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March 9, 2000, Thursday

TYPE: COMMITTEE HEARING

LENGTH: 18159 words

COMMITTEE: MILITARY PROCUREMENT SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE ARMED SERVICES

HEADLINE: U.S. REPRESENTATIVE DUNCAN HUNTER (R-CA) HOLDS HEARING WITH THE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE ARMY PROGRAM TRANSFORMATION

LOCATION: WASHINGTON, D.C.

BODY:
HOUSE ARMED SERVICE COMMITTEE'S SUBCOMMITTEE ON MILITARY

PROCUREMENT HOLDS A JOINT HEARING WITH HOUSE ARMED SERVICES

COMMITTEE'S SUBCOMMITTEE ON MILITARY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

ON ARMY PROGRAMS AND TRANSFORMATION

MARCH 9, 2000

SPEAKERS:

MILITARY PROCUREMENT SUBCOMMITTEE:

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE DUNCAN HUNTER (R-CA), CHAIRMAN

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FLOYD SPENCE (R-SC)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE BOB STUMP (R-AZ)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JAMES V. HANSEN (R-UT)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JIM SAXTON (R-NJ)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JAMES M. TALENT (R-MO)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE TERRY EVERETT (R-AL)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE J.C. WATTS, JR. (R-OK)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE WILLIAM M. "MAC" THORNBERRY (R-TX)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE LINDSEY O. GRAHAM (R-SC)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JIM RYUN (R-KS)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JIM GIBBONS (R-NV)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE MARY BONO (R-CA)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JOSEPH R. PITTS (R-PA)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ROBIN HAYES (R-NC)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVES NORMAN SISISKY (D-VA), RANKING MEMBER

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE IKE SKELTON (D-MO)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JOHN M. SPRATT, JR. (D-SC)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE LANE EVANS (D-IL)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH (D-IL)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE THOMAS H. ALLEN (D-ME)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JIM TURNER (D-TX)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ADAM SMITH (D-WA)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JAMES H. MALONEY (D-CT)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE MIKE MCINTYRE (D-NC)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE CYNTHIA MCKINNEY (D-GA)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ELLEN TAUSCHER (D-CA)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ROBERT BRADY (D-PA)

MILITARY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT SUBCOMMITTEE:

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE CURT WELDON (R-PA), CHAIRMAN

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ROSCOE G. BARTLETT (R-MD)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE STEVEN T. KUYKENDALL (R-CA)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE DON SHERWOOD (R-PA)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JOHN R. KASICH (R-OH)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE HERBERT H. BATEMAN (R-VA)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JOEL HEFLEY (R-CO)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JOHN M. MCHUGH (R-NY)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE HOWARD P. "BUCK" MCKEON (R-CA)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JOHN N. HOSTETTLER (R-IN)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE SAXBY CHAMBLISS (R-GA)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE VAN HILLEARY (R-TN)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JOE SCARBOROUGH (R-FL)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE WALTER B. JONES (R-NC), VICE CHAIR

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE BOB RILEY (R-AL)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE OWEN B. PICKETT (D-VA), RANKING MEMBER

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE GENE TAYLOR (D-MS)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE MARTIN T. MEEHAN (D-MA)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE PATRICK J. KENNEDY (D-RI)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE SILVESTRE REYES (D-TX)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE THOMAS H. ALLEN (D-ME)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE VIC SNYDER (D-AR)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JIM TURNER (D-TX)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE LORETTA SANCHEZ (D-CA)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE CIRO D. RODRIGUEZ (D-TX)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ROBERT E. ANDREWS (D-NJ)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE BARON P. HILL (D-IN)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JOHN B. LARSON (D-CT)

PAUL HOEPER, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE ARMY FOR

ACQUISITION, LOGISTICS AND TECHNOLOGY

MIKE ANDREWS, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE ARMY

FOR RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY

LIEUTENANT GENERAL PAUL KERN, MILITARY DEPUTY TO THE

ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE ARMY FOR

ACQUISITION, LOGISTICS AND TECHNOLOGY

*

HUNTER: The hearing will come to order.

Today, the Military Procurement and Research and Development Subcommittees will receive testimony from U.S. Army witnesses on the Service's fiscal year 2001 modernization budget and the resources needed to start the Army's transformation from a heavy and light force structure to a more medium weight, highly deployable force. Today's Army is challenged to meet all the deployments that the Administration calls upon it to make because of limited force structure and the limited resources it has been allocated for recapitalizing and modernizing the force.

The Army's combined fiscal year 2001 procurement and research and development budgets total $14.7 billion. While this amount sounds like a large sum of money, it is only $200 million over the amount appropriated for the Army in fiscal year 2000.

Accordingly, the chief of staff of the Army has submitted to the chairman of the full committee a fiscal year 2001 unfunded requirements list totaling $5.5 billion, of which $4.5 billion is for modernization alone. To make matters more difficult, the Army is allocated only 16 percent of the total Defense Department's fiscal year 2001 modernization budget.

And, you know, the recent hearings we've had with former Secretary Jim Schlesinger and others and the CBO have been to the effect -- the testimony has been to the effect that we're anywhere from $20 billion to $50 billion, $60 billion short, per year, in terms of modernization funding. And the Army has a very, very big piece of that.

This past Monday, testifying before the other body, Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre, stated that, and I quote, "$60 billion does not provide enough money to recapitalize the force," unquote. He went on to say that the Pentagon needs at least $10 billion to $15 billion more for modernization to replace its aging systems with new ones. DOD figures indicate that the fiscal year 2001 request falls significantly short of the numbers needed to replace tactical aircraft, armored vehicles and helicopters.

Fiscal year 2001 is a pivotal year for the Army in modernization. The new chief of staff of the Army, General Eric Shinseki, has outlined a vision for transformation of the Army from a heavier force structure to a lighter and more lethal combat force. This is driven by the fact that the Army must fulfill an urgent requirement to the National Command Authority to provide a highly deployable unit that can be rapidly sent into a number of contingencies, from peacekeeping operations to low intensity conflict.

As a result, the chief of staff has outlined an initiative to field the first medium-weight brigade at Fort Lewis, Washington, by December 2001 and a total of five interim medium brigades not later than 2003. To begin this effort, the Army has requested $537 million in the fiscal year 2001 budget request for the procurement of a family of interim armored vehicles.

While the secretary of defense has publicly endorsed the Army's new modernization effort as one that meets the nation's emerging requirements thus far, the Army has been forced to self-fund its initiative within its historical "share" of the budget. To implement the chief's vision for transformation, the service has terminated seven critical modernization programs and is restructuring two others for a total savings of $382 million in fiscal year 2001.

Of note, the top two modernization programs on the chief's fiscal year 2001 unfunded requirements list, the Wolverine Heavy Assault Bridge and the Grizzly Obstacle Breacher, which total $185 million in fiscal year 2001 shortfalls, were two of the seven terminated programs.

While the Army is to be commended for laying out a bold transformation initiative, half of the cost of this initiative is unfunded, and many questions remain about how the Army will procure all the medium vehicles required to field a total of five interim brigades by fiscal year 2003.

In conclusion, the Army has a vision for transformation, however, there is no definitive plan that has been presented to Congress on the expenditure of modernization funds to field the interim brigades or future medium brigades.

Moreover, the Army needs to provide adequate justification for the $537 million for the procurement of the interim family of vehicles in the fiscal year 2001 budget request.

In today's hearing, I look forward to a frank and open discussion with our witnesses in hopes of gaining insights into these concerns and answering our questions on the service's modernization plan and where the additional funds will come from to pay for the Army's transformation.

We are pleased to welcome today with us Dr. Paul Hoeper. Thank you, Secretary Hoeper, assistant secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology, thank you for being with us today. Dr. Michael Andrews, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for Research and Development, and also Lieutenant General Paul Kern, military deputy to the assistant secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology. General Kern, thank you for being with us also.

Before we hear from our witnesses, I'd like to call on the gentleman from Pennsylvania, my good colleague and chairman of the Military Research and Development Subcommittee, who is holding this hearing jointly with us, Mr. Weldon, for his opening statement.

Curt.

WELDON: I thank my good friend and chairman of the Procurement Committee and welcome you all on behalf of the R&D Subcommittee. We have had a practice over the past six years of doing joint hearings in key issues such as we're discussing today with the Army, and I look forward to hearing from each of you and appreciate the good work that you've done on our behalf.

As you all know, and I echo all of Duncan's comments here, as you know, the House Armed Services Committee, under the leadership of Floyd Spence, with bipartisan every step of the way, has increased defense spending by $43 billion over the president's request over the last six-year time period. Heaven knows where we would be if we hadn't done that, even though, each year, we were criticized for putting more money into the military than the military requested.

In fact, it was kind of ironic that a month ago, former Defense Secretary Perry, when I asked that question, said -- I said, "Well, where would we be today, Secretary Perry, if we had listened to you when you criticized us for putting more money in?" He said, "You'd be a lot worse off than you are today." Because, as you know, every year, he criticized us and then took credit for those increases the following year, and we kept putting money in the fund that we knew the service chiefs and people like yourselves were asking for, and yet it's still not enough.

In fact, Secretary Perry believes we're $10 billion to $15 billion short this next fiscal year. Even above -- even with the president's requested increase, he still believes that we're short of overall funding.

But what really has bothered many of us, and on the R&D Subcommittee, especially, is the frustration that the department has not acknowledged any negative impact resulting from steady declines in R&D funding. Our R&D budgets are down by about 25 percent.

I do want to commend the Army, because it's the one service that has given us the insights into the impact on Army readiness and modernization caused by the unacceptably low defense budget of the past five years. You've been very candid and forthright in that regard.

And the impact of this modernization train wreck is already hitting us. The chairman mentioned canceling seven major programs. Others have been cut back, such as Crusader. But I think they're only the beginning of what you're going to have to face as you face some really difficult challenges.

As you digitize the Army for the 21st century, as you continue your great work in information technology, and, Mr. Secretary, you know, I think the Army is the leader of the entire federal government in terms of information dominance. You're center down at Fort Belvoir, the legal facility, is second to none. You have a far greater capability, not only than any other services, but either the FBI or the CIA, and that's because of your foresight and because the leadership of the three of you sitting here today.

And you've also done an important thing, as the chairman mentioned, in shifting your modernization efforts, trying to come up with a new vision for what the Army has to be in the 21st century, even though my own feeling is that you're not really -- we're not seeing the evidence of real support from within the Pentagon itself. A lot of lip service, a lot of talk -- you're out there doing the visionary thinking for the future, but I don't think, to this date, that I've seen the support coming from DOD the way it should be.

