US Army 2010 onwards......

[buglerbilly]

Army Under Pressure to Downsize Industrial Capacity as Funding for New Vehicles Dwindles

By Sandra I. Erwin



The Army's latest attempt to build a ground combat vehicle is in the dustbin of history and there are no prospects of new production for the foreseeable future. Saddled with excess industrial capacity, the Army must soon begin to pare down its suppliers, an industry expert said.

In the wake of the cancelation of the ground combat vehicle program — which was conceived as a replacement for the Bradley infantry fighting vehicle — the industrial base is in a "tenuous" position, said retired Army Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson, a partner at A.T. Kearney Aerospace & Defense practice.

A.T. Kearney, a consulting firm, recently completed a sweeping study of the Army's combat vehicle and tactical support vehicle supplier base. The first portion of the study, which probed private sector suppliers for combat vehicles, was delivered last year. A second piece, dealing with combat support systems, will be briefed to Army Acquisition Executive Heidi Shyu in March, Sorenson said in an interview.

The Army has not released the portion of the study that addresses government-owned industrial depots. "They only felt comfortable putting forth the supplier piece," said Sorenson. Every piece of information the Army asked for has been delivered, he said. Now it is up to service leaders to use the data to make funding decisions.

Because the A.T. Kearney study was completed before the termination of the ground combat vehicle, it is fair to predict that the Army's excess capacity is only going to grow, Sorenson said. GCV was supposed to be "the system" that was going to keep contractors' assembly lines in business for the next decade. Now the Army is going back to the drawing board after it concluded the GCV was too heavy and too expensive.

The Army's remaining vehicle programs — a new armored multi-purpose vehicle to replace aging M-113 armored personnel carriers and upgrades to existing M-1 tanks and Bradley vehicles — do not provide enough work to sustain private sector suppliers and organic depots, Sorenson said.

BAE Systems already has slashed its workforce at the Bradley plant in York, Pa. General Dynamics could face similar decisions at its Lima, Ohio, plant where the M-1 tanks are refurbished. "The situation in Lima has become more tenuous since the time we delivered the study," said Sorenson.

While the Army's five maintenance depots and three manufacturing arsenals would be kept busy doing repair and upgrade work on existing vehicles, prime contractors would suffer without new programs, he said. "As you look at the future, a real effort will be needed by the Defense Department to keep some of these prime contractors healthy."

The A.T. Kearney study identified weak links in the supply chain in areas such as thermal sensors, engines and transmissions. The termination of the ground combat vehicle raises new questions about the entire industrial base, Sorenson said.

"Over time we have built large capacity, not just in General Dynamics and BAE but also in the organic base. We ramped those guys up to deliver capability that we required. We had the money to do it because of the supplemental budgets," he said. "Now we have to make some hard decisions."

Army leaders will be walking a tightrope, said Sorenson. They have to balance the workload of the organic base, a prime vendor base and key suppliers. "It is not trivial," said Sorenson.

The broader budget crunch the Army faces — including steep cuts to its active-duty force — means it has to postpone modernization decisions until it can downsize enough to free up money for new hardware. "Senior leaders are doing the best they can given the circumstances," said Sorenson.

According to the Pentagon’s 2015 budget proposal, the Army would drop from 520,000 to about 440,000 to 450,000 soldiers. Experts predict the budget squeeze beyond 2016 will compel further cuts. Bloomberg Government analysts estimated that a reduction of 50,000 troops saves approximately $5 billion in personnel costs.

How these troop cuts shape future industrial workload is a big question. The Army has yet to define the "new normal" for the industrial base, said Kevin Fahey, program executive officer for combat support and combat service support. "Depending on where you sit, it looks a little different," he said last week at an Association of the U.S. Army conference in Huntsville, Ala. A central question is the future size of the Army and what equipment will be required for that force, he said. Until that issue is resolved, it will be difficult to manage industrial capacity, he said. The Army is not yet clear on the specific workload that industry needs to satisfy uncertain requirements.

The good news for Army depots is that there will be plenty of repair work as damaged equipment returns from Afghanistan. Army chief of logistics Lt. Gen. Ray Mason said that more than half of the Army’s $16 billion worth of gear now in Afghanistan will be brought back. The Army will spend $9.5 billion, he said, to repair that equipment as well as the backlog from the Iraq war.

The two prime contractors that were competing in the ground combat vehicle program — BAE Systems Land and Armaments, and General Dynamics Land Systems — are weighing their next moves. Both firms had been awarded about $1.2 billion in incremental contracts since 2011 to design and develop prototypes. Current GCV contracts expire in June. The companies were expecting about $600 million of new funding in the 2015 budget, but the Army opted to terminate GCV and request $100 million for technology studies.

Mark Signorelli, vice president and general manager of BAE Systems' combat vehicle operations, said the company already had been shedding workers before the cancellation of the GCV. Since the wartime production peak through the end of 2014, BAE’s land armaments workforce dropped by 75 percent, he said at the AUSA conference. Just in the past year, the company experienced a 45 percent reduction in manufacturing hours and 61 percent drop in engineering hours. By the end of the year, it will complete the shutdown of two major manufacturing facilities in Fairfield, Ohio, and Sealy, Texas, as well as significant downsizing in York, Pa. and Louisville, Ky.

“We are trying to identify the minimum core of capability we need,” Signorelli said.

