom thing there. You have technology development continuing until about 2013, and yet you have 

critical design review—we are doing it in about 2011. And I want 

to know how you do critical design review before you have technology development completed. 

Mr. GRAVELINE. I would just say that it is a matter of having the 

review versus accomplishing the goals of that review. They are attempting the preliminary design review here shortly. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Graveline, for the benefit of the record, 

could you pull the mic a little closer and repeat what you just said? 

Mr. GRAVELINE. Okay. I would address that question by saying 

it is one thing to have the review, and it is another one to complete 

the objectives of the review. To certainly get a good, solid preliminary design review or a critical design review technology should 

not be a question any longer. They should be mature. So at this 

stage that is still to be determined with FCS as to whether—how 

successful those reviews are going to be, and technology will be one 

of those questions that needs to be answered. 

Mr. BARTLETT. They are just presuming the results of the technology development in their critical design review. 

Mr. FRANCIS. Well, Mr. Bartlett, there is actually two things 

going on here. We have plotted on the top chart—the Department 

of Defense and the Army use the metric of TRL six as technology 

maturity. What we have plotted on the bottom, our work shows 

that TRL seven is the better measure. So that bar down below we 

say that is when they will get a TRL seven, which will be after critical design review, but the Army believes they only need TRL six 

to hold that review. 
14 

Mr. BARTLETT. Your best practices charted on the top shows 

technical development completed before you do the preliminary design review. 

Mr. FRANCIS. Yes. 

Mr. BARTLETT. And here you have technology development still 

continuing after you have done critical design review. I am just 

confused. 

Mr. FRANCIS. No, that is correct. That is the strategy for Future 

Combat Systems. They will not be done—fully done with technology development until the production decision. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Bartlett, your question is a good one. 

Do you understand what is being asked here, Mr. Francis? I 

think you do. But the audience and everybody may not be clear as 

to what we are talking about. 

Mr. Bartlett, as you know, is a physicist and a scientist, so his 

level of incredulity when the proposition is put forward, as it just 

has been, is understandable. What he is saying, quite simply, is, 

you mean you are going to go ahead with something before you 

know whether it is going to work. 

Mr. FRANCIS. Yes, that is correct. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Is that a colloquial way of putting it? 

Mr. FRANCIS. Yes. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. That has been—and that is the difficulty 

here—has been the difficulty for the subcommittee all along, is you 

are trying—what the FCS approach seems to be is that if the laws 

of physics don’t apply the way we want it to apply, we will bend 

the laws of physics verbally so that we can say, well, before we 

have reached technology maturity or what the DOD definition is of 

that, we will simply presume that that is going to occur and move 

on to the next stage. 

Mr. FRANCIS. Yes. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Is that an unfair, not necessarily summary, 

but an unfair analysis of the approach that they are using? 

Mr. FRANCIS. No, I think that is a fair characterization. It is a 

concurrent approach to do technology and design at the same time 

and, as we will talk later, actually start to commit to production 

before you have the design done. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I have characterized this myself in the past 

as sympathetic magic. And I am not being sarcastic about it. It is 

an anthropological term. And it is a well-known—magic is not always evil, not always sticking pins in people to—or in dolls to 

make them hurt. Magic also takes place when you engage in incantations and so on in order to try to have a good outcome. And what 

is being said here is if we talk about the critical design review and 

the technical readiness level being synonymous or advancing verbally, then maybe it will actually happen. The problem comes, does 

it not, in relation to Mr. Bartlett’s question, if that doesn’t occur. 

Mr. FRANCIS. That is correct. If it doesn’t occur and you have created all of your estimates around that assumption, then you cannot 

get the program done for those estimates. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. And that causes us then to run into a real 

brick wall with a lot of bleeding from the eyes, does it not? 

Mr. FRANCIS. It does. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Okay. 
15 

Mr. GRAVELINE. Good afternoon. It is my pleasure to be here 

today to discuss our most recent work on FCS. Beyond the cost and 

technical issues that Mark has just covered, I would like to discuss 

the road ahead for the FCS program. 

The Army faces a number of challenges as it moves forward to 

complete FCS development. We believe that under its current acquisition strategy the FCS program may not be executable within 

current cost and schedule projections. The schedule for spinouts is 

aggressive, and production commitments may happen before adequate supporting knowledge is available. The remainder of the current FCS program of record is very ambitious, and events are driven more by the calendar than by the achievements of specific acquisition knowledge. 

To illustrate, I would like to turn your attention back to our 

chart number one here. 

As we have already discussed, the Army has, among other 

things, been developing technologies and defining requirements 

since 2003. In 2009, the Army is approaching the preliminary design review point and potential achievement of knowledge point 1. 

Ideally, the critical design review would be held halfway through 

program. The desired outcome of this event, as Mr. Francis indicated earlier, is that the design is shown to be stable. 

In FCS’s case, the critical design review will be held 8 years into 

the 10-year program. Moreover, the Army has scheduled only two 

years between the preliminary design review and the critical design review and another two years between critical design review 

and production. This ambitious schedule leaves little room to gain 

knowledge and make needed adjustments between the key events 

in the system engineering process. It also results in prototypes 

being built from the less mature preliminary designs, as opposed 

to the more mature critical designs. 

I would like to now turn to chart number two, and that is also 

in your handout called ‘‘Remaining FCS Research and Development 

Funding and Key Events.’’ The Army’s cost estimate for all of FCS 

development is around $30 billion. Through fiscal year 2009, the 

Army has received about $18 billion or about 60 percent of the 

total estimated. Of the roughly ten years projected from program 

start to the projected beginning of initial production, FCS is approaching the sixth year, or 60 percent mark. 

Within the next four years, the Army will have to further mature 

and integrate many of the individual critical technologies which we 

already talked about: mature the system designs, complete the development, integration, and testing of a huge volume of software, 

fabricate numerous prototypes, conduct extensive development testing, and the fix test, fixed kind of approach at the end, and prepare 

the design, processes, and facilities for production. 

If the current FCS program receives approval to proceed at the 

next milestone review, the Army will have to complete development 

with only 40 percent of its financial and schedule resources remaining of what is typically the most challenging expensive work ahead, 

such as building and testing of prototypes. We don’t believe this to 

be an executable strategy. 

[The chart referred to can be found in the Appendix on page 68.] 
16 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Graveline, before you go further with that, is that because you are assuming that the $30 billion funding 

for research and development will remain static? 

Mr. GRAVELINE. Yes. We assume the current program of record 

until the Army decides to increase their program estimate, they 

could, and actually they indicated to that extent last year that they 

may be headed that direction. But yes. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Did you have a figure for that, or am I anticipating the rest of your testimony? 

Mr. GRAVELINE. In our reports and in the statement for the 

record I believe we talk about the Army’s projected cost increases 

for the program, and they were talking about $2 billion in development and upwards of $17 billion in procurement. So there was a 

$19 billion cost difference. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Added to the $30 billion. 