In fact, I find it difficult to understand how the Army will be able to sustain all of its requirements and complete the transformation when you only receive 16 percent of the department's modernization funding. I mean, that's outrageous.

How are you going to do that when you only get -- when you get the smallest slice out of the pie, in terms of the Department of Defense, and yet you were the first ones called for all of these deployments. And, as you know, in the past eight years, we're now into our 34th major deployment, compared to eight in the previous 40 years, and all of those deployments involve Army personnel. And yet you're only getting 16 percent of the modernization funding.

So we're very concerned on both sides of the aisle. We're very concerned in both committees, and we're willing to -- and looking forward to hearing from you today, and asking you candidly, on a personal level if not professional, to share with us your own feelings, and, also, as we begin to look for some additional funding for defense, to give us -- which I know Duncan wants and I want, also -- your list of where, if you had extra money, you would put it to meet the needs that are not going to be met by the current budget projections of the president's budget.

So we thank you for being here. I look forward to listening to your testimony. I will have to leave for part of the hearing, but my thoughts are with you, and my support will be with you.

Thank you.

HUNTER: Thank you, Curt.

Now, I'd like to turn to my good colleague, the very articulate gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Sisisky.

SISISKY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Because of the time frame, and a lot of people have a lot of things to do, I have a pretty long statement, and I would ask that the entire statement be placed into the record.

And, gentlemen, knowing the problems that you face, you're not just asking to do something for less, but to do something with the same, and that's an unusual thing, but, hopefully, you're up to it, and we certainly wish you a lot of luck in that. And I would yield to my colleague from Missouri for a moment.

HUNTER: Without objection, and your whole statement will go into the record.

SKELTON: Thank you for yielding to me for a moment. Would the chairman please time me for that moment. I'd appreciate it.

Two things, quickly: Number one, when former Secretary Bill Perry testified a few days ago, he said that the procurement level for the budget is $10 billion to $20 billion short. My recollection is that the unfunded numbers from all of the services total right at $16 billion to $17 billion short.

I testified before the Budget Committee regarding Secretary Perry's recommendations. I hope that there was an open ear over there.

SKELTON: Along the same line, because of budgetary constraints, the Grizzly and Wolverine systems were terminated, and I understand they're the top two of the Army chief of staff's unfunded list. Not just because I represent Fort Leonard Wood, but the Army Corps of Engineers helps and did help, and the entire Desert Storm would have been different but for the engineers and what they did, and the Grizzly and Wolverines systems are bringing them up to date.

So I hope that, in your comments today, you'd be kind enough to address those. Thank you for the moment.

HUNTER: Certainly. We always appreciate the ranking member joining us and appreciate his input.

And, now, the other gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Pickett.

PICKETT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you providing this opportunity for us to hear more about the Army's modernization plans and priorities, and I welcome our distinguished witnesses here today.

Given the federal budget limitations under the existing discretionary budget caps and recognizing the financial pressure arising from either maintaining or replacing rapidly aging weapons systems, I feel that the administration's overall budget is perhaps about as good as we can do for Army research and development, test and evaluation. This is not to say that it's adequate.

The Army's portion of the total RDT&E budget remains relatively small, and as you, Mr. Chairman, have previously noted, the Army receives, proportionately, half as much for their modernization budget as the other military services. Along with that, this paltry share must be stretched to accommodate both near-term and long-term modernization goals, at the same time the Army has embarked on a major transportation initiative -- transformation initiative to create a more deployable, survivable and lethal capability.

Today's hearing should focus on the specifics of the new Army vision and its proposal to evolve from a force of legacy systems to both an interim and then an objective force in the future, and, to be sure, it's a bold vision. Fielding five to eight brigade combat teams at Fort Lewis, Washington, utilizing this new concept, will be a huge challenge, and I wonder if the investments are there at the present time to meet this challenge.

I'm encouraged that the Army has entered several teaming arrangements with other agencies in an effort to leverage their existing resources and seek answers to the questions about the objective forces' maneuverability, lethality and survivability. I also have a positive view about the Army's renewed interest in tactical UAVs, battlefield interoperability, and the use of robotics. I hope today's hearing will yield additional specifics on all of these topics.

A number of questions remain unanswered. If we are to embark on a major research and development effort to equip the objective force, I believe Congress needs to know more about the specifics and the schedule of this vision.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses.

HUNTER: I thank the gentleman. Secretary Hoeper, all statements will be entered into the record without objection, and the floor is yours.

HOEPER: Thank you very much, Chairman Hunter. Thank you, Chairman Weldon, members of the committee, for this opportunity.

With me today are Lieutenant General Paul Kern, who is my military deputy and also the director of the Army Acquisition Career Management. Dr. Mike Andrews is the deputy assistant secretary of the Army for research and technology and also the Army's chief scientist.

We appreciate the fact that -- we've submitted a joint statement and appreciate the fact that that will be entered into the record.

Mr. Chairman, this has been a year of bold, sweeping changes for the Army. We have embarked on an ambitious transformation to better align our capabilities with the international security environment we see emerging in this century.

Our plan is to transform the Army in three major phases: an initial phase, going on right now at Fort Lewis; an interim capability and an objective force. Lieutenant General Kern will discuss the initial and interim phases, and Dr. Andrews will discuss the objective force phase.

Overall, our Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology community has a critical role, although not the only role to play in this transformation. Our transformation -- our changes have not been limited to transformation.

When we took on the logistics function last year, the Army clearly placed responsibility for managing life-cycle costs on new and fielded systems in my office. This holistic approach to systems development, acquisition and sustainment permeates all we do and every decision that we make.

A shining example of this is the Army's approach to maintain today's land force dominance capabilities. We do this through a combination of recapitalization programs for our legacy systems and the fielding of new, already programmed equipment.

Recapitalization of legacy equipment, by Army definition, and this definition has been agreed upon throughout the Army, is the maintenance and systematic upgrade of currently fielded systems to insure operational readiness and a zero time, zero mile system. Our objectives include extending service life, reducing operating and support costs, improving systems reliability, maintainability, safety and efficiency, and enhancing capability.

The Army's modernization plan, which we will send you early next month, places great emphasis on recapitalization of our aging equipment. Our recapitalization strategy will partner Army depots with private industry to upgrade and recapitalize several key war fighting systems.

These programs will build upon the success we are experiencing with the Abrams AIM XXI program -- AIM stands for Abrams Integrated Management program -- which is a partnership between the Anniston Army Depot and General Dynamics Land Systems. Additionally, we are buying new engines for the Abrams to reduce fuel consumption by up to 30 percent, while increasing reliability.

We are modifying Bradleys to increase their lethality, reliability, and survivability through digitization, adding night- vision capabilities and other significant improvements. In aviation, we continue to upgrade the Apache attack helicopters to the Longbow variant, while pursuing recapitalization for the Blackhawk and Chinook helicopters.

To provide important logistical capabilities to the force, we are upgrading our fleet of heavy expanded mobility tactical trucks, our HEMTTs, with improved engines, anti-lock brakes, and load handling systems.

Digitizing the Army overlays every aspect of modernization. We are committed to acquiring digital capabilities to support our soldiers, our units, and our ability to communicate securely and effectively. The process of applying information technologies to allow war fighters to share a constantly updated common view of the battle space is an ongoing modernization priority that relates directly to the transformation.

We continue to develop the Comanche helicopter and the Crusader howitzer. Both are vitally important to Army modernization.

Comanche will provide a new and much needed capability to conduct armed reconnaissance around the clock and in adverse weather conditions. It will significantly expand the Army's ability to conduct operations in a wide range of scenarios.

We have restructured the Crusader program to gain vital improvements in indirect fire support capability and weight reduction through increased use of titanium and changes to its suspension and power plant.

The Army continues to develop and modernize its theater missile defense systems to protect our forces against the growing missile defense -- missile threat. Our successes with the THAAD and the PAC- 3, the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 flight testing, have proven hit- to-kill as a concept.

Lessons learned from these programs will be applied to the medium extended air defense system, the MEADS program, which will be our next generation in effective missile defense. The Army is committed to fielding these critical force protection systems as soon as possible.

All of you have pointed out this morning that the Army is the world's predominate land combat force. As we continue to meet the needs of the nation, we ask for the continued support of all in this room, so that the Army can continue to be persuasive in peace and invincible in war.

This concludes my opening remarks. With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to have General Kern and Dr. Andrews brief you on the transformation. We will then be pleased to answer questions.

HUNTER: Thank you, Secretary Hoeper, and, General Kern, go right ahead.

KERN: Mr. Chairmen, Congressmen Hunter and Weldon, thank you for letting us present to you the Army's programs today. It is always an honor to appear before this committee because you certainly have helped us in the past, and we look forward to working with you and answering your questions in the future.

This is an exciting year to be part of the Army's research and development acquisition. As you have noted, we are in a process of both sustaining our current force, the greatest Army that there is in the world today, an Army which I noted that you have helped by investing almost $84 billion in just our Big-5 systems over the past 10 years.

And that gives you some idea of the order of magnitude of what lies ahead in transforming the Army for the 21st century. That certainly has created an Army today which is recognized around the world as being the best-equipped, best-trained, and the best-led Army, and our goal is to keep it that way.

Our priority is to achieve an objective force design. And, again, your committee has helped us through work with the RDT&E accounts, and Dr. Andrews will provide more detail on that and agreements that we have worked out very recently with the DARPA and other agencies to push that work forward.

That is a very challenging objective, as Dr. Andrews will clarify for you, but it should be kept in mind that that is the priority that we are moving to. And so the interim force is, in fact, a description of a force which we see as meeting an urgent requirement today and, therefore, is an interim measure to establish that capability as quickly as possible in the United States Army.

I should also point out that the development programs which you have funded for the past few years are coming to fruition. The Comanche helicopter is about ready to enter its engineering, manufacturing, development phase, and we will hold a review with the defense acquisition executive on that next month. The two prototypes which are flying now have accumulated more than 200 hours and are doing exceedingly well in meeting their capabilities.

The digitization effort, which Lieutenant General Bill Campbell has spearheaded for the United States Army, and, as Congressman Weldon has pointed out, is a leader in information networks across not only Department of Defense but across the whole U.S. government. We are completing our testing at Fort Hood today.

If you went down and visited the Third Corps, you would find them in the middle of an exercise using this digital capability and proceeding on to their next phase of testing, which will be the integration of those systems, our Force XXI battle command systems, our maneuver control systems, which are wrapped up into our Army battle command system, which roll into the integrated systems that fit into the joint world and the global command and control.

