The Pentagon may be ceding too much power to Boeing and other contractors
Ok, Let's start taking apart this news story.
First off, I am glad Boeing is helping on the operation of the system. The Army does not have anybody trained to use this system yet. Let alone fix any problems with it. With Boeing being there to fix and partially operate the system is a good thing. They are not only able to spot problems but able to come up with solutions to bugs in the system.
This is not the first (nor the last) military system that the company built, that they are a big part of the ongoing implementation and upgrading of systems. My system in the navy is one such system.
NATO Sea Sparrow Missile System Project was started back in 1968 to combat high speed anti-ship missiles. The Navy did not get the first system until 1976. That is approximately 8 years of development. Now those early systems were difficult to operate, but they were the only defense at the time for that type of threat. Back then, the directing radar was operated by a person standing behind it and pointing it at the incoming target. It was difficult to keep a good track especially if you have trouble seeing the target (fog, night, or sun in you eyes). Raytheon is the company that makes the weapon system and they have made many advancement to the system. Not only is it more reliable ,but it can be operated by a single person. I am not saying one person can fire on what ever he feels like. There is still command controls on the system. If Raytheon just stood back and let the Navy figure it out for themselves, we would not have what we have today.
Any company that provides technical and field support is a good company. It is like buying a new computer that is completely new to the market , but it is full of bugs and glitches, but there is no tech support to call. No bug feed back. No software updates. Would you are any one else buy from that company. No. I sure as hell would not.
This article claims that the Pentagon is letting Boeing fight the war because it is operating this new system and making all the decisions on how to fight the war. I wave the BS flag on this one. Ask anyone who has served in ANY branch of the military, how much control the Chain of Command has over any aspect of anything that is happening. I think that Boeing is giving advice on how to best utilize their system.
Now for the "Weight Problem" part.
They claim that Boeing has increased the weight so it could not be handled by their competitors lighter payload aircraft is also far fetched. The term ruggedized comes to mind. In order to make something rugged you have to add stuff to it. therefore the weight has to be increased. Plus, lets say (for argument's sake) that you are a programmer. You wrote this program unlike any other, but it is bigger than expected and therefore is running slower that expected. So, you review it, revise a couple of lines here and there, pow, you have a smaller faster program. Right now, FCS is at the part where is it bigger and slower. Time is need to work out the bugs and useless parts of it. How do you find said bugs and what works and does not work. You test it. Right now they are at the large scale test of it. Boeing is working along side of the Army to find and fix bugs in the system. The Army is also giving real time feed back to Boeing in what they want and what they do not need.
"Boeing and Science Applications stand to collect a total of $20.77 billion from FCS development work over the coming years." Now what constitutes over the coming years? 2008? 2009? or 2013+? what is not made clear here is what all is covered in the $20.77 Billion. I put a plus after the 2013 for a reason. I have a feeling that the $20.77 Billion is covering everything past that point.
Now if you know anything about how the government picks the companies to make stuff for the military, here a little insight. They go with the lowest bidder. There are a lot of companies that only make a little bit of money for producing/developing equipment for the military. Grant it costs a lot to develop the technology and equipment, but the company does not actually make much of a profit. By working along with the Army, Boeing is actually saving money by getting the product developed quicker. Which works out not only for Boeing, but for the Army and the troops on the ground.
Now with the Article finished. I like to touch on what one of the reader comments says:
Nickname: Tony Blair
Review: Precision Guided Missiles my ass. The U.S. bonehead military has killed countless civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, Coalition soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan (7 Afghan policemen on Tuesday)with nothing but spin and denials to hide their incompetence. They are a laughing stock - unless you are unlucky enough to be in their vicinity, say at a checkpoint.
Date reviewed: Jun 14, 2007 10:15 PM
The Precision Guided Missiles are as good as where you tell them where to go. In computers it is called GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out). It means if you are given bad info and can not tell it is bad in, you are going to make as a bad decision but will not find out till after the decision is executed. This, to me, illustrates why we need FCS. My guess at what happened was the soldiers on the ground, saw they had resistance, but there was a break down in communications for exactly where the Precision Guided Munition needed to go. Now if the Battalion Commander or higher was overseeing the operation would have noticed that the coordinates was on friendly or civilian units. he would have alter or canceled the strike. Not all solders on the ground can tell what an Afghan police man or what qualifies as a an insurgent. The commander could quickly identify because of his combat experience or he can refer to his peers on the situation. That level of control can save lives.
Or we can fight like they did back in Vietnam and before. Let carpet bomb! Just glass parking lot the whole town. Now just imagine the comment and uproar that people like "Tony Blair" would be making if we didn't use this technology. It would be a whole lot worse. now Officers in the Military are no where near dumb or bone headed. They are some of the smartest people I have met. I am not sure if you know what is one of the biggest qualifications you need to have to be an officer in any branch of the military. You need a degree. An officer is a collage grad.
I do not see this as a loss of control of high-tech weapons, but real-time development of high-tech weapons. The Pentagon is trying a new tactic for getting new gear to our solders on the ground as fast as possible. By field testing new gear/systems sooner and in the field by actual solders. So they can give feed back on what works and what does not work. I am willing to bet there are allot of former Marines who served in Vietnam who would have loved to be able to give feedback and quick response to problems with their early M16 models. Note: there was a lot of lives lost due malfunctioning M16s. Problems that took entirely too long to be addressed and corrected. If Armilite and Colt was there working with the Marines in the jungle terrain they would have found the problems sooner and fixed them.
That is all for now. Please leave me some feedback, so I know what I need to do better in future articles. Thank you.