Vehicle manufacturers worry about keeping enough engineers employed so they can respond when the military asks for a new design. BAE has 250 combat vehicle engineers and GDLS has about 300.

After losing the GCV, it remains to be seen whether companies can keep their current engineers on the payroll, said Peter Keating, spokesman for General Dynamics Land Systems. That will depend on the amount of work the Army funds in 2015 for research and development, and for vehicle upgrades, Keating said in an interview. “These are not people who can be moved to other programs." The Army has committed to funding upgrades — known as engineering change proposals — for the Abrams tank and the Stryker wheeled armored vehicle, he said. “That keeps engineers working."

“No one has cracked the code yet on how you maintain the industrial base in lean times,” he said. “Government policy and law have a major effect on the industrial base. It's not a free market per se.”

Before the A.T. Kearney study, the Army lacked reliable data on the industrial base. Now that it has that information, industry executives believe that it should be able to make sound policy decisions.

“When you take everything in aggregate, you probably have too much capacity,” Keating said. Consolidating is a balancing act because many facilities do not have overlapping capabilities. And by law, the Army has to allocate at least 50 percent of the maintenance and repair work to government-owned depots. “When you look at it in large scale, there is not enough work to feed all those facilities, and the law complicates your ability to spread and manage the work hours,” said Keating.

Both Army and industry officials have called for greater collaboration between the depots and private manufacturers to get through the downturn. That was done in the 1990s rather successfully, said Keating. Public-private teaming requires “reasonable policy changes” so the Army doesn’t build up capacity in the depots that it already has in industry. It also means the depots and industry have to work in a trustful relationship to level the work fairly.

Government depots and private facilities each contribute particular skills, Keating said. “Neither are viable on their own if they do not share and cooperate.”

GDLS officials are banking on congressional support to keep the Lima M1 Abrams tank plant running with a combination of U.S. and foreign orders. “We've gone to Congress in the past asking for U.S. production. We'll continue to advocate for that,” at least until 2017 or 2018, when the Army said it would start funding engineering upgrades, Keating said. Current international orders include upgrades to Saudi Arabia’s and Egypt’s tank fleets. The company expects an order later this year for upgrades to Iraq’s tanks. Modifications to the Stryker — from the conventional hull to a double-V design — will bring some work to Lima and to GDLS’ facility in Anniston, Ala.

“There's no one program that solves all your problems,” Keating said.

Both BAE and GDLS will be competing in an upcoming Army program to build a new armored personnel carrier to replace the Vietnam-era M113. The armored multipurpose vehicle, or AMPV, was advertised as a 13-year program to produce more than 2,900 vehicles.

Playing in BAE’s favor is the Army’s decision to have AMPV be a derivative of the Bradley, in order to reduce costs. Competitors were asked in November to submit bids.

“AMPV will probably be the biggest production program for sustaining the combat vehicle industrial base in the near term,” Keating said.

The schedule is in flux, however, pending the resolution of a dispute over GDLS being given sufficient time to study the Bradley’s technical specifications.

“We have said that to compete in this program we need access to the data on the Bradley,” Keating said. “We need time to analyze that data.” GDLS asked the Army for an extension and got one, but it wasn't adequate, so it filed a protest with the Army Materiel Command.

AMC has to rule by March 24. “We'd like to have a dialogue with the Army on this,” Keating said. AMPV has now taken on such great significance, he noted, that the company is going to fight to ensure it is a fair competition.

Credit: BAE Systems' Ground Combat Vehicle (BAE Systems photo)

Posted at 1:10 PM by Sandra Erwin

[buglerbilly]

National Guard Commanders Rise In Revolt Against Active Army; MG Rossi Questions Guard Combat Role

By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. on March 11, 2014 at 4:42 PM


South Dakota National Guard soldiers on duty in Afghanistan.

The battle between the regular Army and the National Guard, which we all knew would blow up one of these days, has blown up. At 3:30 this afternoon, the spokesman of the 54 state and territorial Guard commanders, Kentucky Adjutant General Ed Tonini, raised the standard of revolt against the active-duty leadership who had, he said, “slammed their minds shut” on any compromise. Meanwhile, much more quietly, and with many caveats, the regulars have broken a 13-year taboo: In an exclusive interview with Breaking Defense, Army Quadrennial Defense Review director Maj. Gen. John Rossi questioned aspects of the Guard’s much-lauded combat performance since 9/11.

Army leaders from Chief of Staff Ray Odierno on down have long argued that troops who train part-time can’t mobilize fast enough for the short-notice, high-complexity conflicts expected in the future. But this is the first time a senior active-duty general has said, to my knowledge, that the proof of this argument is that Guard combat brigades were rarely assigned the most demanding missions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

What Rossi said is far more nuanced than the statement from Guard partisans. Maj. Gen. Tonini declared the Army leaders’ discussions with governors and Guard leaders “have been merely for show.” Retired Maj. Gen. Gus Hargett, head of the independent National Guard Association of the US, has called Odierno’s remarks “disparag[ing], disrespectful and simply not true.” But with over 700 Guardsmen and women killed in the line of duty since 2001, putting any kind of asterisk next to the Guard’s wartime record is potentially inflammatory. It marks a major escalation in what Army leaders are willing to say. But they also have a point.

“We have to be careful that….we don’t walk away with the wrong lessons,” Rossi told me. “Work hand in hand? Yes. Work side by side? Yes. Interchangeable? The answer on that is no.

