GAO Report Savages Future Combat System

Seriously, the report is brutal:

Advocates of restructuring or cutting back on FCS will find ammunition in the draft report. In it, GAO asserts that FCS is “unlikely to be executed” for the $159 billion the Army says it will cost, a source said, citing the draft.

Moreover, and perhaps more relevant to the current decision-making within the Pentagon, GAO states that the Army has already spent 60 percent of its FCS development funds even though “the most expensive activities remain to be done before the production decision” in 2013.

GAO contends that the funding situation will deteriorate for FCS as the program’s costs will likely grow at the same time as competition for federal funds tightens, a source said.

The report also cites what it calls “actual immaturity” in the program, according to sources. Calling the network performance “largely unproven,” GAO says the Army has failed to convincingly demonstrate that FCS designs will meet their requirements, a source told ITA.

I am completely not shocked at this. I worked on the program, and it was over ambitious, and managed under the now discredited Lead System Integrator (LSI) concept, which been universally unsuccessful.

It's no surprise that this whole program has turned into a clusterf^%$.