All those pieces are moving ahead rapidly today and form a cornerstone of the fielding of the first digital division at Fort Hood, which includes the upgraded Abrams tank, the M1A2 SEP (ph), which is in this year's budget, the Bradley A-3, which is also in this year's budget request, and our FBCB2 and WIN-T (ph), the terrestrial network of information systems which will be part of our first digital division.

I should note to you that that is one of the key performance parameters of the transformation of the brigades at Fort Lewis on those interim brigades. And so one of the objectives that will have to be met will be to integrate those digital systems for command and control into the new platforms and fighting capability of those interim brigades.

KERN: Crusader has been restructured, as noted. After a software problem was discovered last year, we both had to delay that program two years, and we took advantage in doing that to downsize the vehicle, taking some 15 tons off of it, which we were able to do because we had built that through a pro-engineering simulation model which allowed us to quickly re-engineer that to a fighting system.

I should also note it has fired its first full-up round in an automated system very recently, in the past two weeks, successfully, at a range of 40 kilometers.

We also, as noted, have used or have had some problems with the software development there, and we have used the software program, Manager's Network, to help us solve some of those problems. Again, that was funding provided by this committee to help us in that area, and we appreciate that, because it does, in fact, solve some tough software integration issues or help us to solve them.

We have down selected in a competition the tactical unmanned aerial vehicle this year, and now we'll also provide a reconnaissance capability for our current divisions, but also for the interim force and provide a key part of unmanned reconnaissance -- which the Army participated in in the battlefield in Kosovo in this year with our Hunter unmanned aerial vehicle, doing a great deal of work for that effort.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: A superb system, I might add, the Hunter.

KERN: Thank you, sir.

Our chem demil programs are also progressing, which I also note, because there's a large investment that you all have made to produce a safer country. And so we have made substantial progress in that area and have almost 90 percent of that entire stockpile today under contract for destruction.

The initial phases, which were started up on Johnston Island, will come to closure this year, at the end of the year. And our production today at Tooele has exceeded by almost three-fold what we are doing on Johnston Island, and that capability today is destroyed close to 18 percent of the total stockpile. So we are making this a safer nation in a process as our executive agent in that area.

With the focus we have today on the transformation, I think is one which has captured everyone's imagination on moving ahead very quickly with an aggressive program, as I said, to meet an urgent shortfall of the United States Army. And that is the ability to strategically deploy our forces rapidly anywhere in the world.

General Shinseki and Secretary Caldera have set out some very tough objectives for us in the research, development, and acquisition area to meet in the next few years. We are beginning that by the transformation of the initial brigades at Fort Lewis, in which we are using loaned equipment under NATO loan agreements, to learn how to operate with smaller, lighter weight equipment.

We are also preparing and have submitted to Congress a letter requesting us to move ahead with the $100 million which you appropriated last year, at the beginning of the transformation project, to acquire new equipment, which will be part of the interim force, to replace that loaned equipment, and to establish five to eight brigades for the United States Army.

We have a draft request for proposal, which is under review right now, and we hope to convert that to a final request for proposal and put it out on the street for bid in about two weeks, after review by the defense acquisition executive. We will do that with your concurrence in the response to the letters which we have submitted to Congress on how we will use that $100 million.

That will be a full and open competition, and that will allow us to choose the best equipment to meet that interim force capability. There has been a number of discussions that have occurred on whether it's wheeled or track. We have not made that decision yet.

We have, at Fort Knox this past year, in December and January -- had platform demonstrations in which both types of vehicles made their appearance. We have written a requirements document which meets our requirement to be a rapidly deployable force, to be able to fight in the stability and support operations, those type operations which you see in Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as to fit into a divisional structure for the major theaters of war.

And so the proposals that we are looking for will be able to fit into that urgent requirement, and that is what we are seeking your approval for to move ahead this year. Every day that we wait on making that selection and then finally awarding that bid is a day that we don't meet in solving that urgent requirement.

And so we have a great sense of urgency in the United States Army to get on with this. We have seen what's available off the shelf around not only this country, but around the world, and we have some, we believe, good solutions to the problems that we are trying to solve.

So that is the objective force step that we are taking, which we call the interim brigades to be fielded at Fort Lewis, and we are prepared to discuss that in any level of detail that you wish this morning.

But I must come back again to the point that where we would really like to get to is our objective force design. It is not a platform replacement. It is a new Army for the 21st Century.

It is an Army designed to fight in the environment which we see today, not the Cold War, which we have designed the current Army to fight in and then have adapted to the world as it's evolved. It will take substantial investments. We recognize that. It will take substantial work by our program managers and by industry, and we hope to work with Congress on doing that as quickly as possible.

Sir, I thank you for your time and attention and offer Dr. Andrews.

ANDREWS: Chairman Hunter, Chairman Weldon, members of the committee, I thank you for this opportunity to discuss how the Army's science and technology program is enabling objective force.

Mr. Chairman, it is my privilege to report to you that the Army's scientists and engineers ...

HUNTER: Dr. Andrews, you might pull that mike up a little closer, sir.

ANDREWS: Thank you. It is my privilege to report to you that the Army scientists and engineers and our industrial partners and academic partners are excited about the drive to achieve the Army's new vision for transformation. We are committed to provide the (inaudible) this transformation.

The Army's chief of staff, General Shinseki, has asked us to answer some very tough questions about achieving the objective force by the 2012 timeframe. We are challenged to provide him a comprehensive set of answers by 2003.

Perhaps the best way to view our focus on the objective force is to understand the Army's and its technical community's emphasis on developing and fielding an entirely new land combat capability that we call the Future Combat Systems. FCS is not just a platform. We are not developing a tank, or an artillery system, or an infantry carrier.

FCS is a system of battlefield capabilities in which the whole exceeds the sum of its parts. Fielding FCS enables a true paradigm shift, perhaps as significant as the development of the tank or the helicopter.

Fielding FCS technologies will make heavy forces lighter, lighter forces more lethal, and reduce our logistics demands. As you are aware, we have a diverse portfolio of technology investments to maintain today's land force dominance, and we have committed to invest about $500 million per year over the next six years to achieve this Future Combat Systems capability.

Fielding the FCS for the objective force will require us to overcome many technology challenges. Let me talk to you about one critical technology challenge, survivability.

We must provide our soldiers the lethality of the Abrams tank and survivability all within a 20-ton vehicle. Survivability, lethality, sensors, and communications are synergistically linked in the FCS. The intent is to see before being seen, shoot first, and kill the enemy first.

I brought some technology samples to show you how far we have already come in achieving lightweight advanced armors for survivability and to tell you how far we need to go. This first block that I show you here is a cross section from the Bradley fighting vehicle -- weighs in at 55 pounds per square foot.

This is a ceramic armor piece -- does the same ballistic protection, 25 pounds per square foot, now transitioned from science and technology into the Crusader turret. We're on a path for the Future Combat System to provide about a 15 pounds per square foot dramatic reduction to get the survivability we need for the Future Combat System.

To assure success in overcoming all the technology barriers we have for Future Combat System, we have partnered with DARPA in a collaborative program. We are enthusiastic about our collaboration, because their reputation for pushing a technology envelope is just what we need, and for the opportunity to combine our resources to focus on this important Army problem.

General Shinseki has thrown down the gauntlet, challenged the Army to transform. The Army S&T community has accepted this challenge for the objective force and energized all our resources to meet it. We are accelerating the pace of transformation.

Mr. Chairman, members of the committees, on behalf of all the Army scientists and engineers, I thank you for your support.

HUNTER: Thank you, Dr. Andrews.

And for the members, we have two votes, one 17 minute followed by a five. So we'll break here in a few minutes and go to that vote.

First, Secretary Hoeper, you folks have a fairly small piece of the procurement R&D budget. You may have looked at some of the testimony to the effect that -- by a number of people now, from CBO to Jim Schlesinger to now John Hamre speaking up that we are -- we're not modernizing at a rapid pace, in fact, not even at a moderate pace.

And former Secretary Schlesinger said it pretty well. He said you don't have to be a rocket scientist. You just take these -- all these old taxicabs that we've got now, basically, our systems, and you lay down their projected lives, and then you match that up against how fast we're replacing them.

And he came up, with the group that was testifying with him, with procurement requirements upwards of 100 billion bucks a year. CBO said you need about 90 to replace these old systems.

You can't replace what you have. You can't even come close with the budget that you have. Is that right?

HOEPER: We would be very -- well, we probably cannot replace all the systems that are aging with new systems with our current budget. That's correct.

HUNTER: Well, you can't even replace them at a steady state and keep anywhere close to a median age on these systems.

HOEPER: Sir, we are, in fact, trying to address that right now in our PALM-02 submissions as part of -- for the recapitalization effort that I mentioned. We're trying to figure out how we can recapitalize our legacy systems and what ...

HUNTER: Well, you can't ...

HOEPER: ... and what money we will need to budget for that.

HUNTER: You're going to need a ton of money.

HOEPER: We're going to need quite a bit of money.

HUNTER: Well, have you got it -- you haven't analyzed that out?

HOEPER: I've actually been working pretty much every week on doing that and towards our PALM submission. I wrote you a PALM to try to figure out exactly what we're going to need to recapitalize to approach a steady state.

The other part of that is a judgment about whether we need the same number of vehicles as we move into the transformation. The transformation vehicles will also -- will affect what we need in terms of recapitalization.

HUNTER: Yes. Well, there's always other aspects to this formulation, but, let me tell you, you can't recapitalize with a tenth of the number of platforms with the dollars you've got. I mean, you guys are falling off the cliff.

HOEPER: We certainly can't buy new ones, so ...

HUNTER: Well, you can't buy new ones. You can't fix old ones.

HOEPER: We have to do our best to fix old ones, and ...

HUNTER: But you can't even come close, Secretary Hoeper.

HOEPER: I think we're going to be very challenged in this area, you know. I think, as I look at it, we're going to have to figure out the challenge that we have, as you said, to try to do more, to try to remain the world's preeminent Army with relatively small resources, and that's a tremendous challenge for us.

HUNTER: You should be -- I think you should be pounding the table for more money, you know. Sometimes, there's a substitute for dollars, and sometimes, there's no substitute. And whether you go lighter or faster or quicker or more lethal, you're going to need a lot more money, and this transformation is going to be an expensive thing.

Dr. Andrews, you know, 1950, when the North Koreans invaded the South, and they came down and knocked the 25th Division around, captured the commander, General Dean, our bazookas were bouncing off their tanks. We were developing some great things. We didn't have them fielded, and we paid for that heavily.

