Meeting the army's equipping challenge.(contemporary issues)(Conference news)

Introduction

Today's Army faces different challenges than it did in previous years. Given the Army's high operating tempo (OPTEMPO), its transformation tomodular design, and potential contingency requirements, the Army must ask itself if it is ready to meet its equipping goals for today and for the future. This article explores the United States Army's current equipping strategy, and suggests the modifications needed to help create conditions and metrics to assess current equipment requirements as well as requirements for the future. First, it would be beneficial for the Army to modify readiness assessments of equipment required for mission accomplishment, and to develop metrics that more accurately reflect actual mission essential needs (including unit status report [USR] methodology). Second, a modified program similar to the Army Prepositioned Stock (APS) program is needed that is capable of rotational operations to facilitate the use of prepositioned equipment in current and future contingency operations. Finally, increased budgetary allocations specifically tied to achieving equipping strategies with improved acquisition programs and increased efficiency of the US industrial base will potentially increase the amount of military specific equipment available for use by soldiers. Alone, these measures will have a minor impact on the current situation, but taken collectively they provide a potential solution to overcome the current equipping dilemma facing the Army.

The recently adopted Army Force Generation (ARFORGEN) model combines equipment transfers, new production, and a validated reduction of modified table of equipment (MTOE) authorizations to meet readiness and mission requirements. The Army is not meeting its equipping requirements with new equipment production or procurement. Therefore, a large percentage of equipment is being transferred between units as they cycle through deployment windows. This equipment shuffle strategy does not equal sustained readiness. Stripping units of MTOE equipment during deployments to fill shortages in another unit merely delays fixing the problem. It does not leave commanders or soldiers with the confidence that they will have equipment upon redeployment to train and improve unit readiness for the next mission. Likewise, a reduction of authorized equipment should not be the optimal solution. An arbitrary percentage of fill does not provide equipment critical for readiness, and further diminishes a commander's confidence that he will get the fight equipment in sufficient quantities required for training or mission accomplishment. Nevertheless, these initiatives may be the only way the Army can continue this period of high OPTEMPO until more funding and quicker procurement capabilities are available.

We need to change the way the Army approaches readiness. A focused effort to determine unit requirements; specifically, what is needed to achieve readiness and training for contingency operations and deployments is the first step in this process. Army MTOEs are designed to provide the equipment and personnel required to accomplish a broad scope of assigned missions. These authorization documents are focused on large scale operations conducted continuously over a 24-hour period. They include the operational, logistical and administrative tools necessary to sustain full scale combat operations. While absolutely essential for forced entry and initial combat operations, they may not be appropriate for other types of missions, such as humanitarian, peace enforcement, other types of stability operations and the current rotational environment to support the Global War on Terror (GWOT) in Southwest Asia. Taking a new approach in determining what a unit requires to train and prepare for the most likely deployment scenarios will allow the Army to reallocate equipment and achieve efficiencies without taking risk in operational capability and readiness.

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Another potential solution to the Army's equipping challenge is a modified and refocused effort to use prepositioned resources. A majority of the original APS assets for Southwest Asia were consumed by initial operations in Iraq. While the equipment in the APS fleet was used to support subsequent deployments and operations, there have been recent efforts to rebuild the APS fleet in Southwest Asia to prepare for future requirements. A program similar to APS could be integrated to support the current operations in Afghanistan and Iraq to provide a baseline equipment pool for use in sector as well as to reduce recurring equipping requirements for units preparing to deploy and to eliminate the strain on deploying forces to move equipment via strategic lift.

The third recommendation to improve the Army's equipping strategy is to increase funding and improve the production and procurement of materiel. The fiscal year (FY) 2007 Army budget estimation is $111.8B with $24.7B for procurement. (1) It is questionable whether this budget allocation for equipment procurement is enough to meet the full spectrum of demands of the Army. While we cannot afford to decrease the amount of money allocated to support current combat operations, we also cannot continue to neglect equipping forces to prepare them for deployment to Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), force development and transformation, or other contingency foci.