Additional cuts to the Future Combat System could be on the horizon as Army officials examine whether they can reduce the number of unmanned ground vehicles in the program, Gen. William Wallace, commanding general of Training and Doctrine Command, said last week. According to sources and budget documents, variants of the Armed Robotic Vehicle could be pared down.

“We are looking at unmanned ground vehicles to see if our initial notion, with regard to FCS, was right in terms of numbers and types of vehicles and the purpose of those vehicles . . . [and] whether we can reduce that or not,” Wallace told reporters at a Jan. 11 breakfast.

Current FCS plans call for a Small UGV, three variants of the Multifunction Utility/Logistics and Equipment (MULE) system, and two ARV variants -- the assault version and the Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition platform.

According to documents and sources, the Army will cut a variant of the ARV line in its 2008 though 2013 budget, as well as reduce the number of MULE-Transport vehicles it buys.

Additional proposed changes to FCS include separating the Intelligent Munition System from the FCS brigade combat team and reducing the quantity of Non-Line-of-Sight Launch Systems.

Although the service has not announced any of the changes to its FCS ground vehicle plans, it did officially announce plans to cut two to of its four FCS unmanned aerial systems last week.

Inside the Army first reported last month the Army’s plan to pare down the number of unmanned aerial vehicles under FCS, leaving the program with only its smallest and largest aircraft -- class I and class IV.

Col. John Burke -- the Army’s director for unmanned systems integration -- told reporters Jan. 9 the class II and class III UAV initiatives will now be “deferred as objective.”

Under the service’s former FCS plan, four classes of UAVs were to be fielded -- class I, operating at platoon level; class II, operating at company level; class III, attached to the battalion; and class IV, attached to the brigade commander.

The UAS Mix Analysis, conducted by TRADOC, was designed to compare the current and anticipated requirements of each echelon commander against the capabilities and characteristics associated with each class of UAV under its modernization plan.

“What the study told us was that the four UAVs we’d initially planned for the FCS equipped brigades, the missions associated with those UAVs could actually be [carried out] by two UAVs as opposed to four,” Wallace said last week.

With the reduced number of UAV classes, the four-star said there will be “some increase” in the number of class I and IV platforms.

Currently fielded Raven and Shadow systems, as well as the forthcoming Warrior system, will also be integrated into the future force, Burke said.

In a Jan. 11 e-mail to ITA, a Boeing spokesman said the lead systems integrator “is working with the Army to accommodate any changes to the FCS program as a result of the conclusions of the Unmanned Aerial Systems study. At this point, we are awaiting further specific guidance from our Army customer.”

Boeing and Science Applications International Corp. are the FCS lead systems integrators.

This fall, the Army said it would restructure FCS following cuts amounting to approximately $500 million over the past two years. Those changes will be reflected in the service’s next six-year spending plan, which is under development amid debate over how much money the Army needs to modernize while fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At press time (Jan 12), the Army had not responded to ITA’s questions about how UAV cuts will impact the budget.

Aside from the announced UAV changes, officials have been tight-lipped about any other moves that may be contained in the budget request, due to lawmakers on Feb. 5.

Lt. Gen. David Melcher, the Army’s budget chief, told reporters Jan. 10 that the service is always reevaluating FCS to make sure it is still consistent with the direction in which the Army is headed.

“We’ve bought an awful lot of things here in the last couple of years. . . . I think it makes sense that we would go back and look at the FCS program and say, ‘Are there any adjustments that ought to be made in light of things that we’ve been buying near-term with a lot of with supplemental dollars?’” Melcher asked. “Every year when we build a program or a budget we go though a soup-to-nuts [review] of every modernization program that we have and ask ourselves, ‘Is it still the right program and the right amount?’”

When asked by ITA if there would be more cuts to the FCS program, the three-star responded, “Let’s wait till the ’08 budget comes out.”