The Army, in my estimation, has, at times, been the master of R&Ding stuff forever. We need fast fielding capability, and we've -- that's always been a goal, I know, of your acquisition people. But it is not one we've realized.

And you just showed us this nice, brand new stuff here. When are we going to have it? Are you going to be around, or will our children be around when that thing gets fielded?

ANDREWS: Sir, as I mentioned, this ceramic technology was introduced into the Crusader turret two years ago. So that technology is already in use. This technology for the Bradley has been there for some time.

The new technologies for the Future Combat System for ceramic armor also will be there in the timeframe inserted for acquisition.

HUNTER: OK. I'd like you, for the record, to go over some of your technologies that you think are important, some vital technologies the Army has developed recently, maybe the top five or six, when they started developing them, and when they're going to be fielded, if you could, for us.

OK. Thank you very much. Gentlemen, we're going to break for this vote. I think we've got about five minutes or so, and when we come back, Mr. Sisisky is up.

(RECESS)

HUNTER: Hey, folks, we're going to resume, and before I turn to my good friend, Norm Sisisky, just one -- I just wanted General Kern to have a shot at the question that I asked, and that is aren't you massively underfunded in terms of modernization? Have you come up with a ball park figure in terms of what you need each year to maintain a steady state modernization of the force structure that you have now, assuming you didn't have to buy new stuff, and what is it?

KERN: Mr. Chairman, I would start by what you referred to earlier as the chief of staff's unfunded requirements, which outline over $5 billion in the '01 period. So when our deputy secretary, Dr. Hamre, said there's $10 billion, I'd like to be sure of that.

I think the Army has a considerable problem. The AIM program, which was referred to, which is the rebuild of our Abrams tank -- we're only doing 100 a year. So all of our sustainment and recapitalization of those efforts are moving along at a very low pace and will take us 10 to 20 years at that rate just to move out and capture forces that are in the field today.

My estimate for recapitalization has been -- and I've stated in previous testimony that the Army's been $3 billion to $5 billion a year short of those dollars prior to our transformation. And so trying to both change the force and keep the current force ready, I believe the unfunded requirement, our previous testimony, and what the deputy secretary has said is that there is a minimum of $5 billion a year that the Army today is short.

And I could add to that on how quickly you would like to overcome those deficits.

HUNTER: Well, yes. Most of the unfunded requirements list that you go through are what I would call short term readiness oriented items. I mean, you don't have large -- at least, my recollection of your list is you don't have a lot of big ticket platforms.

KERN (?): That's correct.

HUNTER: You don't have a lot of modernization in there. Is that right?

KERN (?): That is correct. There is not a lot of modernization ...

HUNTER: So the problem is that's a short term, nuts and bolts, so let's get ready -- generators, ammunition, training, et cetera, aside from replacing these big old taxicabs that are wearing out. You must be putting together a blueprint as to how you're going to replace your platforms, right?

KERN (?): We have -- at least the three efforts that were described to you earlier on recapitalizing the force, transforming the force, and getting to the objective force that are occurring simultaneously, all of those are in process today. The recapitalization piece of it, which Secretary Hoeper referred to earlier, is getting back to bringing the current force to the capability of sustaining it in the field at the readiness levels that we need to meet our requirements.

I believe that the right answer to that is that we're short about $3 billion to $5 billion a year right now.

HUNTER: So, basically, consistent with the unfunded requirements list that you sent out of a little over $5 billion for this year.

KERN (?) That's correct. Now ...

HUNTER: Your second problem is your modernization or recapitalizing your platforms.

KERN (?): That's correct, and that's broken down into not only sustaining the current force, but then acquiring a new force. We believe that the brigades that we are going to acquire -- and we want to acquire them as a complete brigade set -- are going to be about $1.4 billion a year. We have only been able to fund half of that in our current budget, so you could say that half of that is still a requirement that is left unfunded.

We have an objective force which we have yet to design, which Dr. Andrews described, which we are funding, we believe, in science and technology efforts about $500 million, but we've got to re-prioritize our own funding internally to be able to do that.

So that means we're short in some areas -- aviation is one -- in future requirements. We would like to do that more aggressively and get more innovative technologies into it, so there's probably a science and technology piece to that that's short this year about $50 million.

I mentioned earlier that Congress appropriated almost $85 billion to just build five systems for us in the past 10 years that got us through the Cold War. And we are approaching that yet today, because all of the systems that we are building that I've described to you as unfunded -- the Apache Longbow, the AH-64D, is a rebuilt Apache alpha model and not completely rebuilt. We need to go back and look at how we do that.

The Abrams tank, the M1A2 SEP (ph), is a rebuilt M1 tank as well, so all of our systems today are rebuilds of the equipment which we've already acquired. There is no new equipment in that with the exception of a few smaller systems, such as the Javelin and the Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle.

So you do not have in our budget request yet, with the exception of the initial request we've made in this budget for the transformation of those brigades at Fort Lewis, the first step in that process of rebuilding our equipment.

HUNTER: OK. Thank you.

HUNTER: Mr. Sisisky.

SISISKY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

While you're on the unfunded list, from today's view, are any items on that list more important to the Army than things that made it through the funding process, you know, and what funding items would you trade for the top unfunded?

If you don't know the answer now, you can submit it. Or you wouldn't trade any. Is that ...

KERN (?): I think that we have funded what is most important, and we have prioritized what we have been unable to fund in order of priority.

UNIDENTIFIED WITNESS: I think I would add to that, if I could, Mr. Secretary, that our chief of staff said yesterday the first two items on it, the Wolverine and Grizzly -- the Army would have preferred to fund it. But we had to pay our bills, and so they are at the top of our unfunded list, but they didn't make the cut line for us. So, in terms of priorities, I think that's about right. That's what our chief said yesterday.

SISISKY: General Kern, I think you talked in your statement about the Army's transformation focus on lighter air mobile forces, particularly those that can be deployed by the C-130. Am I correct in that?

KERN: Yes, sir. That's correct.

SISISKY: The 130 would be ...

KERN: The C-130 is the baseline that we are using.

SISISKY: Well, how are you going to -- it's what fits the 130. I mean, does an -- an Abrams tank doesn't fit a 130, does it?

KERN: No, sir. It does not.

SISISKY: So if that's going to be your centerpiece, what are you going to transport them in? And you fix -- I mean, I'm not trying to trap you in anything. I'm trying to get my mind straight on how do you do that. If the 130 is the air mobility piece, then how do you transport these things?

KERN: Clearly, what the Air Force has in its inventory today, the C-17s, the C-141s, the C-5s, and the C-130s. The 141s are on their way out, and there's a limited number of C-17s and C-5s.

They will all take our -- the C-17s and C-5s -- take our outsized equipment, and we're designed around that. We have recognized, in looking at operations such as the Kosovo, that we need to be able to rapidly deploy our force, even when there are no airfields available. And so the C-130 not only -- not because of its size characteristics, but also allows us to operate in areas where there are not prepared airstrips, and that has become a key factor.

The Army Science Board has also done a number of studies for us over the past few years, looking at air transport ability, as well as fast sealift and other transport abilities. When we look at the commercial sector, we'll have far more airlift available than we will in the Defense Department.

The C-130 size ...

SISISKY: But that's ...

KERN: ... when you start getting down into that ...

SISISKY: But the real mobility in the 130 is its ability to land in places that you can't land anther aircraft ...

KERN: That's correct.

SISISKY: ... I think, so ...

KERN: That is the key factor, and that drives the size, weight characteristics of the systems you're looking for, and that's why we did the platform ...

SISISKY: I'm going to come back to the budget a minute, because time is limited. General Shinseki announced the transformation in October, and that was five months ago. Did you have time to fully implement it in your budgeting for '01? But the basic question is do you have the ability to put it into FYDP in the five-year plan?

HOEPER (?): I think we do. I think we have made that rudder (ph) correction very quickly. We have implemented it in the '01 budget. We are getting ready to release an RFP for the interim vehicles in the very near future, and we do have it in the -- we are putting it in the five-year plan in an effective way. We've worked very, very hard to do that ...

SISISKY: So you really terminate ...

HOEPER (?): ... requirement, and we are treating it like an urgent requirement.

SISISKY: You will terminate the planned procurement of systems that don't fit the new vision. Is that correct?

HOEPER (?): Yes.

SISISKY: Now, Mr. Hamre, who's been quoted here today -- we quote in another few months -- recently said that the winner take all competitions may no longer be feasible. He was speaking, obviously, of the aircraft industry. But the Army relies on a number of similarly specialized manufacturers.

What do you think? Is the winner take all healthy for your suppliers, or is it better that you look at a more formalized teaming arrangement?

HOEPER (?): Most of the time, what we do see is teaming, in fact. That's the reality across the defense industrial base today. I think when you -- you do have to look at the health of the industrial base, and that will vary, depending on what you buy.

For example, in this interim procurement that we're embarking on, we're going to buy perhaps 2,000 vehicles, and that's not a great many. We are not requiring one winner, one contract in it.

We might -- there might be one winner, one contract, or we might find that different competitors provide value in different variants. We're going to buy the best for the Army, but we probably will down select to the contractor or contractors that will produce those vehicles.

On the other hand, if there were a much longer procurement, we might try to have a dual source. You have to look at each individual procurement to see what the best way to proceed would be.

SISISKY: Mr. Chairman, with your permission, just one more question, and I want to ask it for the ranking member, and I think he mentioned it, and you mentioned it in your testimony. It's the decision to terminate the Grizzly and the Wolverine systems. They are the top two on the chief's unfunded list, and the engineer corps was counting on these systems to enable our forces to operate in unprepared terrain. Would you like to comment for the ranking member?

HOEPER (?): We terminated as an Army -- and I, personally, terminated these with great reluctance. These are systems that are very valuable. They are not as high a priority as the transformation, but they are right afterwards. We terminated these with great reluctance, and we'd like to have them back if more money were to be available.

SISISKY: Very good. Thank you.

HUNTER: Thank you.

Mr. Everett.

EVERETT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the panel for being here today.

Mr. Secretary, we're looking forward to the modernization plan when it comes in April. And, as General Kern says, you know I live about four miles from the enterprise gate at Fort Rucker, Alabama, and so I'm going to talk about helicopters and Army aviation.

One of the businesses I used to be in was the home building business, so I'm going to start with some foundation questions. How does Army aviation fit into the Army's transition strategy, General Kern?

