Copyright 1999 Federal News Service, Inc.
Federal News Service
FEBRUARY 24, 1999, WEDNESDAY
SECTION: IN THE NEWS
LENGTH:
2511 words
HEADLINE: PREPARED STATEMENT OF
THE
HONORABLE PAUL J. HOEPER
ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE ARMY
(RESEARCH
DEVELOPMENT & ACQUISITION)
AND
LT. GEN. JOHN G. COBURN
DEPUTY
CHIEF OF STAFF FOR LOGISTICS
DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
BEFORE THE
HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE
MILITARY PROCUREMENT
SUBCOMMITTEE
BODY:
Introduction
Mr. Chairman
and Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you
to discuss aging military equipment. It is our privilege today to represent the
Army leadership and the soldiers who rely on us to provide them with world-class
weapons and equipment to fight and win our nation's wars.
We have the finest
land combat force on earth. We are very proud of our soldiers and what they
accomplish every day in countries all over the world. And, we thank you for your
help and support in equipping them to do their jobs. As representatives of the
American people, you have strongly supported our programs and guided them to
fruition. Our success would not have been possible without your advice and
support.
It is imperative that we sustain modernization. If not, our
technological advantage over potential adversaries will diminish over time and
increase the risk to our soldiers. Continuous modernization is one of the keys
to dominance on the future battlefield and the key to readiness for unexpected
challenges of the 21st century.
Aging Equipment
We, in the Army, believe
that aging equipment is one of the most serious issues we face. This issue is so
serious that, if not properly addressed and corrected, it will inevitably result
in degradation in the Army's ability to maintain its readiness.
Before
proceeding further, we would like to describe how we got to where we are on
aging equipment and the link to Army readiness. Our weapon systems are aging
because we have not modernized as quickly as we should have. When coupled with
the increased operational tempo we have faced over the last decade, increased
maintenance has been required in order to avoid degradation in our operational
readiness. More maintenance means increased Operations and Support (O&S)
costs. In order to resource unanticipated O&S costs, the Army was faced with
an unpleasant choice: either accept a degradation in our current readiness
posture, a choice the Army finds unacceptable, or reprogram money from another
source -- in this case, procurement outlays.
This is having an enormous
impact on Army programs. Because of funding challenges, we are forced to either
reduce the quantities of systems or stretch our programs to great lengths or
both. These actions raise unit costs and further delay modernization. For
example, the Army's only heavy lift cargo helicopter, the Chinook, has been in
our inventory for 37 years. It is being upgraded from the CH-47D model to the
CH-47F model, also known as the Improved Cargo Helicopter. We expect to have it
in our inventory for another 30 years. Fielding is scheduled to begin on time,
but a tight budget means it will occur at a slower rate. As a result, CH-47Ds
will have to be kept in the force longer, driving up operating costs. In
addition to O&S cost increases, delaying modernization puts readiness at
risk. We must break this "death spiral" to assure the long-term readiness of our
Army.
Army Equipment Readiness
Although our modernization effort is
proceeding slower than we would desire, the Army's current equipment readiness
posture remains high. Last year, the Military Readiness Subcommittee was told
that our Army was trained and ready, that our logistics readiness was a good
news story, with high readiness rates for equipment and our ability to deploy.
This year we can again report that equipment readiness rates remain high and our
ability to project power continues to improve.
A significant reason why we
enjoy an excellent readiness posture is the extraordinary efforts of our
outstanding soldiers. Our soldiers in the field are working harder than ever to
keep our equipment combat ready. Their hard work has provided the margin needed
to meet the readiness standards we described at the outset of this statement.
All the major combat and support systems continue to meet or exceed
Department of Army (DA) standards, and the Army continues to focus on equipment
readiness. With respect to readiness rates, during the most recent reporting
period, 15 of 16 weapon systems we closely track, the so-called SORTS (Status of
Readiness Training Systems) equipment, achieved the DA readiness goal. As
examples, in the last 12 months, the M1A1 averaged 91.8 percent, the M2 Infantry
Fighting Vehicle 95.4 percent, the Multiple Launch Rocket System 94.1 percent,
and the Patriot 94.2 percent.