“Army National Guard BCTs [brigade combat teams] are in fact interchangeable. They were very deliberately designed to be,” countered the former director of the National Guard Bureau, retired Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, when I summarized Rossi’s arguments for him in an email. “Drawing distinctions between the components, during times of constrained resources, only serves to damage all of our total force Army components and tarnish a proud institution.”

Rossi took pains to emphasize he wasn’t casting aspersions on the service of any individual Guard soldier. “Regular, Reserve, and Guard are all professionals,” Rossi told me. “This is not about individuals[:] This is about team practice.”

All three components train to the same standards for individuals and small units, Rossi said. But the part-time nature of Guard service and the scattered locations of Guard units make it much harder for them to train together as full brigades, he said: “These are big teams — 4,000, 5,000 person teams — that require, as a necessity, a lot of team practice.”

So in Iraq and Afghanistan, Guard and for that matter Army Reserve forces were typically used in smaller units such as companies (roughly 100-200 strong) under the command of active-duty headquarters. When Guard troops were used as full brigades, Rossi went on, they were typically given missions requiring less complex brigade-level coordination and planning. They secured roads and bases against attack, they advised and trained local forces, but they rarely conducted full-scale counterinsurgency operations combining intelligence gathering, combat, and hearts-and-minds campaigns in specific populated areas they “owned.”

These missions are “all important, all very dangerous,” Rossi said, “but some [are] more complex than others.” And a future fight against a better-armed, better-organized, and faster-maneuvering enemy will be more complex.

“You know, I just think you’re being hypocritical when you use those things against us when we did what we were asked to do,” said NGAUS chief Gus Hargett, a former Tennessee National Guard commander (aka “adjutant general”).In fact, Hargett told me this in an exclusive interview in February, back when the regulars were still keeping their questions about Guard performance off the record.

It’s true that most Guard brigades did advise-and-train or “security force” missions, not counterinsurgency missions in all their complexity — although a leaked slide shows a third of Guard combat brigades did do COIN, mostly towards the beginning of the war:


Most Army National Guard brigades deployed for less tactically complex — but still dangerous — missions such as convoy security and training Afghan forces (e.g. “Task Force Phoenix”), not full-scale counterinsurgency.

But, as former Guard Bureau chief Blum noted, “units do not get to select their mission assignments.”

Indeed, at least some Guard commanders wanted the most demanding missions. “At the time, I had a discussion with Gen. [David] Petraeus,” NGAUS’s Hargett recalled. “I said to him then, I don’t like the SECFOR [security force mission]. Brigades should be given space to manage, and I said this will one day be used against us.’”

Rossi acknowledged that it’s by no means impossible to train a Guard brigade to the same standard as an active-duty one: It just takes time — time the Army may not have in a future crisis.

“This is not looking at redoing OIF and OEF on the predictable ARFORGEN [Army force generation," Rossi told me. "What would it take from a no-notice cold start?"

The current National Guard Bureau director, Gen. Frank Grass, has said that the time to get Guard brigades trained up for Afghanistan and Iraq dropped to 100-150 days, though if his training budget weren't being cut he could get it down to 50 to 80 days.

But that's for counterinsurgency missions. "[If] you set a goal of combined arms maneuver proficiency for a brigade,” said Rossi, “it has to take longer because… there’s additional training steps to give you the practice to get to that level of proficiency.”

Even regular army units are still struggling to relearn those “combined arms maneuver” skills — what most of us would recognize as conventional war — after years of operating from fixed bases against lightly armed guerrillas. In fact, Rossi admitted, budget cuts mean that for the next few years most regular troops won’t get to train in full-brigade operations, either.

“In the near term, we have some readiness challenges, up until ’19,” Rossi said. “But I want to get out past ’19, because that’s what we’re talking about, is the future…when the size of the force matches the money you have to train it.” At that hoped-for point, every remaining active-duty combat brigade will be going to a Combat Training Center for full-brigade wargames every other year. Guard brigades will be funded to reach company-level readiness one year in every five.

Of course, that is the Army’s plan. Guard advocates would argue the nation can get a lot more readiness out of citizen-soldiers for an affordable price. And, in Maj. Gen. Tonini’s words, “the fiscal 2015 Pentagon budget process has now officially shifted to where the Army National Guard value and proven capabilities can finally get a fair hearing – the Halls of Congress.” Regular Army advocates would suggest the Hill is outright tilted against them.

Just like the last time we had this fight, during the bitterly debated drawdown of the 1990s, the right balance between the active-duty Army and the Guard is now a matter for Congress to decide — and for the next war to pass bloody judgment on our decisions.

[buglerbilly]

US Army Working With Joint Chiefs to Develop 'Global Landpower Network'

Mar. 13, 2014 - 05:18PM | By PAUL McLEARY


US Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno has unveiled a concept called Global Strategic Landpower Network. (Paul McLeary/Staff)

WASHINGTON — Preparing for the start of a series of hearings before Congress to discuss his fiscal 2015 budget, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno struck a cooperative tone in remarks at a Washington think tank Thursday, stressing joint solutions to future conflicts.

The chief unveiled what he called the Global Strategic Landpower Network, which he said is being discussed among the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The idea is new, but Pentagon discussions about the concept revolved around “a multinational network that would be established around the world that enables us to respond” to contingencies, and a “multinational joint capability,” he said.

Army staffers and other Pentagon officials contacted for more information either did not respond to queries by press time or were unfamiliar with the discussions.