KERN: First, the -- I think you know that the Army is preparing right now an aviation modernization plan at the request of Congress. That has been a very challenging plan for us to put together, with the resources that we have available, and to both sustain an aging fleet of aircraft, as well as to meet the future requirements.

The focus of the transformation process has been on the ground brigades because they have given us the deployability issues which we have, and that is what we have focused on in this budget request. However, the Army's aviation will remain a centerpiece of the Army's fighting capability as a combined armed force in the future.

And so Comanche still remains our number one priority aviation program, and we have fully funded that. With the help of Congress last year, who added money to the Comanche, and a commitment by our secretary, we have also plussed-up the Comanche RDT&E effort to get it into production as quickly as possible.

EVERETT: Other than the Comanche, what other types of Army aviation aircraft will be needed to make this plan work?

KERN: We will focus our aviation modernization on the most current aircraft we have. Our heavy lift will be dependent upon the upgrade to the CH-47, and that is a CH-47 after the ICH, improved cargo helicopter, program. That is in our budget request this year, and we plan to move that ahead, and that is our heavy lift focus.

The UH-60 program -- we're buying at a fairly low rate, but we're in the process of going through a complete review of that, which will be an RDT&E effort to create the UH-60L-plus, and the L-plus, then, will provide us the utility helicopter fleet for our forces. And the Apache delta model, which is, then, our first digitized aircraft, the AH-64D -- two battalions of that currently fielded, one at Fort Hood, Texas, to the First Calvary, and one to the 101st. They will form the backbone of our attack helicopter.

Until we get the Comanche into production, we will be relying upon the OH-58 deltas to provide us the reconnaissance capability, but that aircraft also is one which we would put in the category of an older aircraft, which we would like to be replaced by the Comanche as quickly as possible.

The other remaining aircraft that are in our fleet today, the UH- 1s and the AH-1s -- we will make every effort to remove them as quickly as possible from our inventory. And so the entire Army, Guard, Reserve, and active, will be focused, then, on our main aircraft, the AH-64s, the -- for attack helicopter, the CH-47 for heavy lift, and the UH-60s for utility.

EVERETT: For the record, isn't the -- on the Comanche, isn't the aircraft on cost, on schedule, and meeting or exceeding our requirements for a positive low rate initial production decision later?

KERN: Yes, sir, it is. I'm very proud of the record of the Comanche.

EVERETT: OK. On the -- how about the Longbow? Isn't that a quantum leap over the A model and other attack helicopters?

KERN: Yes, sir, it is. I had the opportunity to fly in a delta model about a month ago at the plant at Mesa, where they're producing, with one of our test pilots. It is a remarkable aircraft in its ability to acquire targets with its fire control radar, with a digital system to pass those targets to his wingman, and for the two pilots, then, to be able to launch their Hellfire missiles in a -- either a fire and forget mode, or in a self-protection mode, and do that very rapidly with very little conversation between the pilots so that they don't have to confuse themselves with a lot of chatter and give themselves away. They're able to do it from a high position so it will hold in a hover and a hide be able to acquire in target very rapidly.

I had, also, the opportunity to take them in the Force XXI demonstrations, and we had an alpha model and the delta model in the same engagements, and the alpha model took almost four times as long to launch the Hellfires, and it was exposed almost five or six times as much as the delta model in that same environment.

EVERETT: Then I can assume you would support additional funds for the Apache Longbow upgrade.

KERN: Sir, I would. I think the delta model is an extremely capable aircraft, however, you know, we do have some parts on that which have not been replaced in upgrade, which I wish I had the money to do.

EVERETT: Finally, what would the role of the reserve component units that are not in the war fight -- what would that role be, and how would you modernize this force, the Hueys in that force?

KERN: Sir, we are addressing that in the aviation modernization plan. Our goal is to get the entire United States Army, active and reserve components, into the same type aircraft. That helps us both with the training issues, and it also helps us the sustainment of those aircraft.

In particular, the aging Cobras, the AH-1s, are ones that we would like to eliminate as quickly as possible. We've -- given the earlier discussion with the chairman, we don't have enough money to get everybody into Apache delta models as quickly as we would like, but we do need those pilots, and so we are going to look at how we can do that in this aviation modernization plan to put everybody in the same aircraft fleet.

I would add one other thing, though. In the lift side, the National Guard, in their state requirements, has a different requirement than we do in the active -- in our combat role, and that's one that we have to come to grips with, which has been probably the most challenging.

EVERETT: Well, I was pleased to hear that the Comanche is still the number one acquisition priority for the Army. And, Mr. Chairman, I would have to agree with you. You've said several times that the Army had half of what the other services were getting. It's not half. It's actually less than half, and I agree with the chairman, also -- I think I'd be pounding on the table.

Thank you very much.

KERN: Sir, I'll pound.

HUNTER: I thank my friend, and, Mr. Taylor, you're up next.

TAYLOR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General Kern, if I may start with you -- Congressman Buyer and I and others are members of the Guard and Reserve Caucus. In that capacity, we help submit to the chairman a wish list of procurement needs for the Guard and Reserve.

What I would ask you to do, if possible, is take a look at those units that will be called up in the next -- from now for the next three years, anticipated call-ups for the Bosnia and Kosovo missions. If you could give us some recommendations on what those units will need in order to fulfill that mission.

KERN: Sir, I'll be glad to do that.

TAYLOR: I know the list goes out for at least two years, and I think it might even go out a little bit farther than that. And we're on -- as you can guess, we're on a fairly short timeframe here, so, again, we're also asking for their input, but I'd certainly welcome yours.

KERN: Roger. We'll do that. We work, I think you know, with General Schultz and General Clewis (ph) very closely on that. We have funded over $1 billion to the National Guard and Reserve components in this budget, and I think we have held to our record, where not only have we projected in future years in the FYDP that we fund it, but we are actually doing that.

So if you went back and looked at what we said in '00 we would do for '01, we did that in this budget.

TAYLOR: But, again, I am aware that some units will be going in the fairly near ...

KERN: Right.

TAYLOR: ... future, some are going in two years. Since it takes a while for this to make its way through the stream -- if you could give us some guidance.

The second question I have is an industrial base question, since not only are we responsible to the troops in the field, but also a sustainable industrial base to support them. Given the probability that there will be a Colombia aid package, given the probability that it should include about 30 Black Hawks, how does that request, along with the high priority that the Army Reserve has placed on Black Hawk acquisitions, in addition to the Army's request for Black Hawks -- how does that put us in terms of a sustainable build rate at the manufacturer?

What I would hope, as a nation, we would try to avoid is a huge ramp-up, and then just fall off the cliff once we reach that point. I'd rather see a sustainable build rate that serves everyone well and avoids the traditional roller coaster that we've had for many of our manufacturers.

KERN: The sustainable rate right now, the minimum sustainable rate of Black Hawks, is about 36 per year at Sikorsky. Our budget request is only for six this year, so we -- I don't think we're going to strain them in the short term at all.

We ramp up as we move out to the future, and then as we go to the L-plus. So the procurement request for the emergency operations, I believe we can accommodate in the industrial base at Sikorsky without causing a -- them to have to refacilitize for further production. But we'll look at that carefully.

TAYLOR: The third question would be -- and I noted that the Wolverine Heavy Assault Bridge was one of the programs terminated, not because you wanted to, but because of lack of funds. I am aware of the work that's being done on composites for the medium brigade bridge.

My question is is it coincidental that one is being terminated? Does that mean there is a potential for the composite bridge in the future? Are they separate programs? There's no linkage? I'd hate to think we're buying a whole lot of one, only to have them replaced with the others, is what I'm trying to get to.

KERN: There is no linkage in the way our budget came out. As the secretary had stated, we very reluctantly terminated the Wolverine and -- both the bridge and the breaching mine field capability.

The bridging -- in our necessity than to go back and look at -- our older AVLDs will take some upgrades, because they cannot sustain the current equipment, the Abrams A-2, in particular, that we have in the field today, and we have to shorten the span. So we have to do improvements on the current bridging if we don't get the Wolverine- Grizzly. But there was no correlation between that, and we will have to look at future bridging requirements as part of that objective force design that Dr. Andrews referred to.

TAYLOR: Just for my information, how far out in the future would the Army consider something like a composite bridge?

KERN: I'm going to have to ask Dr. Andrews for a little bit of help in that area.

TAYLOR: I know that you've done the testing on it.

ANDREWS: I'd have to take that for the record.

TAYLOR: Would you, please?

ANDREWS: Yes, I will.

TAYLOR: OK.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

KERN: Mr. Chairman, could I add one comment ...

HUNTER: Absolutely.

KERN: ... just to say thank you. You noted on the National Guard role, the 49th Armored Division took over the leadership role in Bosnia this week, and General Shinseki was there at the assumption of command.

That is the first time in 50 years that they have been on active duty. So we are truly thankful for the effort that they have done. It's been extremely helpful for the active force, and we do need to look at how we make that equipping decision.

TAYLOR (?): Mr. Chairman, if I may? And, again, it's -- obviously for those units called up, it's going to be tough on the individuals, it's going to be tough on their families, it's going to be tough on their employers, and I would really hope that both the active and the reserve component would go out of their way to reward those units in some way, and, obviously, one of the ways would be with the best equipment coming down the line.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

HUNTER: I thank my friend.

Mr. Thornberry.

THORNBERRY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I just have to note that if you have a tough job, you send some Texans to go do it, and they are ready. I got to go with General Shinseki to the change of command, and they have high spirits, and they're anxious to do that job.

Gentlemen, I strongly support what the chief is trying to do to change the Army, and I certainly have admiration for his willingness to take on that job. And, like a number of my colleagues, I've got concerns that the Army is being forced to fund this internally. In addition to that, it doesn't look to me like that even the defense wide entities are bellying up to the bar the way they ought to.

And, Dr. Andrews, let me ask you, what is your personal view about the amount of money that DARPA has committed to this future combat vehicle? Was it what you were expecting or not?

ANDREWS: Thank you. We were expecting originally a higher value, about $500 million, sort of investment with them, along with our $500 million that we are investing with them in the collaboration program. We've managed to negotiate about $400 million investment from them, total.

So, all together, both of us are contributing to this collaborative piece a little over $900 million. Would have liked to see more -- didn't get it.

THORNBERRY: How much is in the 2001?

ANDREWS: Two thousand and one, for both of us in the collaboration program -- $44 million for us, and $61 million from DARPA.

THORNBERRY: So they're starting out a little more on the first ...

ANDREWS: They start out on the high side.