This good news on equipment readiness would be
for naught if we were unable to project our power as specified in the National
Military Strategy. Much progress has been realized in the last year. In the area
of strategic sealift, we now have access to 47 ships, including eight of the new
Large Medium Speed Roll-On/Roll-Off (LMSR) ships. The Department of Defense
(DoD) Strategic Airlift capability has also been enhanced, with 47 of the Air
Force's new C-17 Globemasters now in the fleet. For our part, the Army continues
to improve its infrastructure at power projection installations throughout the
United States, plus we have made a substantial investment in deployment enablers
that will enhance our ability to move our combat forces to their respective air
and seaports of embarkation.
Army Modernization Plan
We have a plan to
modernize America's Army and take it in to the 21st century. Our blueprint for
meeting the challenges of today's world details a continuous modernization
strategy that maintains the capabilities necessary to protect our nation's
interest and sustain land force dominance.
The Army's Modernization Plan
balances, with risk, the demands for current and future readiness within fiscal
constraints. It emphasizes recapitalization of our aging equipment because the
savings in O&S costs generated are critical to funding the transition to the
Army After Next. The plan establishes specific goals. The five major goals of
Army modernization are:
Digitize the Army
Maintain Combat Overmatch
Sustain Essential Research and Development and Focus Science and Technology
to Leap-Ahead Technologies
Recapitalize the Force
Integrate the Active
and Reserve Components.
Cost Reduction Initiatives
We are working on
several initiatives to mitigate the readiness impact caused by aging equipment.
These initiatives have two things in common: they each, either directly or
indirectly, reduce O&S costs and improve current readiness.
Recapitalization
Recapitalization is one of the Army's most important
initiatives for dealing with the challenge of aging weapon systems. With only
limited new procurement, our need to retain legacy systems means the average age
of our equipment will continue to grow and the performance edge we enjoy will
begin to degrade. The Army recapitalizes its equipment through a combination of
replacement and refurbishment programs that not only extend useful life, but
also reduce O&S costs. It is important to understand that aging legacy
equipment will be with us for a long time. Even in 2025, when the Army will be
equipped with the combat systems of the Army After Next, these same legacy
systems will represent about 70 percent of the Army's total force structure. For
illustration purposes, by 2025 the average age of the M1 tank, the M2/M3
Bradley, and M88 recovery vehicle will grow to 36, 22, and 48 years
respectively. That is why the Army places such high importance on
recapitalization.
The Abrams Integrated Management (AIM) XXI program is a
good example of a change in how the Army will sustain its equipment in the
future. This M1 tank remanufacture program optimizes the unique capabilities and
competencies of a public/private partnership. After complete disassembly in the
Anniston Army Depot in Alabama, the tank's individual parts are rebuilt at the
most cost-effective facility -- government or contractor. The tank is then
reassembled at the Lima Army Tank Plant in Ohio to M1A1 production
specifications. In essence, the field gets a "zero-mile" M1A1 tank. We need to
add an M1A1 recapitalization effort to allow the introduction of O&S cost
savers (upgraded engines) and performance enhancements (2nd Generation Forward
Looking Infrared sensors) during the AIM process.
The AIM XXI program is a
success story for sustainment. This strategy is transferable to other systems.
National Sustainment Maintenance
Another key part of the Army's ability to
sustain its combat systems is our National Maintenance Program. This program is
an overarching maintenance management umbrella to distribute maintenance
workload executed above the tactical level. It allows us to efficiently workload
our depots and recapitalize our aging equipment fleet.
We embarked on an
aggressive equipment recapitalization program that will significantly reduce
O&S costs. Our program focuses our sustainment efforts on the remanufacture,
rebuild, and overhaul of systems, optimizes our core depot capability, and
provides significant and lasting benefits. The mean time between mission
failures and the mean time between mission maintenance actions will improve as
the reliability of the recapitalized fleet increases. This approach enables us
to "zero time" our systems, applies needed modifications, and provides
opportunities and efficiencies for technology insertion. This will reduce
O&S costs and relieve the maintenance burden from the already short number
of maintainers in the field.
Our decision process for input into rebuild is
based on estimated O&S cost thresholds. We plan to begin tracking these
systems by "bumper number" to establish cost effectiveness both before and after
rebuild, ensure the right piece of equipment is overhauled, and that the
overhaul achieves the desired impact on O&S cost reduction. Robust
sustainment programs will provide much needed systems renewal and O&S cost
reductions.