Specifically, Odierno said that he’s working with Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh on issues related to close air support, a nod to the Air Force’s desire to eliminate the aging A-10 ground attack jet, which Army infantrymen rely on heavily.

He said they’re working though issues such as, “what does close air support look like in the future, what kind of close air support do we need in order to support land power in the future, and how do we go about doing that?”

He stressed, “these are all joint concepts.”

Continuing his theme of placing the Army’s mission in a larger joint context, Odierno added that while the service is spending a lot of time working though its forced entry capabilities for potential future operations, “forced entry is not a ground exercise, it is a joint exercise that would require support from air, naval, cyber, etc.”

He added that the nascent Global Strategic Landpower Network he had briefly described “is not about positioning ourselves for the budget, this is about trying to develop concepts for how we believe landpower should be used in the future.”

The Army has previously teamed with the Special Operations Command and the Marine Corps to produce a white paper for their joint Strategic Landpower task Force, but this new “Network” appears to be more inclusive of the other services, and more global in its ambitions.

It is also unclear if the effort is an attempt to construct something similar to the “Global SOF Network,” which Special Operations Command leader Adm. William McRaven has been pushing for the past two years.

McRaven’s idea is to have Special Operations forces partner with US combatant commanders and indigenous special operators in partner nations to share intel and conduct joint training and engagement operations, in order to more fully integrate capabilities and increase information-sharing.

Odierno’s idea isn’t completely new, however. An article in the July 2013 issue of Army magazine authored by the head of Army Special Forces, Lt. Gen. Charles Cleveland, and Lt. Col. Stuart Farris promoted the idea of developing a multinational “landpower network” that would “consist of allies, expeditionary global and regional partners, and host-nation forces. It could ultimately include non-military actors that have a direct relationship to success in wars among the people in places like Libya and Syria.”

Cleveland and Farris continued, “this is not about outsourcing our global security responsibilities to witting and unwitting actors,” but rather to “generate strategic options for senior defense officials and policymakers, both domestically and abroad.” ■

Email: pmcleary@defensenews.com.

[buglerbilly]

Army At 'Tipping Point' of Unmanned Aircraft System Capabilities

(Source: US Army; issued March 18, 2014)

WASHINGTON --- "We're on the tipping point of unmanned aerial systems' ability to deliver capability to the Soldier," said Col. Thomas von Eschenbach.

The unmanned aerial/aircraft system, or UAS, is no longer seen by Soldiers as a new system and as the months and years pass, it will "not just be used by a few, but will become integral to the Army fabric and how it fights and is used and understood," said Eschenbach, who is the UAS capability manager for U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command.

Eschenbach and others spoke today at a media roundtable at Redstone Arsenal, Ala., where a celebration was held marking the Army's milestone of 2 million UAS flight hours.

Col. Timothy Baxter, project manager, UAS, noted that it took 20 years for Army unmanned aircraft systems to reach 1 million flight hours. That milestone came in 2010. With increased use of those systems, it took just a few more years to reach the 2 million flight-hours milestone.

He said what is most impressive is that 90 percent of total UAS flight hours were logged in direct support of combat operations. "Every one of those hours has meant something to a commander on the ground overseas engaged in combat," Baxter said.

Baxter noted that of the total two million flight hours, Shadow UAS logged 900,000 of those. However, as more Gray Eagles are fielded, he said he expects it to be the system with the most impressive mileage.

Rich Kretzschmar, deputy project manager, UAS, said that reaching three million flight hours may take longer than it did to get from one to two million because the operations tempo in theater has now leveled off.

And, as more UAS systems return to the U.S. from overseas, there could be fewer opportunities to fly them because of restricted airspace flight rules, Baxter added.

But, the UAS will play a crucial part of the Army's aviation restructure initiative, Eschenbach said.

As brigade combat teams, or BCTs, shrink from four to three per division and as maneuver battalions are reinvested back into other BCTs, three Shadow UAS platoons will be put inside of each attack reconnaissance squadron, he said. That would add a total of 30 platoons of Shadows into the combat aviation brigade structure. Those squadrons will also contain AH-64E Apache helicopters.

FUTURE UAS FLIGHT PATH

Don't expect to see a lot of new UAS models, Baxter cautioned.
"Our platforms are the platforms we're going to have for the foreseeable future in the Army," he explained.

Instead, he said future efforts will be in the area of new technologies for advanced payloads and improvements in man-to-unmanned teaming.

As to unmanned vs manned, Kretzschmar pointed out that UASs are not replacing pilots.

Rather, he said, they are the "extension of the commander's ability to do things, extend reach, reduce risk and get better situational awareness on the battlefield."

Also in the cards for UAS is something not too sexy, but important nonetheless to a budget-challenged Army: sustainment costs.

Baxter said the UAS community has moved away from contractor logistics support to "green-suiter" maintainers, as Soldiers get their own military occupational specialty and become more proficient. In the next war, the Army may not have the luxury of setting up forward operating bases teeming with contract support.

Another cost savings, he pointed out, is through applying "performance-based logistics" to contracts, so as to "incorporate better buying power."

Since Eschenbach is with TRADOC it's not surprising he sees doctrine as well as the operational environment dictating the vision of where UASs are headed.

Eschenbach thinks UASs have capabilities that go far beyond the current state of reconnaissance, surveillance, security and precision strikes.

His team of planners is already looking at UAS employment in "Force 2025," where UAS will vastly extend the network, meaning the reach that commanders have on the ground.