THORNBERRY: ... and then it goes down. One of the concerns that's been expressed is that after the exercises at Fort Knox, that you all have reduced the standards that you have created for vehicles. And there's a whole list of changes, less protection, less mobility -- it doesn't have to defeat one sort of tank. It can defeat a lower level tank.

Can you tell me what's happening? Did you get those 36 vehicles out there and decide that none of them could meet your original expectations?

ANDREWS: Let me address that first, and I may get General Kern to help me with this. But I would say that, first of all, remember that what we did at Fort Knox was essentially a market survey.

As we go to buy this interim force, we're trying to get things that are off the shelf. Now, that means we're going to get a chassis that's off the shelf, and then we're going to take some equipment, the mission equipment, that we have in the Army, some sights, some flares, some guns, and integrate it onto those chassis.

So there'll be an integration piece that's not trivial. We can't buy, thus, a system, a complete system, off the shelf. It'll be an integration piece to it.

We went down to -- we took some systems down to Fort Knox, and we looked at what the market offered in terms of what was out there, and probably nothing that showed up at Fort Knox would completely meet what we wanted. I wouldn't conclude from that that we reduced the standards.

Our requirement setters have taken a real careful look at what the Army needs and how we will fight this force, and they've come back to us with the requirements that will be needed. Now, I know you have some specifics, and it's actually still influx now, hasn't been completely nailed down.

THORNBERRY: Well, there are a number of specifics, and I don't know that it's worth going through all of them, but, General Kern, as you answer that, I'd also like you to tell me whether or not the Army has considered having a tracked wheel brigade plus a wheeled -- a tire brigade, so that you can compare and experiment and see how the -- what the different characteristics are.

I mean, getting back to the question, it is kind of like this all or nothing sort of deal, even on the interim, even on the interim brigades.

KERN: Mr. Thornberry, I think the Army has done a very thoughtful and deliberate process -- put itself through a process to determine both the requirements and then what will go into the request for proposal to meet those requirements.

The training and doctrine command, in their analysis center, have run multiple scenarios to demonstrate to ourselves what is this organization that we need, and that has driven the type of requirement. It's an urgent requirement, however, and so we did the market survey to find out exactly what was available so that we didn't ask for something that would take 10 years of development to meet an urgent requirement that was going unfilled today.

And so we have very deliberately set out to establish a request to meet those requirements as established by the analysis that the Training and Doctrine Command has done and established a request for proposal, and there's -- the draft which is out on the street today is very preliminary. We hope to get a second draft of that out to give industry a better idea of what we're going to do. I'm optimistic it will be this week. That will give us, again, a better idea of where we're headed.

To answer your other question on whether we have compared the two, yes, but because this is an urgent requirement, we do not intend to go into an experimentation phase. That is happening today with the loaned equipment to develop the organizations and operational requirements.

And what we have not precluded, however, is that the -- that we will -- we could choose -- and it is going to be within the way we establish the competition -- a mixed fleet. And so we will look for the best value to the government to meet those requirements which are set out, and it could be a combination of wheels and tracks. It could be a pure fleet of one or the other, and we don't know that yet until we get that -- those proposals back after we send our final request for proposal.

THORNBERRY: Dr. Andrews, let me just ask you, as you look ahead towards the objective force, what are your plans as far as utilizing joint experimentation down with the joint forces command? Are you taking full advantage of the possibilities that could reside there, not just in sorting out what kind of vehicle you want, but how this is all going to work together?

ANDREWS: Yes, sir. As we begin to build the demonstrators for this program, which will be in about the '05, '06 timeframe, we will want to go out into the field with some of these experimental pieces and make sure that they play in a joint environment. And we've not set up such an arrangement yet, but it's an obvious thing we will go do.

THORNBERRY: Well, you know, there's a fair amount of concern that you're putting the cart before the horse. You're trying to get the equipment there and not doing the organization and doctrinal stuff that really should come first, and then you get the equipment to fit into that.

HOEPER: That's not what we're doing. We're -- the equipment, actually, does follow the operational and organizational concepts.

Now, there is, of course, a feedback loop there, because, naturally, you have an organizational and operational concept, and you field equipment to that concept, and you'll learn some new things and develop tactics, techniques, and procedures in that phase. But, particularly, the part that Mike's' working on -- remember, this is a three -- you know, three-phase program.

We've got the initial brigades there developing the organizational and operational concepts right now. We haven't even purchased the interim armored vehicle yet, so that'll be next, and then the objective is further out, potentially about '012.

THORNBERRY: Well, I'd just like to encourage you all to think about how we might use joint experimentation to get us further down the road, and even if you could come up with some specific suggestions, I think they need to hear from you on -- we have this need, and they need to be able to tailor their experiments to meet the real needs that you have, not just pie in the sky stuff.

HOEPER (?): Sir, if I could comment briefly, if I could add to that just for a minute more, our first phase of the DARPA collaboration program is the design and con-ops phase and experiments, and that'll be from this year, '00, through about '02 before we get into the final designs, and that's in parallel, then, with what goes on at Fort Lewis.

And when you asked earlier about the shortfall from DARPA, it was really -- we wound up with a shortfall. It would have been have more competition there in this '00 and '01 phase. And so we've had -- because of the adjusted funds, we've had to limit the amount of competition there.

THORNBERRY: OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

KERN (?): Could I add ...

THORNBERRY: Sure, go ahead.

KERN (?): ... one point on the -- we do work with the joint forces command on experimentation. We just -- we are participating in finishing up this week in an exercise at Fort Stewart, Georgia, called ASIET (ph), and that's a combat ID exercise. We are introducing into that some of our advanced technologies.

Further, there is a joint contingency force war fighting experiment which will take place this summer, which we are participating in and jointly with the Marine Corps. We will be looking at how we can use some of our new technologies in urban terrain, which will also then flow into our ability to design those future forces. And we'll look at in-or-out (ph) mission planning, which will allow us to do, again, rapid contingency planning and deployments, and we are working them with joint forces command, both this summer, and we'll continue to push that.

HUNTER: Thank you very much.

Mr. Snyder.

SNYDER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I just want to ask a couple of questions about communication with the other services. First of all, Mr. Secretary, in your opening statement, you say "a bold and comprehensive new vision to transform the Army into a full spectrum force capable of dominating at every point on the spectrum of operations."

With regard to your communication with the Marine Corps, is that saying that one aspect of your full spectrum capability would be that you would have the same capability as the Marine Corps? Are we going to transform part of the Army into looking like the Marine Corps, or are we going to say there is one niche on that spectrum that we think is going to be occupied by the Marine Corps, and we will not duplicate ourselves into -- or transform ourselves into looking like the Marine Corps?

HOEPER: Mr. Snyder, I think our goal is to be complementary to the Marine Corps, and I talk with the commandant, General Jones, fairly frequently on this subject. The Army doesn't intend to replace the Marine Corps, but we do want to be complementary with the Marine Corps across that full spectrum of operations.

And we can't operate effectively everywhere in the spectrum right now. We need to do that. That's the urgent requirement.

SNYDER: I understand. I was just struck by your -- maybe that's just a lofty goal there. But, at some point, I think we're going to have to -- I would think you would want to have something formally written down -- this is what we see as the full spectrum of the Army, in its transformed state, will occupy, and this particular niche here will be a Marine Corps function otherwise ...

HOEPER: All the services contribute to winning wars ...

SNYDER: Right.

HOEPER: ... and we need them all.

SNYDER: With regard to communication with the Air Force, I was struck by -- I think, as to overstate one of your responses to Mr. Sisisky, is of our looking ahead to the future, this whole transformation process is being determined by the square footage of a C-130 cargo bay, and I think that's an overstatement.

But -- and it seems to me that -- this is partly an R&D committee, as you know, here today. Are we doing enough R&D in this whole area, or in the Air Force budget, with regard to strategic lift? I mean, basically, we still move things around the same way we have for decades.

HOEPER: We're doing a lot of -- we're actually doing a fair amount of thinking out into the future on the general area of strategic lift, both in the various science boards and in our S&T budgets in all the services. It's, as we look out into the future, something we're going to have to pay attention to.

We have a lot of C-130s. We know what we have now. If we have to respond now and in the foreseeable future, we need to be able to fit onto C-130s. That's why I'm very encouraged by some of the things that Dr. Andrews is doing in science and technology to allow us to pack enormous capability into smaller and lighter packages, and I'm pretty confident that we'll be able to do that.

SNYDER: Yes. I was thinking the other day -- I think every member of Congress is entitled to, you know, one off the wall comment every few months. Now, some of the membership here meet their quota quicker than others.

But I was thinking about some of this stuff in terms of Star Trek, you know, and in terms of people who look ahead at the future. And when we think about what makes those -- why do we think that's science fiction, it's not because of how they knock things out of the sky, because, basically, they still shoot stuff and things explode. It's strategic lift, you know. It's how personnel and equipment is moved. I mean, that's what their transformation was.

And we spend a lot of time talking about the weapons systems, and I'm not sure we spend as much time as we should about how we're going to move things around, given that the ability to forward deploy stuff in the future is going to be much, much more restricted. At least, that's what, you know, the folks that look at threats out there and ...

HOEPER (?): If I could comment -- and I think that's exactly what we are doing, and that's why we have looked at strategic mobility as a keystone of our ability to fight in the 21st Century. And so we don't see that we can design another 70-ton or larger platform, because it meets our requirements, without taking into consideration those strategic deployment requirements.

At the same time, we know what aircraft are available today. We also work very closely with the space and aviation community, both government and NASA, as well as our producers in this country, the Lockheed Martins and the Boeings, at what they are considering for heavy lift, and we are looking for many different types of strategic deployability, and they have some very intriguing concepts that are going to be available in the future. But we are looking at that.

SNYDER: I mean, it's going back to what we were saying, this is -- when you talk about our capabilities today, but -- and I think the R&D Committee likes to pride itself on looking several decades ahead, and I'm not always sure that we're -- if we're doing that, I don't know if we're talking about it enough with regard to our strategic lift capabilities of the future.

Thank you for your comments.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

HUNTER: Thank you, Mr. Snyder.

Mr. Kuykendall.

KUYKENDALL: Some of this has been touched on briefly. Mr. Snyder hit one of mine -- the same comment hit me -- was at some point, these forces are complementary, Marine and Navy -- or Marine and Army, once they reach the beach, anyway. And I was concerned a little about that, too, and I was pleased to hear your comments.

I know, at least from the Marine Corps's perspective, I don't think they want to run all over the land side of it. They'd just as soon let you guys do that. But sometimes getting to shore might be their strong point.