Mr. GRAVELINE. No, that would be to the $159 billion, the whole 

program. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. What about the $30 billion? 

Mr. GRAVELINE. The $30 billion would be about $32 billion. But 

that is probably just the first down payment on additional costs 

there. 

To carry on, though, for the next—for the last few years, the 

Army has not only pursued the goal of eventually fielding 15 FCS 

brigade combat teams (BCTs)—that is what is called the core FCS 

program—but also field selected FCS capabilities to current Army 

forces. The Army plans to spin out some early FCS capabilities to 

infantry brigade combat teams in 2011 and other FCS capabilities 

later. 

The initial production decision for these items is now expected 

this December. However, testing to date has been limited, and it 

has involved surrogates or nonproduction representative systems or 

forms of the spinout systems. 

The three tests scheduled for later—— 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. What examples do you have? Give us an example. 

Mr. GRAVELINE. Well, for one, some of the radios that are intended for the systems that we have talked about are not ready. 

They will be using surrogates for those. And some of the other systems are still in design, and they are using an engineering development model type of thing. 

The three tests scheduled for later this year will also follow the 

same practice. That is a concern for us, and we have recommended 

that DOD base its initial production decision on testing of the actual systems to be fielded. 

In conjunction with its spin-out efforts, the Army Evaluation 

Task Force at Fort Bliss has been, in our view, a wise investment 

by the Army, in that FCS and other capabilities will be given early 

evaluations by Active-Duty soldiers. The lessons learned from this 

process should be very beneficial. 

Finally, let me spend a moment to discuss Army’s plans to pursue an incremental approach for FCS. Last year Army officials said 

they were considering an incremental of block acquisition approach 

for FCS for several reasons. One was immature requirements in 

several key areas, challenges in meeting performance expectations 
17 

within program costs and schedule, funding limitations, and continuing challenges and aligning schedules and expectations for FCS 

and its complementary programs. At this point it is not clear if this 

incremental approach will feature—— 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr Graveline, excuse me one second. Mr. 

Marshall. 

Mr. MARSHALL. I am on page seven of your written testimony. 

There are four items listed as part of this incremental approach. 

And the second item is limited availability of performance trade 

space to maintain program cost and schedule, given current program risks. Could you explain what ‘‘performance trade space’’ 

means? I am just not familiar with that concept. 

Mr. GRAVELINE. Well, it is where you have a couple of competing 

requirements, and to accomplish it you are finding it difficult to accomplish them both, where, for example, the Army’s manned 

ground vehicles are turning out to be quite heavier than they anticipated, the designs with the new armor they are using and other 

things. So that has an impact on the speed and endurance and 

range, how far you can go on a tank of gas, for example. There is 

a tension there because the manned ground vehicles, the engine 

and propulsion system will only give you so much thrust. So the 

heavier you are, the slower you will go and the less range you will 

have. So that is one of the tension things where they can’t work 

out both right now. 

Mr. MARSHALL. This may be a term of art in your business, I 

don’t know; so when you say limited availability of performance 

trade space, what you are saying is that a given component of the 

system has a number of different requirements and you might be 

able to give a little bit with one requirement, but at some point if 

you are giving a little bit here and giving a little bit there, the total 

capability just isn’t going to be what was expected. Is that what is 

meant by this limited availability of performance—— 

Mr. GRAVELINE. Right. At this point you can’t accomplish everything. Frankly, that is what they are finding in the preliminary design reviews. They are doing a whole series of early ones on the 

pieces. They are finding out gaps like that, that you can’t get everything. And so there is a laundry list of items that they will have 

to work through after the reviews are done and make some tradeoffs and give a little bit here and do additional things in other 

areas. 

Mr. MARSHALL. Trade space is what you are referring to? 

Mr. GRAVELINE. Tradeoff. 

Mr. MARSHALL. Swap this for that; you might get a little less 

here but get more here. 

Mr. GRAVELINE. Right. They may decide on the weight issue that 

they are actually probably too heavy, so they will have to do some 

design work and other maybe technology work to reduce the 

weight. It will just be another thing added to the workload to work 

that out in different ways. 

Mr. MARSHALL. Thank you. 

Mr. GRAVELINE. And at this point it is not clear if this incremental approach will feature reduced requirements for some FCS 

systems or reduced sets of FCS systems to be produced or fielded, 

or a combination of these options. 
18 

Restructuring the FCS program around an incremental approach 

has the potential to alleviate some of the risks in the strategy. We 

look forward to hearing more about the Army’s incremental plans 

for FCS when they are finalized. In any case, an incremental approach should be carefully scrutinized. 

I will now turn back to Mr. Francis for some concluding remarks. 

Mr. FRANCIS. Mr. Chairman, just something very quickly. And 

we are putting up a third chart; it should look like this in your 

handouts. The one thing I want to draw your attention to here, it 

is a busy chart, but while the development of the FCS program is 

finishing late, the commitments to production are coming early. 

And I just wanted to point out on the congressional calendar 

what is going to be expected of you in the coming years. So at this 

time next year, February 2010, that is when the first request for 

FCS production money will come for core systems. It is for facilities. But that will just be a few months after your go/no-go decision. You will be asked to put up the first production money. 

A year from that, February 2011, will be the second year of production money and, again, you are still before the critical design review. 

The third request for production money will come in February 

2012. That will be for fiscal year 2013. And at that time you will 

have the critical design review; but that limited user test three, 

which is the first systems, a systems test will not have been held 

yet. So conceivably the Congress could be asked to invest $50 billion in FCS, 12 of that being production, before we have a test 

where we think the FCS can do what it is supposed to do. So those 

commitments come pretty quickly. 

Mr. Chairman, it was a long opening statement, but we are 

ready for any more questions you might have. 

[The chart referred to can be found in the Appendix on page 69.] 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. It is difficult not to observe that it is understandable why the Army isn’t here. Although I just want to repeat 

for the record, we are not here to beat anybody up; that is not the 

issue here. These are life-and-death issues and the people, as you 

have observed yourself, and, I would emphasize, that are doing 

this, the motives are good and the intentions are clear, but that 

doesn’t necessarily make something happen. These are deadly serious issues, not just figuratively. They are certainly really, really serious with respect to where the money, the resources are. 

Have you concluded, then, Mr. Francis? 

Mr. FRANCIS. Yes. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. We will go to Mr. Massa first. 

Mr. MASSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, gentlemen, thank 

you for the work that you do as oversight watchdogs of the American taxpayers’ money. 

Mr. Francis, you said at heart of this entire concept is a radio 

network. Did I understand that correctly? 

Mr. FRANCIS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MASSA. We will be asked in the very near future to fund approximately $1 billion in procurement for what is generally known 

as the radio system called SINCGARS. Are you familiar with that? 