As this takes place over the coming years, he said Army leaders will need to better understand the capabilities of UASs and what they can do for them.

"We're asking warfighters in a smaller, leaner Army to be more expeditionary, lethal and survivable, focused on the next thing our nation asks us to do," Eschenbach concluded. In that environment, there's "plenty of future for UAS."

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Tank Goodness: Armor Programs Will Recover Despite GCV Kill, Sequester

By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. on March 21, 2014 at 2:14 PM



Sometimes dark clouds really do have silver linings. The winding down of two wars and the automatic spending cuts called sequestration have been brutal for the Army budget. The service recently had to cancel its top-priority weapons program, the tank-like Ground Combat Vehicle. But even if sequestration continues, said one leading analyst, ground vehicle spending has at the very least bottomed out — and it may well rebound impressively.

“Hey, there’s actually kind of a little growth profile, and actually a pretty robust growth profile if that plan can get achieved,” said Byron Callan, defense analyst at Capital Alpha Partners LLC. The budget the president submitted earlier this month — which relies on a politically unlikely roll-back of the sequester — would increase ground vehicle spending from $1.5 billion in 2015 to $5.5 billion in 2019. Realizing even a fraction of that planned growth would be great news for the Army and the industrial base.

In fact, the Ground Combat Vehicle’s cancellation may have been a blessing in disguise, because the Army sacrificed the controversial GCV to free up funds for other, more modest programs. As Callan put it to me this morning, “instead of the turkey, you’ve got a lot of sparrows, and maybe turkeys are easier to shoot at than sparrows.”

The Army no longer has one “big, iconic program” with the sort of big, iconic problems that have led to a 15-year string of failures: the sheer weight both of the freshly killed Ground Combat Vehicle and of the Crusader artillery vehicle cancelled way back in 2002; the complexity and cost both of the Comanche helicopter, cancelled in 2004, and of the Future Combat System, killed in 2009.

Instead, said Callan, “they just kind of redistributed” the money. First, just as the Army took the savings from canceling Comanche and reinvested them in modernizing existing helicopters, they’re using the savings from GCV to upgrade existing vehicles: the M1 Abrams main battle tank, the M2 Bradley troop carrier, and the M109 Paladin artillery vehicle.

“It’s not a lot of money for new-vehicle build,” Callan said, but “it’ll keep the depots busy” — (always popular with Congress) as well as the BAE facility in York, Penn., which works on M2 and M109. (The Army has proposed temporarily shutting down the government-owned, General Dynamics-operated M1 tank plant in Lima, Ohio, but Congress roundly rejected the idea).

Second, the Army is still buying two new vehicles, and while they’re less ambitious, costly, and politically vulnerable than GCV was, they are still big potential prizes for whichever company wins them. “The two jump balls are AMPV [the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle] and the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle [JLTV],” Callan said.

AMPV is a tracked support vehicle to replace an array of aging mobile command posts, armored ambulances, and the like that are built on the Vietnam-vintage M113 chassis. The only two competitors are BAE Systems and General Dynamics Land Systems, both of whose ground-vehicle sectors have suffered what Callan calls “eye-popping rates of decline,” even by defense industry standards. With AMPV estimated at an $11.7 billion procurement — much of that to be spent after sequestration ends — it’s “an absolute must-win,” he said.

“AMPV is kind of BAE’s to lose,” said Callan. BAE’s proposal is basically a less heavily-armed version of its current Bradley, which would let the Army share parts and maintenance personnel across a wide portion of its armored vehicle fleet, especially since the upgraded M109 Paladin uses Bradley components as well. General Dynamics had proposed a tracked version of its eight-wheel-drive Stryker vehicle, as we reported in 2012, but there’s been almost no news of that initiative since.

By contrast, the uparmored Humvee replacement known as Joint Light Tactical Vehicle is wide open. The stakes vary widely among the three different competitors. For aerospace giant Lockheed Martin, winning JLTV would be nice. For truck company Oshkosh, it would be important to sustaining the military side of their business. For Humvee manufacturer AM General, it’s do or die.

Whatever happens with sequestration, Callan told me he can’t see the ground combat vehicle budget going even lower: “There’s some growth. It’s just a question of what,” he said.

Ultimately, the defense budget has to fund a modern armored force alongside sexier high-tech programs like cyberwarfare, submarines, missiles, and lasers, Callan said: “I just don’t think all our military problems can be solved by air and naval power.”

[buglerbilly]

US National Guard Chief: 'Decision Made' on Shifting Apaches to Active Army

Apr. 8, 2014 - 03:45PM | By MICHELLE TAN


An AH-64 Apache assigned with the US Army Europe's 12th Combat Aviation Brigade prepares for departure during a March 28 exercise. Gen. Frank Grass, the National Guard's top general, appeared resigned to a plan that moves all of the branch's AH-64 Apache helicopters into the active Army. (Spc. Glenn M. Anderson / Army)

The National Guard’s top general on Tuesday appeared resigned to a plan that moves all of the branch’s AH-64 Apache helicopters into the active Army.

Gen. Frank Grass, who just last week testified on Capitol Hill that he opposes the plan, said on Tuesday that he’s focused now on how to best implement the moves.

“As a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we have fought and we have discussed many, many times these topics,” Grass said Tuesday while testifying in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

He’s “given my best advice, but the decision has been made,” Grass said.

