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Newly Awarded Contract Will Lead to Better Soldier Protection

April 27, 2006

The Army’s effort to develop better protection for their mounted Soldiers advanced today when BAE Systems signed a contract with the Raytheon Company to develop the Active Protection System (APS) for the Army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS) program. FCS is a Soldier-centric, network-enabled program that consists of 18 manned and unmanned systems.

Active Protection (AP) technologies are designed to protect Soldiers in vehicles by defeating a variety of ballistic threats before they impact. The Army’s Stryker vehicles, which have already performed in combat in Iraq, and the new FCS Manned Ground Vehicles (MGV) are scheduled to be the first systems to receive APS.

“We remain committed to providing our Soldiers with the best protection technology can provide as soon as possible,” said Maj. Gen. Charles A. Cartwright, program manager for the Future Combat Systems (Brigade Combat Team). “This is also a significant step forward in the FCS program, which remains on cost and on schedule.” According to Cartwright, they expect the FCS AP subsystem components to begin current force integration and qualification by the end of 2008.

Real-world lessons learned from the Global War on Terrorism are being integrated into the development of FCS. The AP contract, worth an estimated $70 million, will require this new technology to work with all other relevant systems within FCS.

Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, has said in the past that FCS is the Army’s key modernization program. “With FCS, the Army takes advantage of the best-of-industry technologies as soon as they are developed and puts them into the hands of the Soldiers in the field,” he said. “This approach gets capabilities to our Soldiers sooner, strengthening the current force, while laying groundwork for the force of the future.

Once fielded, this technology is intended to provide the Army the capability to give mounted Soldiers 360 degree protection against a full spectrum of ballistic threats.

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For more information, please contact Army Public Affairs (703) 697-2564.