One of the systems that's been terminated -- and I don't necessarily agree or disagree with its termination at all -- was this Crusader artillery system. I think that's the name of it. Have I got that right? It's the big ...

KERN (?): It's been restructured, sir.

HOEPER (?): We haven't terminated it, but I ...

KUYKENDALL: Oh, it hasn't been terminated. Have you figured out how much the development for the aircraft to haul it is going to be?

HOEPER: Well, we've got an aircraft developed that'll haul it quite nicely, in fact, two of them. A Crusader will fit on a C-17, and we can get ...

KUYKENDALL: Self-contained, both pieces?

HOEPER: We can get both pieces, or any two pieces, on a C-5. We can get one piece on a C-17, and on a C-5, we can get any two pieces, either the re-supply vehicle or the self-propelled howitzer.

KUYKENDALL: I guess the question I've got, then, is what's Dr. Andrews or General Kern working on to come up with something that you can get a whole lot more of them on a lot less airplanes?

HOEPER: Well, we have a ...

KUYKENDALL: Because that's just too heavy in the current environment. We're not going to build enough airplanes to haul that around.

HOEPER: It -- the Crusader gives us enormous capability, and there certainly is a place for the Crusader on the battlefield. But we also have a fairly near term program called a -- a towed (ph) howitzer called the lightweight 155 howitzer that ...

KUYKENDALL: And where's that coming along ...

HOEPER: ... we're actually procuring with the Marines, and that's a towed (ph) howitzer. It actually can be sling loaded under a helicopter, so it's fairly light.

KUYKENDALL: That's a very important program from the perspective that I -- I mean, I was a cannon cocker in my previous day, and I must tell you, it's -- there are no weapon systems, really, to give a very potent punch right at the tactical line there and the tactical forces. And with the lack of supporting arms from the water, if you're coming from the water, or from overhead, if you have bad weather, you need somebody that can deliver something, and the Crusader is so big and so heavy and so -- I mean, it's got a logistics tale that reads like you need a train. You don't need, you know, somebody driving up new ammunition. You need a train load coming behind it.

And just some comments -- the whole idea of this tactical artillery piece and how to make it lighter in this new force and -- that is an area that maybe General Kern could comment on as well.

HOEPER: Sir, we have another one called the HIMARS (ph), which is a ...

KUYKENDALL: Yes.

HOEPER: ... another approach to meeting the artillery missions. We have a couple of things coming along which are lighter. As I say, the Crusader, I think, does have a place on the battlefield. It is deployable, and it actually does cut the logistics footprint over what we are doing today.

Do you want to add to that, Paul?

KERN: Yes. In the restructuring of the Crusader program, we're trying to take the best of what we did by reducing the crew size, increasing the mobility, and then decreasing that footprint as we redesign that for the future. We've also gone to the re-supply vehicle, which previously was just a tracked vehicle, to also a wheeled variant, which considerably cuts down on the weight and space claim so that we can get that transportability.

But I think even more importantly, we are going to take a very aggressive look at our whole fire support structure this year, and what has emerged out of our interim brigade requirements is another focus on the necessity for a self-propelled 155 type howitzer, but that's probably not affordable within our current budgets.

And so what we are going to do is take a look at how we can take the best of all the worlds, the lightweight 155, which we're currently developing with the Marine Corps, the technologies of automation, which we have developed with Crusader, and see if we cannot come up with a better way to attack that requirement in a single development effort that uses the technologies. And so we are not ignoring it at all. We feel it is a very critical component of the future, and we're going to find out what technology solutions may be available to converge some of those.

There is a piece of it, which is back in Dr. Andrews' area, which is what we refer to as the ultra lightweight 155, which has some real material challenges on how to get the structure for that. We are looking for things that can be both deployed by aircraft, but also, on the tactical battlefield, we can look at sling loading with ammunition, with crews, to make sure that we bring together that fire support capability intact and don't piecemeal it into the battle.

ANDREWS: Maybe I could comment on that, sir.

KUYKENDALL: Could you, please?

ANDREWS: That is the -- we have something called the super lightweight 155, and it's going to be on the order of about 5,000 pounds, and getting at the materials problem is a crucial part of this. The recoil is one of the key things. You've got a very good recoil that will occur with this, and so finding the right materials that will absorb all that impact is part of the solution set.

Also, our future combat systems that we're designing today for that future force in about '12 -- it will have an indirect fire mission with it, and we'll get at that both with the possibility of a 105 round that can get extended range through some technologies with propulsion in the round, also with missiles that go at this with a very long range and loiter (ph) capability. So those are also forward-looking solutions to that problem.

KUYKENDALL: Well, right now, it seems -- it's clear we're in a very transitional period, because we went through a long period of time with that Cold War where we knew exactly -- you need so many of this kind of tubes, and they're going to be driven on -- some on tracks, and some are going to be towed, and then you're going to -- and now we're in a period where we're about half missile and about half artillery and don't know what piece of artillery quite yet fits, and is it too heavy, is a Crusader too -- we've got to lighten up where we can fit enough of them in a -- if you're ever the person on the ground, that is a tremendous answer to your help if you need it, and it doesn't have to be with the weather or anything else. It's usually there, and there's a gap between what a rifle company carries around with it or an infantry battalion carries around with it, and what you can do when you can bring the world to bear with, you know, air support and all that.

KUYKENDALL: And that's the piece that will, you know -- it's very, very critical to saving lives on the ground, and, right now, it's not real clear that we are focused on how we're going to accomplish the next system kind of clearly in transition, it looks like. I was just interested in your comments on it.

KERN: We'd like to keep talking with you about that, sir.

KUYKENDALL: Thank you.

HUNTER: Thank you, Mr. Kuykendall. Great questions.

Gentlemen, we've got a couple of votes coming up here. We'll try to wrap up and let you out of here.

You know, as I was -- as we were talking about the new -- this transition to the new, faster, more lethal systems, which sounds great -- because sometimes you need to -- you need some weight to deliver lethality. But I was kind of reminded -- I've got -- a friend of mine and a constituent is here in the -- Rocky Anderson (ph), who's sitting behind you here in the witness -- or in the hearing room.

And last year, I had a problem with my septic tank, and Rocky is an underground engineer, and he's got lots of big back hoes and tractors and things. I called him and said, "Rocky, we've got to start digging to get this terrible problem. My septic system is backed up, and we've got to get back hoes out there, and we're going to have to lay another line."

And Rocky had a profound recommendation. He said, "You know, before you do all that stuff, you may want to just get somebody that knows something about septic systems out to look at it." And I said, "Well, that's kind of a shocking answer from an old friend of mine." I said, "Well, let's do that."

And he brought a gentleman out who knows something about septic systems. The guy looked at it, and he said, "You just need one piece of pipe about five feet long. It's all set." I said, "That's it?" He said, "Yeah, that's it." I said, "How long will it take you?" He said, "Oh, 10, 20 minutes." I was real happy to hear that answer.

And I was reflecting on that as we were talking about going to these new systems, and I know you folks have been shopping around the world. You've looked at a lot of the folks that use wheeled vehicles, and I know you've got to get from point A to point B, you've got to be able to get across bridges that are narrow, you've got to be able to move fairly quickly, and air lift.

One thought along the Rocky Anderson (ph) line was this. Why not go to one of our allies who has one of these brigades that's up and ask them to come in on a guest basis and integrate with one of our forces for a certain period of time and do a little monitoring and compare capability and ability to transport and downtime because of repairs and integration of your soft bodies and your infantry and your vehicles and the fire power that's delivered and the chemical, biological protection that is afforded by the platforms.

I mean, you've got -- we've got a lot of allies who love to have us foot the big piece of the bill in these conflicts around the world. This would seem to be a nice time to call on them to send us an exchange student for a couple of months, i.e., a fast, light brigade. Have you done that?

KERN: Yes, sir, we have.

HUNTER: Where at?

KERN: We have put a request out to many of our allies, and they have responded. The Canadians, as you know, I think are loaning us some vehicles to ...

HUNTER: I understand that.

KERN: And the French have responded to us that they want to send part of a French brigade, light, part of the backbone of their divisions that fought with us in the desert, to come this summer to Fort Lewis to join with the effort out there. And so we are working that coordination right now.

HUNTER: OK. So you're actually going to have a guest brigade come in, integrate with you, and work with you.

KERN: It will not be a complete brigade, but it'll be an organization which encompasses those components which you described.

HUNTER: OK. But do you think it's going to be enough to afford you a pretty good analytical test band (ph)?

KERN: Sir, I think if we can get all the pieces to work together that it will afford us that opportunity. We don't have this nailed down yet. This is -- they've responded to our request, and so we're going to see how we can do that.

HUNTER: OK, great.

Rocky (ph), I want you to shake hands with this general when he leaves, because he's on the right track here. Get somebody that's done it. OK.

You know, the Army submitted a $252 million shortfall for ammo as part of the chief of staff's unfunded requirements list. You folks are aware of that. And I've asked you for your updated total unfunded requirements for all munitions with or without substitutes for preferred munitions.

I understand the total ammo shortfall for 2001, using preferred munitions, has now grown to $14.6 billion from the fiscal year 2000 amount of $12.5 billion. Is the fiscal year 2001 amount correct? How much of that figure is executable, and when is the list going to be sent to the committee?

KERN: Sir, I will have to take that for the record to confirm those numbers for you, but we will provide that to you this week.

HUNTER: OK. Yes, this is the chart you did send to us -- said $14.6 billion. That seems to be a huge shortfall in preferred ammo.

KERN: Sir, something doesn't sound quite right in the translation of what we've provided, as I'm listening to it, because I know in the training munitions, we are very close to meeting our full requirements. In the preferred ammunition list, while we had shortages, I think that is not -- clearly is not just the '01 piece. That's the funded delivery period which extends far into the future.

KUYKENDALL: OK. Yes, I know. We looked at your -- we had a $13.5 billion overall shortfall, Army shortfall, that you sent to us last year. We were putting together ammo shortfalls across the services.

KERN: Yes, sir.

KUYKENDALL: Mr. Secretary, another issue, the Army aviation accident rate -- which is something I think requires immediate attention. We've been putting a lot of time in looking at this thing.

Last year's rate, I understand, was the worst of the decade. We did a -- we directed a study last year, or in the '98 bill, that stated that a warning device called ground proximity warning system be studied and analyzed. And the study that you did in response to our direction said -- I'm paraphrasing it -- that a GPWS, ground proximity warning system, could have prevented 51 fatalities in 57 accidents involving the loss of $200.8 million worth of aircraft.