Air Force Maj. Shannon Thomas, a spokeswoman for the Guard, confirmed Grass’ remarks.

“These are very difficult decisions and there will be more difficult ones yet to come,” she said. “His focus now is to determine the impacts and how best to implement the decision.”

Under the aviation restructuring plan, which is in the Defense Department’s fiscal 2015 budget request, the Army would divest its fleet of OH-58 Kiowa helicopters and use the Apache to fill the Kiowa’s reconnaissance and scout role.

It would pull Apaches from the Guard inventory to fill the gap, and the Army would provide the Guard with UH-60 Black Hawks, which Army officials believe will give the Guard more capability.

Army officials have said the active Army would lose 23 percent of its aircraft while the Guard would lose 8 percent of its inventory under this plan.

It’s widely believed that the six-year aviation restructuring plan will become a reality, and the moves will be completed by the end of fiscal 2019.

Still pending, however, is legislation introduced by Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., that would establish a national commission to study the makeup of the Army and prohibit the service from divesting, retiring or transferring any aircraft from the Army Guard.

Last week, Grass told the House Appropriations Committee the Guard has “provided an alternative solution” that would transfer about 40 percent of its Apaches into the active Army. The Guard would then retain enough Apaches to keep six attack battalions in its formation. The Guard has eight Apache battalions.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno, who testified alongside Grass Tuesday, said the aviation restructure allows the Army to “eliminate obsolete airframes, reduce sustainment costs and organize ourselves to meet our operational commitments and imperatives.”

In addition to the aircraft moves, the aviation plan includes inactivating three combat aviation brigades from the active Army and moving all of the active Army’s LUH-72 Lakotas to Fort Rucker, Ala., to be used as training aircraft.

The Army Guard will retain 10 aviation brigades and all of its Lakotas, and receive 111 Black Hawks.

“We must make sure we have the best Army possible, even under full sequestration,” Odierno said.

[buglerbilly]

US Army Guard Agrees to Controversial Apache Plan

Apr. 8, 2014 - 04:55PM | By PAUL McLEARY


The active US Army will receive National Guard Apache attack helicopters under a new plan. (US Army)

WASHINGTON — In a surprising move, the head of the US National Guard Bureau has given his blessing to the US Army’s plan to move all of the Guard’s Apache attack helicopters into the active force while receiving several hundred Black Hawk and Lakota multi-use helicopters in return.

“As a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we have fought, and we have discussed many, many times, these topics,” the National Guard Bureau chief, Army Gen. Frank Grass, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday “And I provided my best military advice. I’ve assessed the risk. I’ve given the cost.

“But the decision’s been made, Mr. Chairman,” he said. “And my job now is to begin to look at the effects across the states, and figure out how we’re going to execute this plan.”

The general’s acquiescence came as a surprise in what many anticipated to be a contentious hearing, especially after Grass told the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee on April 3, “I do not agree with the proposal to take all Apaches out of the guard.”

Grass testified before the committee with Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno, who has been campaigning for the aviation restructuring for months, but has encountered stiff resistance from the Guard leadership and sharp questions from Congress.

The chief emphasized that the aviation plan is a necessity given the tightening fiscal picture for the Army, and the expense of upgrading its helicopter fleets.

“No one is fully satisfied with the final outcome, including myself,” he offered. “However, the reality is the funding in the future will not allow us to have everything we may want. These cuts will still occur, even if we delay our decisions or fail to address the issue as the total Army. The results will be hollowing out of our Army.”

The plan calls for the Army to retire its fleet of Kiowa Warrior scout helicopters and replace them with the Guard’s Apaches, which will team with Army drones to perform the scout mission. Overall, the Army will lose 687 aircraft, including 600 Kiowas.

The active component will also eliminate three of its 13 Combat Aviation Brigades while the Guard will retain all of its 10 aviation brigades.

The Army expects to save about $12 billion over the next several years by taking this approach, beginning with $2 billion in fiscal 2015 alone.

The strategy “salvages our plans to modernize our aviation fleet,” said Col. Frank Tate, the Army’s chief of aviation force development, at an event across town at the same time the chiefs were testifying on Capitol Hill.

“We were lowering our rates of procurement on our biggest systems” due to the cost of maintaining seven different helicopter platforms, Tate told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The Army’s proposal to get rid of two models of the Kiowa and the TH-67 trainer helicopter would eliminate three aircraft models of the Army’s seven, as it continues to modernize the Chinook, Apache and Black Hawk until replacement helicopters begin to enter the fleet some time in the 2030s.

While the Army might be losing helicopters, it is increasingly eyeing shipboard operations for the 690 Apaches that it is keeping.

Operating from ships at sea “seems to be a growth capability, and we do sense that there is increasing demand out there” in South Korea and the Central Command area of operations, said the Army’s director of aviation, Col. John Lindsay.

“We’ve gotta make sure that we have the appropriate demand signal coming in from the combatant commanders,” however, in order to determine “how much maritime capability does the Army need to invest in,” he added.

Lindsay acknowledged that over the long term, “we still have some work to do” to determine how much the Army wants — or needs — to invest in operating Apache helicopters from naval vessels.

In a nod to Marine Corps sensitivities over the issue, Tate was quick to point out that flying Army helicopters from the decks of ships isn’t necessarily anything new. He was involved in operations in Haiti in the early 1990s where the Army flew Apaches off the back of short-deck Navy frigates.

