High-Tech Weapons at White Sands

View a slide show of the 5th Brigade Combat Team and the 2nd Combined Arms Battalion, which are testing advanced systems at White Sands.

The Army's $160 billion Future Combat Systems program may have been scaled back after suffering under large cost overruns and delays, but the Army continues to work on the more promising weapons systems and networks that were part of the program.

Nextgov Editor at Large Bob Brewin traveled this month to White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico to talk to the troops and commanders in charge of testing some of those systems, which include advanced wireless networks, robots, ground sensors and a missile system.

The Army Evaluation Task Force is testing the systems, which are the core of a new battlefield modernization program spun out of FCS and headquartered at Fort Bliss in Texas, which adjoins White Sands. The Army plans to field the new systems to seven infantry brigade combat teams starting in 2011 at a cost of about $2 billion.