US Army Future Combat System

[MarkSheppard]

Okay; I've been able to find the following information in a project overview of FCS that I found on DTIC.net

It's planned to get all the basic parts of FCS product finalized by 2010-2011, with production to begin in 2012; although the *complete* FCS brigade teams won't begin to be fielded until 2014.

A FCS Brigade Team will operate over a 150 x 150 km Area of Operations (at least that's what the specs for the network and C3I say; "connectivity" over that area).

There will be the following manned systems built upon the basic manned systems hull:

Base FCS Manned Hull - the first really good detailed drawing of the FCS base hull I've found.

M1206 Infantry Carrier Vehicle (ICV)
--2 Crew + 9 man infantry Squad
--30mm MK44 Cannon + M240C 7.62mm Coax

M1209 Command & Control Vehicle (C2V)
--2 Man Crew + 4 Man Mission Specialists

M1202 Mounted Combat System (MCS)
---120mm LW XM360 Cannon

M1201 Reconnaisance and Surveillance Vehicle (RSV)
--2 Crew + 4 Scouts
--30mm MK44 Cannon + M240C 7.62mm Coax
--5 Meter Extensible Sensor Mast

M1203 Non-Line of Sight Cannon (NLOS-C)
--2 Man Crew
--155mm L38 Cannon; 24 on board rounds; 10 RPM max and sustained fire; 4 to 6 rounds TOT at the same time.
--18.1 tons minimum, 24 tons fully equipped

M1204 Non Line of Sight Mortar (NLOS-M)
--120mm Breech Loading Mortar

M1205 FCS Recovery and Maintenance Vehicle (FRMV)
-Has Winch and tow cable, etc

M1208 Medical Vehicle Treatment (MV-T)
--Provides advanced trauma medicine and life support
--Blood refrigeration, 3D Ultrasound, quick erection shelter

M1207 Medical Vehicle Evacuation (MV-E)
--Evacuates up to 4 litters or 6 ambulatory patients

All the Manned Systems will contain the following basic technology:
--Unitary crew stations and equipment; if you can drive or shoot one vehicle, you can do them all.
--NBC and Air Conditioning (I think that's what the Environmental Control System is)
--Hybrid-Electric Drives, which can run off Lithium Ion Batteries
--Hydropneumatic Suspension
--Band Tracks
--5 liter displacement common engine
--Externally Mounted Close Combat Armament System (aka, Remote Weapon System either .50 Cal HMG or 40mm AGL)

The FCS systems will have:
• Text-based Chat (lol, u guys suck)
• Presentation Sharing (powerpoint in your vehicals)
• Whiteboard
• File Transfer
• Session Archival
• Map-based Collaboration
• Voice and Data Communication (possibly video)

Unmanned Systems:

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Non-Line of Sight Launch System (NLOS LS): (Unattended Munition Cannister; think of it like a VLS system, but for land) -- it's transported via FMTVs; and can be fired from a FMTV or from the ground. Contains 15 VLS cells (the 16th is taken up by Computers/Comms) and fires two types of missiles:

Precision Attack Missile (PAM) - 117 lbs in weight; 7" Diameter, 40-60 km range; and has a multi mode warhead; good against hard/soft targets; guidance via GPS/INS, semi-active laser homing, and autonomous imaging infrared.

Loitering Attack Missile (LAM) - 117 lbs in weight; 7" Diameter, 70 km range; 30 minute loiter time due to turbojet engine and pop out wings; can do automatic target recognition and attack targets on it's own; guidance via GPS/INS, and laser radar (LADAR) seeker with automatic target recognition.

Both can be retargeted on the fly via man in the loop systems if a more interesting target is found; or if you find out that that building is really an orphanage about 40 seconds to impact....

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Plenty of UAVs from helicopters, fixed wing, to hand held toss into air systems. It would be pointless to list them all; because the field of manpacked robotic vehicles is changing every day; suffice to say, the FCS soldier will be able to toss hand held robots into dangerous areas instead of surveilling them himself.

There will be a several families of "Big" robotic vehicles to supplement the manned vehicles:

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ARV Family:

ARV-A (Armed Robotic Vehicle - Assault)
ARV-RSTA (Armed Robotic Vehicle - Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition)

No real Specs on the ARV family except that: "The ARV incorporates a turret system capable of launching missiles such as the Common Missile or Hellfire and operating a medium caliber gun system such as the 30mm Mk 44 Chain Gun" and it is shown primarily as a wheeled system in drawings.

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MULE Family: 1 Ton maximum vehicle weight family of robotic wheeled transport vehicles; with a payload of about 600 to 800 pounds.

MULE-T (Robotic Truck)
MULE-CM (Robotic Truck with Mineplow and other stuff to defeat mines)

[pdoktar]

"--5 liter displacement common engine"

Seems rather small displacement for a combat vehicle engine..?

[Marcello]

"Seems rather small displacement for a combat vehicle engine..?"

It is probably a new, high performance design. Besides I guess they can also draw extra juice from the batteries for the short duration, high speed dashes.

[MarkSheppard]

The slide said "5L common engine" I assumed that it was it's displacement.

There's also an assload of unmanned sensors; including "smart" minefields, which can "Self heal"; e,g move around and close up gaps; along with acting as sensors...

[SGTGunn]

I recently saw (on the Army's FCS site I think) that the smaller of the ARV family was going to mount a turret with twin M240C 7.62mm MG and 4 Javelin ATGM (2 per side) ready-to-launch. Anyone planning to do FCS Icons? an FCS OOB mod would be pretty cool, but I'm not sure if all of the systems cababilities could be accuratelly modeled with the game - for example the NLOS LS. A precision, indirect attack munition - would it be artillery? Perhaps mod it as an aircraft launched weapon (with a no-icon, very high ECM "aircraft")? Essentially the same problem with M1202 Mounted Combat System (MCS)firing beyond line-of-sight munitions.

Adrian

[RecruitMonty]

And one nuke detonated above the battlefield renders all this lovely tech useless. Ahh EMP how wonderful you are. Now if only someone could find a more efficient delivery system.

If going modular is supposed to cut costs then why up those costs by putting all this extra equipment in the vehicles afterwards? Doesn't that defeat the object somewhat? Do they really need to be able to text each other?

I assume those last set of features (white boards etc are for a command module) otherwise that is just ridiculous. Don't the army use paper, radios and maps anymore?

Honestly, too much tech can be a weakness too.

[Marcello]

"And one nuke detonated above the battlefield renders all this lovely tech useless. Ahh EMP how wonderful you are."

AFAIK modern military electronics are all somewhat hardened against EMP effects. I imagine the trasmissions would be jeopardized for some time, thus in theory negating the supposed FCS networkcentric advantages for the units involved but that would be a small consideration compared to the fact that the nuclear threshold was crossed. The adversary would have brought nuclear retaliation upon itself.

[RecruitMonty]

Exactly, hence the necessity to develop a more efficient delivery system.