Mr. FRANCIS. Yes, I am. 
19 

Mr. MASSA. Would you characterize that as a radio frequencyhopping single channel Very High Frequency (VHF) mobile radio 

system? 

Mr. FRANCIS. I will take your word for it. 

Mr. MASSA. Do you have an understanding of whether or not this $1 billion in procurement for a 1982 legacy system developed under 

an Operational Requirements Document (ORD) in 1976 in the 

United States Army has any compatibility at all, either theoretically or operationally, with the FCS network of radios that are at 

the heart of this system? 

Mr. FRANCIS. It will be compatible, but it cannot function as that 

relay that I had talked about. So it can talk to FCS, but you are 

not going to be able to route any message traffic through the 

SINCGARS radio. 

Mr. MASSA. And is it not true that the ability to route message 

traffic through the radio system at the heart of this is, in fact, 

what creates the revolution in information warfare that characterizes FCS? 

Mr. FRANCIS. Yes. 

Mr. MASSA. So while it can function, it cannot do what FCS has 

at the heart of its technological revolution; is that correct? 

Mr. FRANCIS. That is correct. 

Mr. MASSA. So we are going to spend a billion dollars on radio 

equipment that has nothing to with FCS as it moves forward. 

Mr. FRANCIS. That is correct. 

Mr. MASSA. I am trying very hard—because I am burdened with 

the reality that I was in the room when this concept was created— 

I am trying hard not to be punitive. But to date, besides one class 

four UAV, which in fact had nothing to do with FCS but in fact 

was a Navy system that was procured off the shelf, besides that it 

is my nonexpert opinion—and I am just an upstate New York country farm boy—— 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Watch out. 

Mr. MASSA. I really would like to express for the record that the 

most important weapons system yet created by FCS is approximately 700 tons of PowerPoint slides. And unless we plan on dropping them on the enemy, I don’t understand how this will ever become reality. 

And it is a matter of common sense. Army acquisition, on one 

hand, is asking us to spend a billion with a B, and I know we toss 

that number around here like it is normal—back where I come 

from in farm country, a billion dollars is still a lot of money—a billion dollars on a handheld radio system developed with technology 

in 1976 that has virtually nothing to do with what the Army is telling us is the backbone of the future of the network of radio systems 

that the Army wants to move forward on. 

Can you kindly tell me why I should vote to spend a billion dollars on something that has nothing to do with what you and the 

Army is saying is the future of the Army? 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I beg your pardon, Mr Massa, but Mr. Francis 

cannot kindly tell you that one way or the other, not in this hearing anyway. 

Mr. MASSA. I apologize for being emotive about this. I understand at the core of professionalism is objectivity. But we as legis-
20 

lators are asked only to command money; that is all that we are 

asked to do. And yet we talk about a $40 billion cost overrun as 

if it is normal, because we have allowed it to become normal. A billion here and a billion there, and pretty soon you are talking real 

money. 

I value your input because I know you are dispassionate, you 

bring to the table something that I don’t. I bring a lot of passion 

to this, because I, again, was there when this started. 

And the thing that Chairman Abercrombie brings to this table, 

that all the generals who have been before us have not, is longevity. We have heard it all, we have seen the parade of experts 

over time, and we have a corporate memory that this has been 

going on and on and on. And we—ask at least I do as a new guy— 

when will it end? 

And so I appreciate your testimony and your frankness. But I illustrate for the record that we are being asked to make decisions 

that are in direct contradiction to common sense. They are in direct 

contradiction to procurement policy. And, frankly, I don’t know if 

I can support it. 

Can you please give me some measure of hope that we can get 

to the bottom of this in an intelligent manner and, in fact, look to 

the future? 

Mr. FRANCIS. I can try. 

Mr. MASSA. Thank you. 

Mr. FRANCIS. I think what we are seeing here is the larger problems with acquisition as we know them. That is, when a new program is proposed and it is proposed with an optimistic schedule, 

and everyone counts on that and then it doesn’t come. Well, what 

happens in the meantime is the current forces have to be sustained 

and they need equipment. And I think that is the case with 

SINCGARS versus JTRS. The JTRS was supposed to be fielded 

years ago and was supposed to replace SINCGARS and Enhanced 

Position Location and Reporting System (EPLARS). 

Mr. MASSA. And yet many of us who were on the staff of this 

committee and supported the members who had the main decisions 

said, very clearly, what was being proposed would never happen, 

over and over and over again. We are throwing acronyms around 

like cereal floating in an alphabet soup. The Non-Line-of-Sight cannon is an artillery piece. The manned ground vehicle, I love—I saw 

a tank-like vehicle—it is a tank. And yet we believe that somehow 

by giving them a new revolutionary name, that we are going to be 

led to believe that something revolutionary is going to happen. And 

when it doesn’t, those of us who said, ‘‘I told you so’’ have nowhere 

to go but to then go back to the American taxpayer and pull money 

out of their wallets, especially at a time when they don’t have it. 

That is the frustration that freshman Members of Congress like me 

who are embedded in dairy farm common sense bring to this table. 

Mr. FRANCIS. Well, I think that enriches the discussion because 

those viewpoints—I think those of us who have been in the business, I think you are right, after a while you get used to, well, ten 

percent cost increases isn’t much. But it is. 

But to come back to SINCGARS, what ends up happening is you 

get a request, because we have to replace things for the forces that 

are in the field today. And the reason we are having to do it is the 
21 

things that we promised never came, and we have been in that 

cycle for quite some time now. 

Mr. MASSA. Well, thank you for your frankness. I apologize for 

my passion about this, but I think it is important that we bring 

some reality back to these PowerPoint presentations and, frankly, 

understand that what we are ultimately talking about is fielding 

weapons systems for soldiers, so they can break things and do the 

work of the Nation when we ask them. There are radios out there 

that are far beyond SINCGARS, that were developed just in the 

past five years, that are more cost-effective and cheaper. 

And, Mr. Chairman, thank you for your patience with me. I yield 

back my time. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Not a bit. Mr. Kissell and then Mr. Bartlett. 

Mr. KISSELL. You have another freshman up here, and while I 

am not from upstate New York and don’t have the dairy farm common sense, I maybe can refer to down south, North Carolina, living 

in rural areas, working in textile mills. 

We don’t go in these hearings in a vacuum of other information 

or what we have learned in other hearings. One of the hearings 

that we have had recently is on procurement. And the statements 

that were made is we just keep making the same mistakes. 

And it does become very hard to accept that cost overruns are 

a part of life. And we at some point in time have got to have the 

consequences and systems to take care of that. 

With that said, in opening remarks, Mr. Francis, you said you 

were surprised at the Army’s reaction. Can you characterize that 

a little further, please? What was that reaction? 

Mr. FRANCIS. The Army had said they didn’t understand how we 

came up with some of our calculations and didn’t agree with our 

methodology. And my surprise is that I think the press has characterized our report as scathing, and used other adjectives. But we 

have been very consistent over these past five or six years, and we 

hold the program to DOD’s own policy. I don’t know of any other 

way to look at the program. 