Now, the Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force are using these GPWSs on their helicopters. Current estimates suggest that the Army choppers could be equipped for about 30 grand in aircraft. Why aren't we putting those things on these helicopters?

HOEPER: Mr. Chairman, at the present time, we don't have a requirement for them. I know that -- and I don't want to take the question here ...

KUYKENDALL: You've got a requirement every time a helicopter goes down.

HOEPER: We are -- we need a formal requirement. I need a formal requirement from the requirement side of the Army to buy them. But, more to the point, what we want to do is to put -- is to look across all of the ways we can improve safety in our aviation and put our money towards those things which would improve it most.

I don't know, as I sit here right now, where ground proximity warning devices would fall in terms of that hierarchy. They may, indeed, be something we should be doing. But, as I sit here now, I don't whether they are the most effective way of spending money to reduce accidents, or whether they're further down the list.

HUNTER: Well, I think, Mr. Secretary -- I think we are losing -- you know, I was looking at the list of crashes last year across the services. In a 12-month period, it was in excess of 55 aircraft. That was pretty close to being about at least 75 percent of what we're buying. We're crashing almost as many aircraft as we're buying.

Now, it's pretty clear that you're not going to have the extra $10 billion to $15 billion that a number of studies say you need to buy new aircraft. I think we're going to have to make the ones we've got left last for a long time, and that's the reality of this.

But I would think, for two reasons -- number one, you're short on pilots. It's tough to get people in right now, you know, having -- doing everything you can to keep these things in the air is pretty important, I think, in terms of having the best safety equipment. So you've got to do that.

Number two, you've got to stretch your -- you're going to have to keep your birds working, because you're not going to get new ones. I would think that those factors compel you to get this system.

And you've got the highest crash rate you've had in a long time, so that factor is a requirement. You don't have to have some bean counter say I've decided that it's not good to fall out of the sky, and, therefore, I'm going to tell you that that's a requirement. You know that.

HOEPER: Mr. Chairman, I think we should put our available money towards those improvements which will give us the highest increase in safety. As I earlier stated, I don't know whether -- where that ground proximity warning fits in that hierarchy. But I agree with you ...

HUNTER: Well, but the 57 accidents and 51 fatalities is pretty huge in peacetime operations, Mr. Secretary, right?

KERN: Mr. Chairman, if I could -- we have studied this, and we will relook this again, because we agree with you that any aircraft accident that we can avoid is the right thing to do. The challenge that Army aviation has is flying at low altitudes at night in inherently hazardous conditions, and there's a problem, a technical issue, that we need to address on false alarms versus real alarms. And so we want to make sure that we don't cause a negative training in the environment. We ask our pilots to ...

HUNTER: Have you been looking at that issue?

KERN: Sir, we have been looking at that issue, and I will promise you that we will relook that again.

HUNTER: OK, if you could. OK.

Well, thank you very much, gentlemen. We may submit some questions to you for the record and ...

KERN: Sir, could I make one last statement?

HUNTER: Sure, please.

KERN: Sir, not to challenge the chairman, but I'm very proud of a unit that I had three tours with called the Victory Division.

HUNTER: The 24th Infantry Division.

KERN: The 24th Infantry Division.

HUNTER: And I called it the 25th.

KERN: Yes, sir.

HUNTER: I'm sorry.

KERN: And both General McCaffrey and I worked with that division in Desert Storm and wore that patch proudly. We are also very, very familiar with the history of the division in Korea and the lessons learned between where we were from 1949 to 1950. I use that every time I visit our students at our pre-command course as a lesson that we should not repeat.

And so both the R&D piece of it, the training piece of it, and where we are today versus where we were in 1949 are all lessons that we have learned well. So I appreciate your attention to it, and I just want to give credit for the pain that was suffered by the right division.

HUNTER: Good. Well, General Kern, I think you've made my point, because my point is that you had a bad division in the 24th Division. We called them, I think, out of Japan and got them up there, and they tried to hold off the North Koreans at the Osan (ph) Pass, and the fact that their bazookas were bouncing off these Russian made tanks wasn't their fault. It was the fault of the people sitting in the chair where you're sitting right now who failed to deliver to our military the equipment that could take on the emerging Warsaw Pact weapons.

And that was a -- in fact, as a matter of fact, if you look at Korea, there's a lot of similarities to today. You know, we had -- we went from having eight million people under arms in World War II to just throwing our weapons away in the demobilization, right, that General Marshall called a route (ph) in 1948.

We had 10 Army divisions in 1950, exactly the same number we've cut down to today, and we ended up with the military getting the bottom of the barrel in the funding process, which is what's happening right now, as you're aware, and we took some 50,000 KIA in Korea, a lot of them, I think, as a result of military unpreparedness.

So I've never doubted the capability of our men and women who wear the uniform. We own the best. That's why I would take issue with Secretary Hoeper, who says we don't have the requirement. You've got 57 crashes, 51 deaths, and nobody's sent up the requirement for a safety system that your own study says would have prevented those particular crashes.

And I know there's an issue, but, you know something? We've been looking at that issue for a long time. There's got to be an answer to it, right? I mean, we should be able to figure that one out. Either the Army is going to be able to use this or they aren't, and if they're able to use it, let's saddle it up.

But I think one of our big problems, General Kern, has always been getting stuff to the field. I mean, that's an American problem, and that -- General Custer proudly represented a bunch of great Americans at the Little Big Horn who were shooting single shot rifles, and our adversaries had implemented and fielded lever action Henrys and Winchesters -- that was the Sioux Indians -- before we did, and they did it because I'm sure we had a procurement system that said, well, we haven't gone through the last test with those lever actions, so the armory back in Illinois is still working on it, and when we got to the field, we did not have that fire power.

HUNTER: So getting this stuff fielded has always been a monster problem that we've got. It's not your fault. I mean, it's across the board.

But if you look at our missile defense systems, here we have all the king's forces and all the king's men and enormous funding, and that has now had two successes, and we're very proud for that. But the Israelis, with, you know, what I refer to as three engineers and a pickup truck, are getting ready to field their theater missile defense system, because they actually have to have one very quickly, because they've got a lot of people who may throw missiles at them very soon.

And so maybe necessity is the mother of invention, but my judgment is that we have a big problem, and it is that getting stuff to the field moves with the speed of bureaucracy. And we in Congress are largely responsible for that. We've got lots of rules and regulations you have to jump through, and so you can't just move from point A to point B very quickly.

But I think we've got to try, and that's why I would hope, when you get this brigade from Frances in, or somebody else -- and you may want to take somebody from another nation that's a strong ally and move them into another place, and let's stack up some data and do some field exercises and do some shopping with the real thing and, you know, see if this transition is going to move.

But thank you for reminding me it was the 24th Infantry Division, not the 25th, and that they are great people.

KERN: They're great people. It's a great division. You're right on all your accounts of what happened to them. I think you and I -- with that sign in front of us that says it's your mission and mine to equip our forces to make sure we don't send soldiers back in harm's way again with the wrong equipment.

HUNTER: Yes. Well, let's work on it this year. It's going to be a tough year, and we don't have much money again, as usual.

Yes, sir.

HOEPER: Mr. Chairman, if I could be permitted a closing comment, coming back to your very first question and the earlier discussion about the Army getting 16 percent of the procurement funds for the Department of Defense, I probably can't say whether the Army is getting a fair share or the right share of the procurement budget, because I don't know the needs of the other services. But let me tell you what I do know.

I do know that the Army has carried the largest share in 32 of the 34 deployments that you mentioned, and I do know that our Army today is the best army in the world, the most powerful army in the world, and only the eighth largest army in the world. And that leads me to conclude that we have not approached the point of diminishing returns in investing in our Army.

HUNTER: Well, Secretary Hoeper, you may have -- we have -- nobody is going to dispute you when you say we've got great men and women, we've got the best army in the world. But you've got a bunch of platforms that are aging, and as your -- the guy who used to be the boss of the Pentagon, Jim Schlesinger, said, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to look at these platforms and say this tank has got a life that's X years, and if you don't -- if you in Congress are not replacing these things, you are building up an enormous bow wave. You're going to get to the point where you have a lot of systems that are now too old, and you've got in excess of $100 billion a year price tags just for modernization.

And you're going to have massive competition in 2010, 2020, with social security and lots of other social expenditures for that money, and he said it's going to -- and I'm paraphrasing him -- he said it's going to be a disaster. Now, I mean, you -- so us just taking a snapshot and saying we're the best -- you know, I read all the testimony in 1950 from the administration. Only Omar Bradley was honest. He said we can't fight and win a major war. The other guys all talked glowingly about being leaner, meaner, tougher, rougher, and when we ended up having this third rate military push us down the Korean Peninsula, we realized that we'd neglected the military.

By all accounts, your modernization is vastly underfunded. It's vastly underfunded. You should be pounding the table with your guys, saying I need money. I don't care if you go with the new light system, or you replace the old systems, or you have a combination thereof, you can't have a system that's got a life of 30 years and have no plan to replace it, and that's what we have right now. We've got no plan to replace most of these systems or even budget for it.

So, you know, we're going to -- you don't want to have young men and women in uniform who are out there wearing nothing but pride. They've got to have the best equipment. We're not supplying them the best equipment, and we're not supplying it to them in a timely way.

HOEPER: Mr. Chairman, I greatly fear that you misinterpreted my comment. My comment -- what I said was we're carrying a heavy load. We are the best despite being only the eighth largest, and what that leads me to conclude is that the American people would get a tremendous return from additional dollars put into the Army. We have not reached ...

HUNTER: Oh, I agree with that.

HOEPER: ... anywhere near a point of diminishing returns in terms of investing in the Army, and that's the point I was trying to make with you.

HUNTER: OK. That's a good point. I'll help you carry that point if you'll bang on the table inside the building and try to get more money.

And, gentlemen, thank you for being with us today. We've got massive challenges, but let's work together and try to solve them.

And the hearing is adjourned.

END

NOTES:
Unknown - Indicates speaker unknown.
Inaudible - Could not make out what was being said.
off mike - Indicates could not make out what was being said.

PERSON: DUNCAN L HUNTER (92%); FLOYD SPENCE (57%); BOB STUMP (56%); JAMES V HANSEN (56%); LEE TERRY (55%); MARY BONO (53%); ROBERT (ROBIN) HAYES (52%); NORMAN SISISKY (51%); CHRIS JOHN (51%); IKE SKELTON (51%); LANE EVANS (50%);

LOAD-DATE: March 15, 2000

Document 9 of 21.


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