Gates: Army will retain FCS vehicle funds

The Army will be able to keep the funds designated for the Future Combat Systems vehicles even if the previously planned vehicles are discontinued, said Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, reports DOD Buzz.

Gates explained his reasons for canceling the vehicle part of the Army’s prized FCS modernization programs during a stop at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa. The rationale he gave was that the vehicles were too lightly armored to survive in future wars.

He said that all of the money that would have gone to build the cancelled vehicles will be “protected” in the budget to fund an entirely new modernization program. That sizeable chunk of funding amounts to roughly $90 billion.

Furthermore, Gates said the Army will be in the lead in the “irregular and hybrid campaigns of the future” and so must have a new, modernized fleet of combat vehicles to replace legacy systems. He plans to relaunch the new vehicle program by 2011.