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WILMINGTON - With a budget expected to top $20 billion just for the initial design and development of the U.S. Army's new modernization project, local companies are quickly mustering for a share of that business.
In what likely will be its most aggressive - and most expensive -transformation yet, the Army is pushing ahead with the Future Combat Systems (FCS) program, aiming to place a faster, lighter and more lethal force in the field by the middle of the next decade. Once fully deployed, soldiers would be linked through sophisticated networks with a vast array of sensors, weapons and one another, creating a multi-pronged unit with the singular goal of neutralizing the bad guys.
Proponents light-heartedly refer to FCS as the "Borg" effect, recalling the highly technological and collectivized war machine of the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" television series. But the analogy carries even further, with an expanding network now rippling through the private sector to produce all of the materials and training needed to make FCS happen.
State and federal officials estimate that as much as $6.9 billion in FCS-related funding will pour into the state over the next 10 years, with the money not only going to a handful of large defense contractors but also spreading to smaller firms throughout the region like Andover-based I-Logix and L-com Connectivity Products in North Andover. Representatives from those firms and about 100 others met yesterday at the Textron Inc. facility in Wilmington for a progress report and the opportunity to pitch their companies to the major FCS contractors.
"This is going to be huge. That's why we're here," said Carol Lee Williams, the national accounts manager at L-com, which already is supplying some of networking cables now being tested at an Army facility in New York to assess FCS effectiveness.
The overall cost of outfitting up to 15 Army battalions with FCS equipment and armaments could top $150 billion by 2017, according to some congressional and military estimates.
The day-long event also included an extensive media briefing and remarks from Democratic Congressman Marty Meehan of Lowell, the ranking minority member on the House Armed Services Committee. Similar events have been held in recent months in Michigan, Arizona, Texas, Florida, New York, Alabama and northern California, in part to bolster support for the program and head off criticism of its hefty price tag.
The proposed budget for FCS next year is about $3.7 billion, or about $400 million more than is being spent in the current budget cycle, according to John Holmes, a senior vice president for Science Applications International Corp., which along with Boeing is the co-lead systems integrator for FCS.
There are currently more than two dozen companies in Massachusetts working on FCS-related technology, including Dynamics Research Corp., an Andover-based company that's provided consulting and training services to the U.S. military since the late 1950s.
Chief Executive James P. Regan said only a small slice of Dynamics Research's $300 million in yearly revenues is now tied to the FCS program, although he said he would expect that amount to increase significantly as the program moves closer to actual deployment. He declined to offer a specific dollar amount other than to suggest, "It should be big.
"We're like a prospector and his mule right now," Regan said. "There's gold in those hills and we're out to find it."
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