Over the last decade, the Army has begun to transform its warfighting capabilities to more effectively counter a broad and complex set of potential threats. According to Army officials, the transformation is the most comprehensive change in the Army in over a century, and will affect all aspects of its organizations, training, doctrine, leadership, and strategic plans as well as its acquisitions. Through this transformation, the Army expects to establish a force that provides both the lethality and survivability of today’s heavily armored units and the deployability and responsiveness of today’s lighter combat units. As envisioned, the future force will operate very differently than forces have in the past. It will function in smaller, more agile and deployable modular brigade combat teams (composed of roughly 3,000 to 4,000 personnel) that can react quickly to changing missions and circumstances. To be effective, force components—soldiers, platforms, weapons, and sensors—must be “net- centric,” that is, closely linked and able to operate seamlessly together. The transformation involves two major, interrelated acquisitions: (1) development of new advanced communications and networking systems— computers, software, and a wireless tactical internet—to acquire, exchange, and employ timely information throughout the battlespace and (2) development of a new generation of battlefield vehicles, weapons, and sensors. The Army has taken initial steps toward transformation through its Digitization and Stryker programs. Under the Digitization program, the Army installed computers, software, and interfaces to communications systems on Abrams tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, and other vehicles in selected units that enable both in-theater and higher commands to share battlefield data with lower-level units. The Stryker program introduced a new family of vehicles expected to make units more lethal, mobile, and survivable than today’s light forces. In addition, the Army has initiated a major restructuring of its force into modular brigade combat teams— brigade-sized units that will have a common organizational design. FCS is the culminating stage in the Army’s ongoing transformation to a lighter, more agile and capable force. It is a large and complex development effort to provide a networked family of weapons and other systems for the future force. Establishing reliable, robust communications and networking capabilities is essential to FCS. Without these capabilities, the lighter, more decentralized units would be vulnerable to enemy attack. Currently, the armed forces have limited communications and networking capabilities on the battlefield, making it necessary to patch together or reroute information through multiple radio, data terminal, and network systems to get critical information to the warfighter and commanders. Current “dial-up speed” data rates further delay forces’ ability to identify, assess, and respond to time-critical targets. FCS’s networked on-the-move communications for voice, data, video, and imagery are expected to be a revolutionary improvement over current communications capabilities (see table 1). The FCS communications and networking capabilities are being designed around five components: Platforms and sensors: Under FCS, the Army is developing new warfighting systems, including manned and unmanned aerial and ground vehicles that will provide and use intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance information. Applications: Software applications will support battlefield command functions, including command and control, logistics support, training, and modeling and simulation. Network services: SOSCOE will be the network-centric operating system, or middleware, that enables the integration of separate FCS communications software packages, independent of their location and the technology used to develop them. The Army likens the SOSCOE architecture to Microsoft Windows, but many times larger. SOSCOE represents about 10 percent of the more than 30 million lines of FCS software code. Transport systems: Transport systems—primarily JTRS and WIN-T— will provide wireless communication capabilities to transport information within the FCS network and the broader DOD-wide network. Standards: Standards implement DOD-wide policies and doctrine developed by offices such as the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Networks and Information Integration, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Two critical objectives of these standards are net-centric operations and inter-service interoperability. Figure 1 shows a representation of the five FCS network components. JTRS is a software-reprogrammable radio that is intended to operate with many different legacy radio systems and provide the warfighter with additional communications and networking capabilities—including seamless interoperability and increased data throughput—to simultaneously access maps and other visual data, communicate via voice and video with other units and levels of command, and obtain information directly from battlefield sensors. A key component of JTRS is developing waveforms to operate with legacy radios as well as new waveforms to provide advanced networking capabilities, such as the Wideband Networking Waveform. The Wideband Networking Waveform represents a new, critical capability