The Future Combat Systems (FCS) network was originally planned for integration beginning at the end of the decade, but the Army realized FCS was something that was needed as soon as possible, Lt. Gen. Daniel R. Zanini, USA, Ret, said.

Speaking Dec. 7 at the Association of the United States Army’s Space and Missile Defense Symposium and Exposition in El Paso, Zanini, the FCS program manager for the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), outlined the reasoning for the FCS’s advanced timeline, which was first introduced in 2001.

SAIC is teamed with Boeing as the lead system integrator for FCS.

“When we began down that journey to field the Future Combat Systems, this nation was not at war,” Zanini said. But, with the United States invading Afghanistan in late 2001 and Iraq in 2003, “we as a nation could no longer stand to wait until the end of the decade to get the benefits of the Future Combat Systems.”

So in the summer of 2004, the secretary and chief of staff of the Army changed the direction of Future Combat Systems, Zanini said.

“Today, the FCS program is focused on developing technologies and capabilities as rapidly as possible,” Zanini said. The goal is to “bring technology to soldiers as quickly as we can.”

Part of that technology includes an integrated command and control system that will give “a squad near real-time collaboration capability” and allow those soldiers on the ground to make decisions during combat operations, he said.

Once the FCS is fully integrated, it will give the Army the capability to deploy forces anywhere in the world where they will be combat capable as soon as they arrive, he said.

Zanini said most of the forces today “were designed in the Cold War. They’re specialized forces.”

FCS will bring brigade combat teams to the Army, and they will be structured to operate across the full range of military operations, he said. The units won’t have to be redesigned, and soldiers won’t have to be re-trained or re-equipped before deployment.