Mr. KISSELL. Have you had a chance to get with the Army since 

then, to help explain it should not have been surprising? 

Mr. FRANCIS. Yes, we have. 

Mr. KISSELL. I am an economist by college background, and one 

of the words that economists use a lot, and we have heard a lot 

recently, is ‘‘let’s assume.’’ And we have been seemingly using that 

concept in this procurement process; let’s assume it is going to 

work. 

And somewhere in my past I came across levels of knowledge, 

things you know that you know, things that you know that you 

don’t know. One of those areas of knowledge is things that we don’t 

know that we don’t know. In this kind of process, we have an assumption in the charts that are going rapidly toward out of money 

before the procurement process is tested and implemented. 

Based upon things like this we have done before, what is out 

there that we don’t know? What is the chance there are going to 

be some glitches that we just can’t anticipate, that is going to 

throw this off even more? 

Mr. FRANCIS. I think there is a lot of discovery out there, as the 

conversation we had with Mr. Abercrombie about TRL six tech-
22 

nology for radios; that is that first point. So you have—I think the 

term of art is unknown unknowns. And you go through those when 

you develop that radio and you solve them and make tradeoffs. But 

now we are about the business of integrating that into a network 

that has to function with other systems. There will be other discoveries there and I think what you find when you go through a system development like this is that, as the design is better understood, complexity increases because you make those discoveries. 

Mr. KISSELL. And the no-go or go point, how is that decision 

going to be made and who is going to make it? 

Mr. FRANCIS. Do you want to take that, Bill? 

Mr. GRAVELINE. Sure. There the Congress set out a number of 

expectations of certain analyses and assessments that should be 

done in preparation for that. The Army is going to be coming forth 

with a series of presentations, data, studies and the like. Others in 

the Pentagon are going to be bringing these things forth. There will 

be a cost estimate, and even an independent cost estimate. So 

things are all in play already to bring this information together 

that will be assembled and evaluated really first by DOD staff people in the Pentagon to put all these things together and sort it out. 

And then at the end, it will be, the Defense Acquisition Board 

and the Under Secretary for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics 

(AT&L) is the chairman of that. And they will get together for at 

least a series of meetings and discussions to evaluate what do we 

have here. Because that is the whole essence of this go/no-go, 

where the program—most agree that didn’t get a good start, or the 

starting point was just let the Army go ahead on this, even though 

technologies weren’t in place, it wasn’t a good cost estimate, the requirements were nebulous, at best. 

So the committee legislatively thought that it would be a good 

point, around preliminary design review, to come back together 

once you have done some work, you have got your technologies in 

order, the requirement process is completed, then get together and 

say where are we, and is this product that is emerging, does it continue to make sense, how achievable is it? You will have better information available to look at those and make solid projections, 

rather than just a wish that we can have it done at a certain time 

to do a real go/no-go; does it really make sense? That was the essence of the logic of putting this requirement together. 

And so, again, things are in play already to get the information, 

the studies, the various viewpoints coming together this summer. 

The Defense Acquisition Board will get together, I believe they 

have already scheduled that at the end of July. And then there will 

be a report, or maybe a series of reports, that will be issued and 

reported to the committee. I believe the legislation says 120 days 

after preliminary design review. 

So it is going to be a busy time in the Pentagon and Army circles, going through that. And we intend to keep on top of that and 

review all the materials as they come in. 

Mr. FRANCIS. It is the Office of Secretary of Defense who will 

make that decision, not the Army. 

Mr. KISSELL. Thank you. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Bartlett. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much. 
23 

Can you help me understand the Army’s urgent field need that 

embarked us on this never-before-used development and procurement protocol, obviously fraught with uncertainties? 

Mr. FRANCIS. We were involved just before the program got started and heard the Army’s rationale. I think they were looking ahead 

to next generation and to future forces. And they were looking at 

Future Combat Systems as a replacement for the heavy force. It 

was going to replace M1s and Bradleys, but it was going to do so 

in such a way that a smaller force could have the combat power 

of a larger force. It would be easier to get the equipment into theater and easier to support it when it was there. 

So I think it was, in terms of art again, as long as we are talking, it was a ‘‘capabilities-based decision’’ that the Army thought it 

needed this capability for the future versus reacting to a particular 

threat. 

I think there was also the thought at the time that there was a 

limit to how much armor you could put on a vehicle, and some 

anti-armor weapons were outstripping the ability of armor to protect. And you would have to take another step now to provide that 

protection, which now would be in the form of the information network. 

Mr. BARTLETT. But that relates only to specific vehicles, not to 

this very complex integrated system. 

Let me ask a couple of kind of practical questions here. Another 

provision that was initiated to full committee level was the elimination of lead systems integrator and I suspect Future Combat 

Systems had something to do with that. 

Obviously the lead systems integrator has an intimate relationship with the subs, and communicates with them on a continuous 

basis to know what they are doing and are they really getting 

there. 

The usual contracting mechanism that we have, the Pentagon 

has with the industry, is that we interface only with the prime; and 

we see the subs only through this really dark prism of the prime. 

Do you think we ought to look at reconsidering that if, in fact, we 

are going to be the lead systems integrator? 

Mr. FRANCIS. I think so. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Francis, when you answer that question, 

would you elucidate a little bit on what we mean by lead systems 

integrator? We know what we are talking about, but we are being 

viewed by people for whom that may not be a familiar phrase. 

Mr. FRANCIS. Certainly. A traditional contracting arrangement 

would be, say, between the government and a prime contractor. 

And this has been changing over time, but generally you look at 

that as an arms-length relationship where the government will 

write a set of requirements, and the prime contractor is responsible 

for designing and building a system to meet those requirements. 

And the prime contractor brings with them all of their suppliers. 

So the government only has visibility really into that prime contractor. 

Now, DOD has been trying to get away from that over time. 

They have been going with integrated product teams and arrangements like that so it is a closer working relationship. The lead system integrator is perhaps the closest working relationship that we 
24 

have come across, and that is a situation where the government actually partners with a contractor and the contractor helps the government make decisions about requirements. And what the government gets out of that, then, is in the case of FCS the government 

can participate in the selection of the contractor supplier. So they 

get a lot more visibility there. 

So you give up the arms-length relationship, but what you gain 

is joint decision making and the government gets more insight into 

the supplier base. I think that enables— 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. That works two ways, doesn’t it? 

Mr. FRANCIS. It works two ways, yes. It does make the government more agile, but then it becomes in our view a little more difficult for oversight, because it is hard to separate the contractor’s 

contribution from the government’s contribution. 