“The Army is not new to this idea of maritime operations and ship operations,” he insisted. ■

Email: pmcleary@defensenews.com.

[buglerbilly]

US Army Explores Sea-Basing Helos

Apr. 13, 2014 - 04:18PM | By MARCUS WEISGERBER and PAUL McLEARY


An Army AH-64D Apache attack helicopter lands aboard the afloat forward staging base Ponce in 5th Fleet in 2012. The Army is considering expanding operations off Navy ships. (MC1 Jon Rasmussen / Navy)

WASHINGTON — The US Army is considering certifying some of its attack helicopters to operate from ships — a mission historically conducted by the Marine Corps — as the service looks to broaden the role it would play in an Asia-Pacific battle.

Operating from ships at sea “seems to be a growth capability, and we do sense that there is increasing demand out there” in South Korea and US Central Command, said the Army’s director of aviation, Col. John Lindsay, at an April 8 event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.

The service has been running drills on landing AH-64 Apache helicopters on Navy ships in recent months, but “we’ve gotta make sure that we have the appropriate demand signal coming in from the combatant commanders,” Lindsay said, to determine “how much maritime capability does the Army need to invest in.”

Lindsay acknowledged that over the long term, “we still have some work to do” to determine how much the Army wants — or needs — to invest in operating Apache helicopters from naval vessels, but there is serious work being done.

The Asia-Pacific region, an area of increased focus for the US military, is primarily maritime. The Pentagon has said it does not envision prolonged land wars in its future after more than a decade in Afghanistan and Iraq, and is planning to shrink the Army. Experts say the Pacific is a theater geared more toward Navy and Air Force capabilities, due to the sheer size of the region.

So how does the Marine Corps feel about the Army doing this?

“I’ve never been on a crowded battlefield,” Lt. Gen. John Wissler, commander of III Marine Expeditionary Force and US Marine Corps Forces Japan, told the Defense Writers Group on April 11. “I’ve never been anywhere where I said ... ‘There’s too many guys here.’ ”

But there would be challenges. While the Army is “making strides in learning how to operate” at sea, Wissler said there is an “unknown, hidden cost” associated with operating aircraft in saltwater environments.

“[Marine Corps] helicopters are different than [Army] helicopters,” he said. “The maritimization of an aviation platform is a very extensive, technical thing. If you don’t do it, you suffer significant challenges.”

Col. Frank Tate, the Army’s chief of aviation force development, said he is preparing to head to Fort Rucker, Ala., in mid-April to attend a conference that would discuss the effects of seawater on the Army’s rotary-wing aircraft.

“The Army is not new to this idea of maritime operations and ship operations,” Tate said at the same event.

In a nod to Marine Corps sensitivities over the issue, Tate was quick to point out that flying Army helicopters from the decks of ships isn’t new. He was involved in operations in Haiti in the early 1990s, when the Army flew Apaches off the back of Navy frigates.

But Wissler noted that the deployment to Haiti had “significant impacts to helicopters and readiness” across Army aviation since they were not built to operate from ships.

“They had a mission, they met the mission, they went and executed the mission and that’s what we all do,” he said.

Wissler said the Marine Corps does not have a shortfall in sea-based aircraft; however, the number of amphibious Navy ships is limited.

The ship shortage has restricted the types of training Marine Corps pilots can do at sea.

Wissler also said there are challenges to operating in an amphibious environment, and that adding the Army to the mix would require in-depth planning.

“That’s easy stuff; we’ll sort through that,” he said.

“If the Army has a capability to bring in an amphibious environment, a capability that we need as a joint war-fighting team, good on them,” Wissler added. “I just think there’s challenges to it. I say that because I know they know there are challenges to it.” ■

Emails: mweisgerber@defensenews.com; pmcleary@defensenews.com.

[buglerbilly]

Fast and Light: US Army Overhauls Its Gear Strategy

Apr. 13, 2014 - 04:18PM | By PAUL McLEARY


Smaller sets of US Army equipment, such as Bradley fighting vehicles, will be prepositioned around the world to speed time to deployment. (Spc. Bryan Willis / US Army)

WASHINGTON — The US Army is putting the finishing touches on a bold new strategy for how it prepositions stocks of critical equipment around the globe, how it uses those stocks to speed deployments — and who pays for it.

Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno ordered the revised strategy last year as part of his vision to make the service more capable of deploying quickly to meet threats, and assist in humanitarian and disaster relief missions.

And a key element of the plan is to pass off some of the cost of using and resetting the equipment to the combatant commanders.

“What we want is for [advanced positioned stocks] to be a part of the theater, a part of the plan, a part of the combatant commander’s thinking, a part of the allies’ thinking,” as opposed to being a static reserve, one senior officer said.

The idea is to break up the massive stocks of vehicles, weapons, and ammunition the Army has traditionally warehoused across the Middle East, Europe and aboard ships into smaller, theater-specific “activity sets” that troops can simply fall in on. This way, units can fly in with only their personal gear and make use of the heavy equipment already in place, then leave the equipment behind once the event is over.

“When we let someone use it, they pay for it,” an Army official said. “Instead of it being the Army, we let people use it and they pay for the use. The cost comes from the combatant commander.” Cost would involve restoring the gear to its original condition.

The new strategy is “fiscally sound, it keeps us from buying readiness that we don’t need because you’re not having to move stuff around, and you’ll have the capability and capacities that you’ll need for those exercises that you want to do more regularly,” the officer added.

