Inside the Army
The Defense Acquisition Board’s in-process review of the Army’s brigade combat team modernization effort, held Oct. 16, did not produce clear decisions but was a “constructive conversation,” according to a service spokesman.
The two-hour meeting brought together senior Army officials, including Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli, with the members of the Defense Acquisition Board, including Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter, an Army official told Inside the Army last week.
The source said items discussed at the meeting included the Early Infantry Brigade Combat Team equipment originally developed under the Future Combat Systems program; follow-on capabilities packages; the ground combat vehicle strategy, including an overview of its proposed time line; network integration; and the transition to a program executive office.
“It was a good conversation, it was a constructive conversation,” Paul Mehney, spokesman for program executive office integration, told ITA. “And the Army is currently awaiting an acquisition memorandum that will help guide and outline the strategy for BCT modernization.”
Rickey Smith, director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center-Forward, said during an Oct. 19 teleconference with reporters that he attended last week’s review. Though he declined to speak extensively about the meeting -- instead deferring to the Army’s acquisition office -- Smith said the direction out of the meeting on operational requirements was “continue to march in the approach we’re taking.”
Mehney stressed during the teleconference that the meeting was simply an in-process review, meaning “no formal, hard decisions” were made.
Pentagon spokeswoman Cheryl Irwin told ITA the “review took place, but there was no documentation planned at this time.
“It was basically just a briefing of how the Army would like to proceed,” she said in an Oct. 20 e-mail.
The review, originally scheduled for Oct. 7, was postponed after issues arose between the service and the Office of the Secretary of Defense about the five- to seven-year time line for the ground combat vehicle effort and the future role of the Future Combat Systems prime contractor team.
Though select Army and OSD officials met that day, sources said the discussion was not considered a DAB review.
Meanwhile, the service earlier this month completed a critical design review of its E-IBCT capabilities, a required step before a December production decision.
The first set of E-IBCT equipment, recently renamed Increment 1, includes the Non-Line-of-Sight Launch System, Tactical and Urban Unattended Ground Sensors, the Class 1 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, the Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle and the Network Integration Kit.
The review, conducted Oct. 14 and 15 in St. Louis, MO, included representatives from the Army, the Pentagon, the Government Accountability Office and prime contractors Boeing and Science Applications International Corp.
The review incorporated feedback from the Army Evaluation Task Force and the Future Force Integration Directorate and finalized the production design specifications as the E-IBCT effort moves toward a low-rate initial production decision later this year, Mehney said in an Oct. 16 e-mail.
“Completing the Critical Design Review is an important step toward the milestone C decision in December so we can enter low-rate initial production early in 2010,” said Derek McLuckey, Boeing Increment 1 program manager, in a company statement.
According to the Boeing statement, the CDR reviewed more than 120 criteria “to ensure that system designs are mature, meet soldier requirements and are ready for low-rate initial production.” -- Marjorie Censer and Kate Brannen
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