But I do think insight into the suppliers is a benefit of that relationship. I think the government can get better insight without 

necessarily having to go through a lead system integrator relationship with another contractor. So I take your point. I think there 

are lessons to be learned for the government. If the government is 

to be the integrator, it should find ways, I think, to get more visibility into the suppliers. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you. One more kind of a commonsense 

question. Obviously, we can increase the cost of these systems if we 

go too slow. And we increase the cost of the system if we try to go 

too fast, which is what we have done here. How do you know from 

the get-go whether you are going too fast or too slow? What is the 

right balance between these? 

Mr. FRANCIS. Mr. Bartlett, I think it is knowing where to go fast 

and where to go slow. And our view and we have benchmarked this 

again against best practices in commercial industry is you really 

need to do your risk taking before you declare something to be a 

program that you will put on a fixed schedule and budget. 

So the place to experiment, then, is in the science and technology 

base, when you can explore, make mistakes, have failures and decide what is then in the art of the possible. The systems engineering discipline then gives you criteria that you can use to say when 

you know enough to actually commit to a schedule. 

So I would say if we have a robust science and technology phase 

where you can actually push those technologies and weed out the 

doable from undoable, then I think you can have a pretty quick development phase for a system. For example, if you could tradeoff 

requirements so you get that match between mature technologies 

and requirements, I don’t think it is unreasonable to think about 

a 5- or 6-year development phase, because you are focused only, 

then, on integrating the product and not worrying about technologies. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Didn’t we do it very much quicker than that with 

Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAPs)? We kind of broke all 

the rules there, didn’t we? And, I gather, a pretty successful procurement? 

Mr. FRANCIS. Yes. To a large extent, the homework had been 

done on those vehicles, technology development, and the integration. So we did some modifications to them, but we were able to 

buy them largely off the shelf. 
25 

Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to return to my initial question. This was obviously a very risky development and procurement protocol. And I was never apprised of the urgent field 

need, what enemy out there had capabilities that forced us to this 

very revolutionary protocol for developing and fielding this system. 

If there was that kind of thing out there, this had the urgency of 

the Manhattan Project, then I understand. I have some trouble understanding how we ever got started down this road with no really 

urgent field need out there that necessitated this kind of risk taking. 

Mr. FRANCIS. Well, I think that would be a good question for the 

Army to answer. I do think a large part of it dealt with not so 

much a change in the threat, but the fact that the Army did have 

aging equipment and they were looking to replace it. But I think 

the Army should handle that one. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much. And thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Before I go to Mr. Marshall on that, just to 

make sure I am clear, what Mr. Bartlett is talking about and what 

has been alluded to here and what is specifically here in the slide 

that you had about best practices approach and the FCS approach, 

is that if there was such a need, equipment is coming to the end 

of its useful life, is there another generation of equipment that 

would prove useful in one situation or another? 

The way to do that is what the Army already had out there. First 

you do technology development and you move toward technology 

readiness levels and you do preliminary design review. And do everything in order, right? There is a book. 

Mr. FRANCIS. Yes. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. This is not being made up now. You didn’t 

make up this chart? 

Mr. FRANCIS. No. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. There is a book out there and you follow the 

book along how you do these things. You make sure you have you 

your technology maturity and then you go to your low rate production, et cetera, et cetera. Right? 

Mr. FRANCIS. Yes. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. What we are seeing here is none of this was 

followed. 

Mr. FRANCIS. That is correct. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Or it was cited in the breach. These phrases 

would be used, or these benchmark measurements would be cited, 

but they weren’t cited in the order in which they were expected to 

appear had you been doing it in the ordinary course of events. 

Mr. FRANCIS. That is correct. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. And so that is where our difficulty is. It is not 

a matter of too fast or too slow. It is a matter of not following the 

procedures. 

Mr. FRANCIS. In my view, they were about a phase off. We have 

this preliminary design review in 2009. We are right about the 

time you would have enough information to start a program. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Yes. 

Mr. FRANCIS. But we did the cost estimate six years ago when 

we knew very little. 
26 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Right. So in some respects they are accelerating. What we are doing is accelerating right through what the 

book requires in terms of time and expense. It might take a little 

longer, but at least you would be dealing with measuring apples to 

apples. 

Mr. Marshall. 

Mr. MARSHALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess I will stay 

with Mr. Bartlett’s question as well. It is unfortunate the Army is 

not here with us. If the Army were here with us I think that the 

Army would be very easily able to make the case that having a system like this system available to it is hugely helpful in combat; 

that it is very appropriate for us to support the Army in attempting 

to develop a system like this, and very understandable that the 

Army would want to design it as proposed, just sort of given the 

way combat works. 

I will bet the Army would say that unfortunately as its effort 

evolved, as it got into it and started working it, just time slipped. 

In the ideal world, it would have developed all the technology that 

was needed for this program before moving to the next stage or at 

least been confident that that technology was deliverable at a reasonable cost and it just didn’t work out. It has been too difficult to 

develop, and so they just felt they had to move forward with the 

rest of it, sort of looking at their overall estimates, the limits of the 

budget, sort of cost creep that inevitably attends, pushing things 

off, those sorts of things. 

I think probably one of the reasons the Army is not here, the 

Army sort of looks at this and says, you know, we started this 

thing with a very good plan, needed assets, needed development. 

And then all kinds of problems have occurred and we have gotten 

ourselves into a pretty untenable position. 

So I have to believe that the Army will come back at some point 

with a suggestion for restructuring the program to take into account the obvious concerns that this committee and Congress will 

have in light of your report. 

And so that leads me to—now that I have testified on behalf of 

the Army, Mr. Bartlett—that leads me to what I am interested in, 

and that is how you do you think the Army should restructure this 

at this point? 

I apologize, I had to go out. I have had somebody that I have 

needed to meet with for some time and it conflicted with this hearing. And so I was just sitting out in the other room, but we had 

the television off. 

Have you considered sort of what are the reasonable ways that 

the Army could restructure the program to sensibly move forward 

from where we are right now, as opposed to just abandoning the 

notion altogether? I think it would be a shame if we simply abandoned the notion altogether. 

The MRAP vehicle has been a very nice addition, but it is a 

stand-alone item. The idea of having an integrated weapons system 

available to a BCT like the weapons system that is contemplated 

by this effort is great. 

So have you thought about what you think the Army ought to 

be doing at this point, thinking about restructuring and moving 

forward so we don’t lose this? 
27 

Mr. FRANCIS. We have thought about it, Mr. Marshall. It is not 

something we could subject to an audit. There is no book on this. 

Mr. MARSHALL. Right. 

Mr. FRANCIS. But in my way of thinking, the Army would first 

go back and look at their overall requirement, not all the details, 

but do they still have a requirement for a heavy system or a medium system; to keep their eye on what they are designing to. 

And then I think in terms of near term, midterm and long term, 

in the midterm they have to make sure their current force is recapitalized and kept current. And I would include in that any of 

the spin-outs from FCS that can make that current force better. 

That would be one thing I would think about. 

