C4I ENABLING TACTICAL INTERCOM SOLUTIONS
An Uncertain Trend in a Highly Competitive Market Mary Dub, Staff Writer ‘After more than a decade of increasing defense budgets, the Department of Defense now must plan for $487 billion in cuts over the next decade, with still more substantial cuts possible. In this environment, the competition for programmatic dollars will be fierce. What one observer has called “the biggest military food fight in at least a generation” may already be underway.15’ Andrew Krepinevich and Eric Lindsey: ‘The Road Ahead’ for The Center for Strategic Budget Assessment (2012)
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Even the ubiquitous Humvee, which was due for a replacement in the spring of 2012, was put on hold as the United States strategic pivot to the Asia-Pacific region was announced.
VEHICLE Intercom Systems is a vital link to between the soldier in an armoured vehicle and his patrol and command and control. However, despite the US Army’s commitment to Network Centric Warfare (NCW) and the British Network Enabled Capability (NEC) there is now a significant period of high uncertainty about the Department of Defense’s intentions to purchase and upgrade equipment given that President Obama’s budgets have been cut dramatically by both Houses of Congress in the current administration. What does this mean for the acquisition of upgrades and new technologies, hitherto always seen as the key to dominance in the battlefield? The Congressional Research Service published a summary of the political events impacting on the defense budget over the last three years and it makes salutary reading.16 “In April 2009, then Secretary of Defense Gates announced he intended to significantly restructure the Army’s Future Combat System (FCS) program. The FCS was a multiyear, multi-billion dollar program that had been underway since 2000 and was at the heart of the Army’s transformation efforts. In lieu of the cancelled FCS manned ground vehicle (MGV), the Army was directed to develop a ground combat vehicle (GCV) that would be relevant across the entire spectrum of Army operations and would incorporate combat lessons learned from Iraq and Afghanistan.” The tale gets worse: “On August 23, 2011, the third team vying for the GCV technology development (TD) contract, SAIC-Boeing, filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) contending that there were errors in the evaluation process.” And worse: “The Administration’s January 26, 2012, Major Budget Decision Briefing not only introduced a new Asia-Pacific
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strategic focus, but also delayed the GCV program for a year due to the SAIC-Boeing protest.” This is bad news for contractors.
Why the Cancellations at Such a Late Stage and at Such a High Cost to Industry and the Department of Defense? The Congressional Research Service had an easy answer and a more difficult one: “This review found that the GCV had too many performance requirements and too many capabilities to make it affordable and relied on too many immature technologies.” Fair enough, but the real problem is a much wider one. “Under FY2013 strategic and budget plans, the Active Army will downsize by 80,000 soldiers, but most defense analysts expect even deeper cuts in end strength, particularly if sequestration of the defense budget under the provisions of the Budget Control Act of 2011, P.L.112-25, is enacted. If sequestration does occur, Secretary of Defense Panetta has told Congress, “all ground combat vehicle modernization programs would be terminated,” meaning that the GCV program would be cancelled.”
JTRS Joined the List of Cancelled Programs The Pentagon’s JTRS (Joint Tactical Radio System) aimed to replace existing radios in the American military with a single set of softwaredefined radios that could have new frequencies and modes (“waveforms”) added via upload. This system, instead of requiring multiple radio types in ground vehicles, used circuit board swaps in order to upgrade – this also fell victim to the cuts. JTRS joined the Land Warrior Program on the list of closed programs. Even the ubiquitous Humvee, which was due for a replacement in the spring of 2012, was put