for DOD. The development of the Wideband Networking Waveform is intended to address many of the current limitations associated with DOD tactical wireless networking, including line-of-sight limitations that cause many network partitions, unique network monitoring systems, and predefined security enclaves that require hardware for each security level. The waveform is expected to provide data rates of 5 megabits per second or more-–hundreds of times faster than existing communications systems-–and facilitate the routing of large amounts of information among users anywhere in the battlespace. DOD has structured the JTRS development effort into several programs clustered by requirements. The JTRS Cluster 1 program is developing radios for ground vehicles and helicopters to equip the current force as well as FCS. The program is expected to cost $15.6 billion to develop and acquire over 100,000 Cluster 1 radios. The JTRS Cluster 5 program is developing handheld and manpack radios for soldiers as well as several smaller varieties of radios for use in weight- and power-constrained platforms—such as Unattended Ground Sensors and Intelligent Munitions Systems. The program is expected to cost $8.5 billion to develop and acquire over 300,000 Cluster 5 radios. The WIN-T program is developing communications equipment that supports an expanded area of battlefield operations and interfaces with JTRS radios to connect warfighters and command centers, including joint, allied, and coalition forces, providing commanders with access to on-the- move communications—that is, continuously updated, real-time multimedia information from dispersed locations throughout the theater. It will replace existing communications networks that have limited capacity to support on-the-move communications. Leveraging advanced commercial technologies that enable mobile communications, the WIN-T system includes data routing and switching hardware, computers, video and teleconferencing equipment, high-capacity line-of-sight radios and satellite terminals—all of which make up a tactical operation center’s communications element. WIN-T is being developed in three blocks, with each block adding capabilities. Based on current plans, Block 1 is projected to cost approximately $10 billion; Blocks 2 and 3 have yet to be funded. The SOSCOE software will reside within each FCS platform’s integrated computer system and provide a number of services for the users of the integrated computer system. These services include interoperability services, information assurance services, and communications services. SOSCOE will enable integrated management of the network and will allow systems within the network to access sources of information. The Army estimates that SOSCOE software development will be completed in 2011. The Army plans to field the SOSCOE software in increments to align with the overall FCS software builds and planned FCS spirals. When FCS began system development in May 2003, the JTRS and WIN-T programs were under way with schedules that aligned with FCS planned fielding. However, the Army restructured the FCS program in July 2004 to address development risks. The restructuring added 4 years to develop the platform systems and established an evaluation unit to demonstrate FCS capabilities. Even though the restructuring provided additional time to the program, it also emphasized developing FCS capabilities in spirals and accelerating the development of the network into the current force. The Army now plans to test and field its FCS capabilities incrementally between 2008 and 2014 through four spirals. A 2-year period of testing will precede the actual fielding of capabilities in each spiral. The Army has defined the initial spiral of FCS around the capabilities needed by the current force, to include the main components of the communications network--JTRS Cluster 1 and 5 radios and the wideband waveforms, some form of WIN-T communications capability, and SOSCOE. The capabilities for the other FCS spirals will be defined over time. Figure 2 shows the FCS spirals’ timeline. The JTRS Cluster 1 program began system development and demonstration in 2002 with an aggressive schedule, immature technologies, and a lack of clearly defined and stable requirements. These factors have contributed to significant cost and schedule problems that the program has not recovered from. The program has not been able to mature the technologies needed to produce radios that generate sufficient power as well as meet platform size and weight constraints and has been forced to make design changes to accommodate evolving security requirements. Because of cost, schedule, and performance problems, in December 2004, the Army proposed restructuring the program by adding $458 million and 24 months to the development schedule. However, recently DOD directed that work on the Cluster 1 radios be stopped while an assessment is completed to determine the future of the program. In addition, because of increased concern about the contractor’s ability to develop the radios, the Army notified the contractor that it was considering contract termination. At this point it is not clear what the outcome will be and what impact this will have on the future of the program. As a result, it is unlikely JTRS Cluster 1 radios will be available for the first FCS network spiral, slated to begin in fiscal year 2008.