Then I would think about the midterm. There may be some platforms from FCS that, with additional development, that it might 

make sense to field them. So, for example, there could be something like the Bradley replacement; maybe it would make sense for 

when that vehicle is ready to replace it, if it is not dependent on 

the network for its performance. So if it has a stand-alone capability, I would think about that type of thing for midterm. 

Long term I think the Army should continue to invest significantly in its technologies in the network. It shouldn’t stop and 

come back to that later. I think it needs to keep that science and 

technology going there to give itself options in the long term. 

Mr. MARSHALL. Gentlemen, do you agree, disagree, have something to add? 

Mr. GRAVELINE. I would just add, the largest cost driver of the 

program is the manned ground vehicles. Certainly getting to the 

production stage of them, that is where it is going to be really expensive. So that is the thing you really have to think hard about 

what portion of those may want to go forward. 

I would agree with Mr. Francis on the network. There are some 

important things going on there and they are kind of getting to the 

point where they are really understanding what that network is all 

about and defining what they can do. There has been a lot of discovery on that part, and I would hate to lose that learning that 

they have made. 

There are a lot of pieces that have been developed, including 

some of the sensors that were to be included in the manned ground 

vehicles. They may be applicable elsewhere. And there are a lot of 

valuable pieces, so I think it ought to be carefully evaluated as to 

how to proceed, not just let’s dump the whole thing. 

Mr. FERGUSON. I would like to add, sir, to what Mr. Graveline 

alluded to earlier. With the Army Evaluation Task Force in Fort 

Bliss, the tremendous potential areas were having a near brigadesize unit there testing actual prototype systems and providing feedback in that design process, getting an honest-to-goodness perspective from soldiers who have been in Iraq and Afghanistan providing 

feedback in that process, I think is tremendous. 

Mr. MARSHALL. One more question. Part of the dilemma and one 

of the reasons why the Army probably would acknowledge that this 

has gotten all out of whack, the process that it had originally envisioned to develop this, again, having to do with the technology development. Can you imagine any circumstance in which the Army 

could produce evidence that is sufficient to persuade us that while 
28 

we haven’t had PDR, Critical Design Review (CDR) at this point— 

well CDR for sure—that is okay, because we can establish to your 

satisfaction that in fact this technology will be there; that it can 

simultaneously arrive and we can go ahead and it makes sense, 

you know, costwise for us to just go ahead and go into production 

with regard to the hardware itself with the idea that the technology will be there when this hardware is there. And that, net, 

we will save a lot of time, save a lot of lives. Hopefully we will not 

really be dependent upon these systems, but if we are, save a lot 

of lives, save a lot of time and also save money. 

Is it conceivable to you that they would be able to make the case 

that yeah, here is where the technology development is, but it will 

in 2012 be mature, be there, you can count on it? 

Mr. GRAVELINE. I would say, looking at the potential things that 

could come out of this incremental approach they may come out 

with, they could start with a very basic vehicle which doesn’t have 

a lot of the more exotic technologies on it, and try to build that 

first. And then as the technologies come along, keep adding to that 

basic vehicle as they go downstream. So that maybe the first 

version may not be satisfying to everybody, but that would be a 

starting point that you could stabilize and build on. And then down 

longer term, you get to where you really want it to be. That is not 

lacking risk involved in there, but I think that may be something—— 

Mr. MARSHALL. And I think you might be giving good advice to 

the Army at this point. But I have a different question, I might not 

have stated it very well. 

If the Army simply wants for some reason to stay on the planned 

program, and it acknowledges that technology development is not 

yet complete and will not be mature almost until almost 2014, and 

CDR will not occur until 2011, nevertheless, Congress, you should 

permit us to go ahead and invest in system development and demonstration and actual production prior to that time, because it will 

all come together. And if we have to use it, the effect of it all coming together will be to save an awful lot of lives, and inevitably we 

will save money by moving forward as opposed to delay, and we 

will save time. 

Can you imagine a circumstance in which the Army would be 

able to prove that case, to establish to our satisfaction that, in fact, 

technology development will wind up leading to a product in 2013, 

even though we don’t have it right now, a product that is acceptable? 

Mr. FERGUSON. To date, so much of what the Army has provided 

to decision-makers such as the committee to build confidence in 

what FCS is doing has been based on modeling and simulation. It 

is our view that modeling and simulation is good very early in a 

program, that modeling and simulation has to be validated through 

actual demonstrations with production representative hardware. 

I think maturing technologies to a TRL six is a good start for the 

program, but the next step will be one getting those technologies 

validated by independent review time at the Department of Defense level. But then, actually netting some capabilities together 

and having some realistic demonstrations with the systems will 
29 

provide a lot more confidence, I think, for the committee as they 

deliberate the future of the program. 

Mr. MARSHALL. We understand that is the ideal. I am just wondering is there a way for the Army to make its case without saying 

we can’t do the ideal process here? No? 

Mr. FRANCIS. Their programmer report shows they believe that 

now. They believe everything can go concurrently, that they don’t 

have to build production representative prototypes. I think they 

would say their preliminary design review is so good, it is almost 

like a critical design review. I think they believe that they can do 

it all, even though it is unconventional. In fact, that is some of the 

discussions we have had. They believe that the model that we use 

to look at it is too linear and they are going to do this differently. 

Where we come out on that is we have seen so many systems go 

through this process, FCS is not the first system that we have 

looked at or even the first Army system. So we can’t see how they 

can do it. But I guess you always have to keep open the possibility 

that it is possible that they could do it. But I don’t see any way 

analytically where we can see that that could happen. 

Mr. MARSHALL. Thank you, by the way, for your expertise and 

commitment and the sort of help you are giving us here. This is 

great. So we obviously need to hear from the Army and have the 

Army explain what you just explained in trying to make its case. 

Besides yourselves, your experts, but if you were us and you felt 

like you needed to pull in some experts to listen to the case or the 

two views or the two sides, who would you pull in to help us evaluate whether or not it is real, when the Army is suggesting is realistic? 

Mr. FRANCIS. Well, I could think of a couple of organizations. 

One would be the Institute for Defense Analyses—— 

Mr. MARSHALL. We already have them on board. 

Mr. FRANCIS [continuing]. Which has done some independent 

analysis. I would think also within the Department of Defense if 

you were, for example, to have the Program Analysis and Evaluation Office give you their views on things, because they see all programs across the board. Also, I think the Office of the Director of 

Defense Research and Engineering that does independent analysis 

of these technology readiness levels would also be able to give you 

a separate and expert opinion. 

Mr. MARSHALL. If the Army is suggesting that your approach— 

and graphically you have laid it out in a way that suggests that 

you are linear and they are sort of proceeding along simultaneous 

paths, hoping that we will all arrive at the same time, at the right 

time, with everything working. Obviously greater risk to the second 

approach than the first approach. No question about that. 

If we said to the Army, give us examples where your approach 

to this has worked, would they be able to do that, do you know? 