Operating and Support Cost Reduction Program
The Army's
operating and support cost reduction (OSCR) program is an internal effort to
lower costs by funding the redesign of selected high-cost spare parts in order
to increase reliability, reduce manufacturing and repair costs, and optimize the
financial benefit of repair instead of replacement. For example, adding a
replaceable, leading edge erosion strip to the tail rotor of the AH-64 Apache
helicopter extends the life of the blade and is replaceable at depot maintenance
level. Through this program, the Army reduces the frequency with which it must
replace the relatively expensive tail rotor by adding a less expensive component
to absorb wear and tear. The OSCR program currently has 71 active projects. The
Army Audit Agency has projected that the program could save up to $295 million
over the FY98-03 time period.
Army Diagnostics Improvement Program
Another important initiative is our policy to accelerate the application of
embedded diagnostics on new and retrofit equipment. Too often we find cases
where a mechanic troubleshoots an equipment fault and comes to the wrong
conclusion. This results in the removal and replacement of a part that was still
good. The acceleration of embedded diagnostics aims to give our maintenance
crews a better capability to avoid these erroneous removals. We plan to apply
available commercial technology to high cost driver components on our aging
equipment. This will include sensors that measure acceleration and vibration on
key components of the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior, AH-64D Apache, UH-60 Blackhawk, and
CH-47 Chinook aviation platforms; Turbine Engine Diagnostics
with artificial neural network capability that learn from experience for our M1
Abrams tanks; and the application of digital engine and transmission technology
to our truck fleet. These initiatives have proven applications in the commercial
sector and offer great potential for significant returns on investment for the
Army. More importantly, they will provide the architecture to measure component
health parameters, predict failures when the measured parameters are out of
tolerance, and provide our mechanics with a more reliable diagnostic capability.
The positive results of so doing -- enhanced readiness, less cost for
maintenance, less strain on finite transportation, more predictable maintenance
actions, greater soldier safety, more efficient planning of soldiers' limited
maintenance time -- are well worth the effort. The ultimate objective is to
limit, if not eliminate, the need for unscheduled maintenance.
The Army is
currently expanding its use of Controlled Humidity Storage for equipment that
requires infrequent use. The two most promising applications of Controlled
Humidity Storage are the prepositioned equipment sets and equipment assigned to
the Reserve Component. The benefits of this technology are significant. The
equipment requires much less care during periods of storage, is available for
training or operational use on short notice, and the equipment is in much better
shape when needed. The force structure savings and O&S cost avoidance as a
result of expanded Controlled Humidity Storage provides a win-win solution to
the maintenance of infrequently used Army equipment.
Modernization Through
Spares
Modernization Through Spares (MTS) is a good example of our efforts
to reduce the life-cycle costs of existing systems. MTS means no longer buying
spare parts based on outdated specifications and technical data packages, but
rather on performance specifications to take advantage of newer designs and
manufacturing technologies. With this approach, we enhance the performance and
reliability of our weapon systems while using our resources more efficiently. In
the future MTS will become a normal function of the materiel resupply system
through routine maintenance or equipment modification.
The results from some
of the programs using MTS show great promise. For example, at the macro level,
two Patriot missile subsystems, employing obsolete technology, were experiencing
high failure rates, high maintenance costs, and unavailability of outdated
spares. Two MTS projects were initiated to solve these problems. The results
were an expected cost reduction of $84.3 million over three and five years for
the two subsystems respectively, while increasing their reliability by an order
of magnitude and reducing subsystem repairs by 92 percent. At the micro level,
the cost of shock mounts for several helicopter gyroscope systems has been
reduced from $336 per unit to an almost unbelievable $2.48! Further technology
improvements to these gyro systems are expected to save $62 million in long-term
sustainment costs.
Conclusion
In summary, the Army is ready to deploy
and fight and win America's wars. Soldiers on the ground are our nation's
strongest signal of resolve and the ultimate expression of American will. Our
equipment is up to standard, but only through a series of readiness enhancement
and O&S cost reduction initiatives, and the heroic efforts of our soldiers.
We must modernize our equipment and maintain a go-to-war readiness or, sometime
in the future, the Army's readiness may be degraded to a level that is
unacceptable to the nation.
END
LOAD-DATE:
March 2, 1999 