Odierno’s review has already saved $30 million, since some of the stored equipment that combatant commanders had no need for has been retired or sent elsewhere.

One activity set is being used by rotational forces in Europe.

When the 1st Cavalry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team from Fort Hood, Texas, falls in on dozens of brand-new Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles this spring at multinational training centers in Europe, it will be the first unit to take advantage of the new plan.

The 30 M1A2 Abrams tanks and 70 upgraded M2A3 Bradleys, along with 40 tracked armored vehicles, 150 wheeled vehicles, about 10 pieces of engineer equipment and 10 Paladin M109A6 self-propelled howitzers, which make up the European Activity Set (EAS) can’t compare to the wall of armor deployed across Germany during the Cold War. But the idea is no longer to mass armor across the Fulda Gap.

Instead, positioning armor stocks at the Grafenwöhr joint training facility and the Joint Multinational Readiness Center at Hohenfels, Germany, will allow a succession of rotational brigades to use them for training activities with European allies.

Army officials estimate they’ll save about $10 million a year by having units use the EAS, as opposed to shipping a brigade’s worth of equipment to Europe and then back home.

Service officials say they’re working closely with the combatant commanders and the Army component commands to design activity sets that best fit the region’s needs.

“It’s being largely driven by the combatant commanders, and that’s sort of our strategy,” the officer said.

Bill Roche, a spokesman for US Army Europe (USAREUR), wrote in an email that USAREUR “receives a significant amount of funding to cover the maintenance and repair costs for the rotational units,” but that units are still required to bring equipment back to ready-for-issue standards prior to turn-in with USAREUR funds.

The Army’s 1st Brigade Combat Team is tasked with being part of the NATO Response Force, and as such will conduct drills across the continent with NATO allies using the new equipment.

While European Command is the first to make use of an activity set, the Pacific theater and Africa are where the idea could really suit the Army’s shifting posture. Specifically, the service’s “Pacific Pathways” initiative — which would train and equip soldiers to deploy quickly across the region — is a key cog in the plan.

Part of the plan, still a work in progress, is to make more use of the Navy’s large, medium-speed roll-on/roll-off (LMSR) ships that the Army leases to move equipment across the Pacific.

“The time is right to begin using the LMSRs in a more effective way,” the officer said, adding that the ships could be used to move troops around the region for training exercises to reduce the number and duration of boots on the ground. Reserve soldiers could also use the ships during training periods to reduce costs by allowing them to train while partnering with allies.

Using the ships this way would signal a commitment by the United States to the Pacific region, service officials contend, by allowing troops to move quickly from place to place while underscoring the American commitment to partnering and humanitarian missions. ■

Email: pmcleary@defensenews.com.

[buglerbilly]

101st Airborne Begins Transitioning To BCT 2020

(Source: U.S Army; issued April 23, 2014)

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. --- The 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) is beginning Operation Agile Eagle II, designed to localize and implement the larger Department of the Army-directed Brigade Combat Team 2020 initiative.

This overarching move is part of a plan that will reduce the overall strength of the Army in order to meet future requirements, officials said. Much like the previous brigade modularization undertaken in the mid-2000s, they said Brigade Combat Team 2020, known as BCT 2020, will add additional assets to the brigades and the division to increase their autonomy and enhance their abilities to meet future mission requirements.

"The addition of a third maneuver battalion in each brigade combat team adds to the ability of the division to respond to the needs of the Army with a more robust force to meet mission requirements," said Maj. Gen. James McConville, commander, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). "It also puts more combat Soldiers into units and reduces the overhead of staff."

Additionally, the brigades are standing up brigade engineer battalions, adding an increased range of ability to the commanders to address a wide range of mission challenges.

In addition to adding a third infantry battalion and a brigade engineer battalion to each BCT, the artillery units will also reorganize to composite battalions, which will each have two batteries of 105mm howitzers, and one battery of 155mm howitzers.

The division has already begun adapting to meet the new model by recently inactivating the 3rd Special Troops Battalion, 3rd BCT, and reflagging it as the 21st Brigade Engineer Battalion and reorganizing the 3rd Battalion, 320th Field Artillery Regiment, 3rd BCT, to a composite artillery formation.

Last week, the 1st Special Troops Battalion of 1st Brigade Combat Team inactivated and transformed to the 326th Brigade Engineer Battalion. This week, the 4th BCT will inactivate as part of the realignment effort.

"As part of the Army's 2020 model, the division is reducing the 4th Brigade Combat Team and realigning its two infantry battalions under the 1st and 3rd Brigade Combat Teams and distributing the remaining elements across the division," said McConville.

The division recently conducted Operation Golden Eagle, the first brigade-size air assault training operation in more than a decade at Fort Campbell that highlighted the capabilities of a brigade under the new BCT 2020 model.

In addition to increasing the division's ability to meet mission requirements, the reorganization also allows the history and lineage of some of the Army's most distinguished units to live on, McConville said.

"We are able to preserve the history and lineage of some of the Army's most highly decorated units with the retention of the 506th Infantry Regiment," he said.

Following the transition of the 1st and 2nd BCTs to the new BCT 2020 model and the activation of the division artillery, the division expects to meet the Army-directed goal of Sept. 30, 2015.

"The end state is that by 2015, we'll be completely transformed to three maneuver brigades," said Chief Warrant Officer 5 Manny Vasquez, the lead planner for Agile Eagle II.

-ends-