When I say ‘‘your,’’ the Army’s approach is what I am referring to. 

It was an indefinite reference. 

Mr. FRANCIS. I don’t know of any examples that I could cite, and 

would think the number of examples citing the opposite would be 

quite a few—Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle which the Marines are 

developing. 
30 

Mr. MARSHALL. You are talking about when procurement development lines up, getting—not going through this linear process, 

but follows a different route to the end result, there are lots of examples where it didn’t work out too well? 

Mr. FRANCIS. That is correct. So even on a single system, when 

a concurrent approach has been attempted where you try the design before your technologies are ready, those programs have not 

worked out well. So for me it is difficult to see—if you scale that 

up exponentially to assist on the systems and make it more complex, it is harder to see how that approach somehow involves less 

risk. 

Mr. MARSHALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Do you have something at the moment, Mr. 

Kissell? 

Okay. A couple of things. It reminds me when you are mentioning that, because it came out of this committee when Mr. 

Weldon was Chairman, the Presidential helicopter. I have just to 

remind myself that I wasn’t imagining that I saw what I saw in 

my mind to say, you know, I was on that years ago. Well, it turns 

out I was, and the committee was, subcommittee was. It is a perfect example. They kept adding stuff. 

We took a look at it and we said, you know, we are just sitting 

here; Mr. Massa is in the dairy farms, and Mr. Kissell is in the textile factory; and I am sitting at the beach at the Royal Hawaiian. 

So it occurred to me that it you keep adding things into this helicopter, you change the weight and you change the way the thing 

has to be built. And that has to change and then the aerodynamics 

and so on. 

I kept thinking if you keep doing that, how are you going to 

make this work in the time line that you set up? That is where it 

first came to my mind: Aren’t you bending the laws of physics 

here? No, no, no, we are on schedule, we are on budget, and look 

what has happened now with it. 

When you get it to the point where the President is supposed to 

be able to iron his clothes and have a spa treatment in the helicopter, it is going to change the way it works. In other words, I 

guess where I come down is that the one thing I think I have 

learned on the committee over these years is there is a book for a 

reason. You follow the book for a reason. 

And that the interesting—I suppose it is paradox to some people—the reason the book exists is to actually support initiative. If 

you do things by the book you can actually exercise initiative, go 

into new programs and so on, but you are going to do it in a way 

that substantiates itself as it goes along and that is the reason you 

have the book. 

Now in that context, on March 13th, after the GAO’s report was 

generally circulated and you had finished your discussions with the 

Army, right—the report did not come out before you had gone back 

and forth with the Army or with drafts and so on, correct? 

Mr. FRANCIS. Correct. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. On March 13th a press conference was called, 

and then key Army officials at that time made a number of critical 

comments about the report and offered an Army perspective on the 

state of the FCS program. I am bringing it up now because they 
31 

are not here. So all I can go on is what was already out in the public domain from the Army, aside from the statement which I entered into the record, which begins with this quotation on the acquisition process and differences with the GAO report—that is the 

way it is stated here. ‘‘In many respects the FCS program is a 

model for the flexibility and rapid adjustment that the Office of the 

Secretary of Defense and Congress have called for in defense acquisition.’’ 

That is the principal defense—I won’t even say ‘‘defense’’—the 

initial offense here, the initial commentary, is that Congress called 

for this kind of approach as a model. 

That being the premise, the foundational premise, here are the 

questions I have. Army officials have professed confusion about two 

specific cost estimates which have been used already today that the 

GAO used in its report, one on the possible cost increase of the core 

FCS program, $19 billion, and the other on the cost of the FCS 

spin-out initiative, $21 billion. Can you tell me, then, where the 

cost estimates came from? 

Mr. FERGUSON. Mr. Chairman, I will answer that. The $19 billion and $21 billion were actually figures that were generated by 

the Army, specifically the Future Combat Systems program in an 

attempt to provide information for the Program Objective Memorandum (POM) process. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Explain the POM process. 

Mr. FERGUSON. Program Objective Memorandum, which kind of 

lays out the requirements and funding for the next six years for the 

Army. That is where the numbers came from. And the 19 billion— 

2 billion was for additional system and development funding, and 

17 billion of it would be for additional procurement money. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Where do those figures come from? 

Mr. FERGUSON. The Army. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Why would they be expressing confusion as to 

why you used those in the report? 

Mr. FERGUSON. I am really not sure, sir. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Did you use those figures in your discussions 

with the Army? Or did those figures appear in the back-and-forth 

discussions that you had, either in the development of the draft or 

in their commentary afterwards? 

Mr. FERGUSON. There is a comment period, and the Army has an 

opportunity to send us technical comments on the details of the report. No comment was raised about those numbers being in the report. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Okay, thank you. 

Mr. FERGUSON. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Did you want to say something, Mr. Francis, 

or were you just twitching at the moment? 

Mr. FRANCIS. No, I was waiting for Marcus to get to that point. 

Those numbers were in the draft report. The draft report was with 

the Department of Defense and the Army for a month. They get a 

month to comment on it. So those numbers are well vetted. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Okay, second question. Army officials stated—now I am referring to the public commentary here. You may 

have read some of this commentary yourself in the general press. 

Hopefully we will still have newspapers in the next few months, 
32 

and we will be able to—we may have to look to them in order to 

get our information. ‘‘Army officials also stated that the GAO has 

mischaracterized what the Army has done in terms of testing to 

date, and claims that the GAO discounts the value of the Army’s 

modeling and simulation efforts.’’ 

I realize you have talked about these things in the course of the 

hearing today, but my question then is can you summarize your 

perspective on these claims? One, that you have mischaracterized 

what the Army has done in terms of testing to date, which I presume is the way you put these slides together? And two, that you 

discount the value of their modeling and simulation efforts? 

Mr. GRAVELINE. Oh, I will respond to that in a couple of different 

ways. One, first of all our purpose was to respond to the congressional direction for the milestone review, which talked about demonstrations rather than simulations. So kind of the standard there 

was beyond simulations. And it wasn’t that we were discounting 

simulations at all. It was the Congress was interested at a step beyond that. 

And so our conclusion was, although they have been doing testing—we recognize that—the Army wishes we would recognize it 

more so. That is a matter of half empty, half full kind of argument 

there: How much do we recognize it? 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Am I to understand that your answer would 

be that it was not that you are discounting the value of simulation; 

that is not what you were measuring? 

Mr. GRAVELINE. Absolutely. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. What about the question of testing to date? 

Mr. GRAVELINE. Again, the Army would prefer that we go at 

great length to describe all the testing that they have done to date. 

We don’t discount that; we know of that. We would also say it is 

a matter of a challenge involved here in FCS, that it requires a lot 

of testing to demonstrate many of these technologies and systems 

and sub-systems. So it wasn’t that we were discounting them at all. 

It is a matter of how much credit do you give that of the piece testing to the whole and how well that demonstrates the whole concept. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Maybe I can—the reason I asked that question had to do particularly with the radio networks. And, again, 

this statement that was submitted to us last week under a section 

called ‘‘Alignment and Program Status of Complementary FCS Programs,’’ including the Joint Tactical Radio System and Warfighter 

Information Network Tactical Programs. The Army goes—again 

you are not questioning that they were testing; the point here was, 

was it not, as to whether that actually is advancing toward the maturity of the technology for useful test, whether it is critical testing 

time or whatever, right? 

Mr. GRAVELINE. Uh-huh. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. What they said here to answer was that the 

Joint Tactical Radio System and the Ground Mobile Radio and the 

hand-held man-packed small form fits and Warfighter Integration 

Network are complementary programs. Well, no argument there, 

right? 

Synchronization of these programs, technical interfaces occurs 

through the use of the interface requirements documents and the 
33 

quarterly synchronization summits. No argument there. That is 

what takes place, right? This is where you talk about your reviews. 

They describe system performance, technical interface expectations, programmatic gaps and schedule costs and performance between the programs are resolved at quarterly transport layer synchronization summits. 

Are you familiar with that phraseology? 

Mr. GRAVELINE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Programmatic gaps in the schedule, cost and 

performance between the programs are resolved at quarterly transport layer synchronization summits. 

Now, I read that and I would think that what they are saying 

is that these programmatic gaps, the cost problems and the performance deficits have been resolved. And they did it at a summit 

where—which they synchronized all these things. 

Am I correct that what they really mean here is they talked 

about these things? 

Mr. GRAVELINE. It has been an elusive problem for the Army to 

solve since the start of the program, the coordination between FCS 

and its complementary programs. At times there are a few dozen 

that are considered critical, very vital for FCS’ success, and then 

there are a hundred or more, I think, that at least have to be wellknown to each other. 

The synchronization of all those efforts together has been an 

enormous challenge for FCS and the Army as a whole. And they 

have devoted a lot of attention to it, and they are still finding that 

there are gaps. Some of the preliminary design reviews identified 

some more of those, that they are not quite synched up as to what 

FCS expects from these other programs, and what they are ready 

to deliver. And it has been quite a frustrating experience for the 

Army, and they are not there yet. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. They characterize this—what you have just 

said is frustration—they say this facilitates continuous leadership 

awareness of achievable capability. That is a true statement too, 

isn’t it? 

Mr. GRAVELINE. Uh-huh. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. That is a true statement too, isn’t it? 

Mr. GRAVELINE. Yes. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. In other words, it doesn’t work; and they are 

aware of that. 

Mr. GRAVELINE. This has the—the top levels of the Army have 

been involved in this effort for some time; and it is still a frustrating, illusive thing to get these nailed down, that everyone is on 

the same plan and that they know their expectations and they are 

going out to meet them. 

Mr. FRANCIS. Mr. Chairman, I would just add, these programs 

have been resynchronized several times. So they resynchronize. 

They make discoveries. Technologies don’t behave very well. And 

when you learn more, then you have to resynchronize because the 

plan didn’t turn out. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I am not reading this in order to be sarcastic. 

I am reading this in order to say this is how you can—speaking of 

mischaracterization or something, this is how you can delude yourself. This sympathetic magic that is going on here. 
34 

It reminds me of Norman Mailer’s ‘‘Fire the Moon,’’ when he did 

a biography, if you will, of the moon shot. At one point, he has a 

chapter on the psychology of machines; and he maintains in a metaphorical way—he talks about glitches, that there are things that 

happen and that is not supposed to happen. Everything has already been programmed. You know, the physics of everything. And 

yet he talks about the psychology of machines, that there is a certain dimension to all of this that simply isn’t accounted for and has 

to be rigorously addressed in order to be dealt with. 

One last question then. One of the people making commentary 

was Lieutenant General Vane. He stated that the Army has proven 

a variety of FCS systems on the battlefield in Afghanistan. I don’t 

know if you are prepared to answer that, but I was not—I am not 

quite sure what that refers to. Given your statements on the status 

of the FCS program, do you have any idea exactly what is being 

referred to, that there is a variety of FCS systems that have been 

put into the battlefield in Afghanistan? 

Mr. GRAVELINE. There have been several things. It is important 

to understand from the outset, though, that when FCS started in 

2003, there was a great deal of it that was new development that 

was started. All the manned ground vehicles, that was a fresh 

start. But there was also a variety of things that were already in 

development elsewhere, and the Army just pulled those all together 

in this conglomerate program. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. That is what I thought. 

Mr. GRAVELINE. And some of these things have continued to mature. 

And, also, I might add, too, that there are some pieces of FCS 

that were actually a commercial product. And I refer there to the 

small unmanned ground vehicle—actually, was it last year here? 

But they had the little robot, the remote control thing here, the 

Army brought it. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Yes. 

Mr. GRAVELINE. That was, frankly, a commercial product, I believe. So early versions of these items, that robot for one, have been 

fielded and are used in Iraq and Afghanistan with good effect. No 

challenge there. 

Now, the Army is continuing to develop those, for example, that 

robot, making it even smaller, adding the new radio on to it, adding additional capabilities. But the basic robot is already fielded 

there. And, likewise, there is this small unmanned aerial vehicle 

that looks like a little trash can type of thing. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I have seen the—and have gone to Fort Bliss 

that you mentioned. 

Mr. GRAVELINE. That was something done by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), I believe, that worked 

on that program for some time. And the Marines had demonstrated, I want to even say in Hawaii, the 25th unit there. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. The Army. 

Mr. GRAVELINE. All right. That is something that they are also 

using over in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

But the Army is continuing that within the FCS program. They 

are putting a new engine on it and adding additional electronics. 
35 

And so its FCS element will continue, and it is going to be ready 

in a few years. But early versions of these things are being fielded. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. What it does show then is the efficacy of following the book on maturing technologies. 

Mr. GRAVELINE. Yes. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. In other words, if you do get started with 

something, well, then you can build on it. 

Mr. GRAVELINE. U-huh. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Bartlett, you are fine? 

Mr. BARTLETT. I want to thank you for calling this hearing, and 

I want to thank our witnesses for their diligent work. Thank you 

very much. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. The work of the GAO is a constant revelation. 

And I want to state for the record that you gentlemen carry the 

tradition and legacy of the GAO, which I rank right there with the 

Library of Congress, as a matter of fact. The Congressional Research Service and the GAO are singular—set singular standards 

for public service, and your value to not just this committee but to 

the American people is very difficult to measure. I don’t know what 

kind of metrics they put on that, but professionalism, objectivity, 

perseverance, and fidelity to the purpose of public service I think 

is manifest in what you have been doing, not just in this report but 

really in every single instance that I have dealt with the GAO; and 

I thank you very much. 

Mr. FRANCIS. Thank you very much. 

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. This will conclude the hearing. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 4:13 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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