• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

2002 - Logistics Transformation Task Force (LTTF)

Pre-positioning equipment and materiel has been a key element of the Army's Strategic Mobility Triad for many years. It has been a necessary component of the ability to meet the demands of the National Military Strategy. There has been and continues to be constraints to the strategic mobility of the Army. This is represented in terms of weight/cube and time/distance. The weight/cube of Army forces exceed the capability of available strategic airlift to meet deployment goals. The time required to move Army forces vast distances by sea from CONUS exceeds the acceptable force closure times for early deploying forces. The Army Pre-positioned Stocks (APS) program has served a useful purpose in mitigating this mobility dilemma. As the Army progresses, however, with the Transformation process, the nature of this mobility dilemma was changing significantly. As a result, the Army must adapt its pre-positioning strategy to effectively deal with these changes. This need for a change in strategy was identified as an insight in the Army Transformation Wargame 02 (ATWG 02), and was included in the set of recommendations from the Logistics Transformation Task Force (LTTF). In recognition of this fact, the Army G3 and the Power Projection (P2) Council of Colonels (CoC) have chartered an Integrated Concept Team (ICT) to develop strategy alternatives. The first meeting of the ICT was on 9 August 2002.

The status of APS assets was exemplified by shortages in equipment fill, no planned modernization of equipment, and increasingly more expensive maintenance requirements. While some elements of the program have received increased funding (War Reserve Secondary Items for instance), the overall program has not been funded at levels to keep pace with the ongoing modernization, digitization, and transformation of Army forces. This situation was indicative of the Army's decision to take risk in legacy forces in order to invest in Objective Force capabilities. The ongoing transformation process will further exacerbate these conditions. Additionally, as the composition of the Army's combat formations includes more Stryker Brigade Combat Teams (SBCT) and Objective Force Units of Action/Employment, the relative value of AOE Heavy equipment in APS will consistently diminish. Within the construct of the current Army Transformation Campaign Plan, it is certain that there will be a point when the Heavy forces are no longer supportable. The Army's pre-positioning strategy must address this to avoid unacceptable strategic risk.

The most compelling need for change in pre-positioning strategy was the requirement to adequately support emerging joint operational concepts (e.g. Rapid Decisive Operations) with Army objective force capabilities. Keeping mind that Objective Force capabilities will include legacy CS/CSS equipment for quite some time. This compelling need is clearly illustrated within the broader context of Army Power Projection in the DRAFT White Paper on Power Projection of the Transforming Army.

Based on ATWG 02 insights, LTTF recommendations, The Power Projection White Paper, and the ongoing analysis of the APS Transformation ICT, a prevailing underpinning for the strategy emerged. That is, the composition of pre-positioned assets should include more CS/CSS equipment and sustainment materiel (including Configured Loads). In fact, the P2 White Paper poses the question: "Should pre-positioning consist solely of CS/CSS stocks and other non-combat force structure?" While eliminating heavy combat equipment does not seem like a viable alternative for the near term, there is clearly merit in pre-positioning more CS/CSS equipment. A simple comparison between the expected life cycle and utility of combat equipment versus CS/CSS equipment over the next 15 to 20 years highlights the fact that fielding status of combat systems (AOE, FXXI, Stryker, and FCS) will experience significant turbulence, while CS/CSS equipment will remain relatively stable and constant.

Pre-positioning CS/CSS assets would significantly mitigate the risk of an operational pause between prompt response and sustained operations. Improved strategic mobility of future combat systems is a required performance parameter, thus negating the need to pre-position. The resulting effect of reducing the CS/CSS claims on Strategic Lift, thereby increasing the lift availability for combat systems and forces. The increased utility of common CS/CSS equipment for operations across the spectrum of operations (e.g. Humanitarian Ops, SSC, MCO). The equipment value and maintenance requirements are less costly for CS/CSS equipment than for combat systems. CS/CSS equipment is less subject to the rapid pace of technological change, thus requiring less modernization over time.

From the perspective of the Joint Force Combatant Commander, eliminating heavy combat equipment sets from APS would not be prudent until the Army has achieved the demonstrated capability to rapidly deploy combat power from strategic distances. Certainly in the near term, pre-positioned combat equipment represents a formidable deterrent. It remained clear that there will be a point in time when the AOE Heavy Brigade sets will lose their relevance.

The ICT also considered other potential aspects of the pre-positioning strategy. They include pre-positioning non-Stryker equipment and sustainment in Configured Loads for the SBCT, or restructuring APS afloat into employable unit configurations with sustainment on a single vessel, rather than equipment sets on one vessel and sustainment on another Restructuring APS afloat into employable unit configurations divided into separate "fleets" perhaps collocated with USMC MPS.

If the Army adopted the emerging strategy recommendation of pre-positioning more CS/CSS, attention must be given to the courses of action to fulfill that strategy. Affordability of the strategy must be a paramount consideration. The source of the equipment assets will have to be determined. Does the Army buy new or identify currently on hand assets to pre-position? Given the significant resource requirements for the Objective Force (i.e. FCS) and the current shortages of required equipment, it is not likely that the Army will invest the resources to purchase additional CS/CSS equipment to pre-position. Thus the only viable course of action to fulfill the strategy is to source the equipment from on-hand assets. The preponderance of CS/CSS equipment assets in the Army is found in the Reserve Component. Similarly, the preponderance of the CS/CSS force structure that would fall in on the equipment is found in the Reserve Component. The presumption here is that RC CS/CSS capabilities will be required for prompt response and sustained operations. Under these conditions, the integration of RC capabilities and on hand assets into the pre-positioning strategy is a very plausible course of action.

The Army's strategic mobility dilemma extended into the Army Reserve, where the challenge is even more pronounced. With equipment scattered in cities and towns across the country and supporting installations sometimes several hours away, deploying that equipment is intensely difficult. Deploying that equipment from central CONUS in the time-frames to meet the demands of prompt and sustained operations is all but impossible. To address this challenge the Army Reserve has developed a program called Army Reserve Logistics XXI (ARLOG XXI). This program involves a sophisticated methodology to identify minimum equipment assets required to support unit training readiness and the equipment required for war. This process has shown that about 37%(approximately $2.5 Billion total) in Army Reserve equipment assets can be positioned in strategic locations (including OCONUS) and made available for deploying units in a contingency. The Chief, Army Reserve approved the ARLOG XXI program in September 2000 based on the availability of resources. As a result, the Army Reserve constructed a strategic storage facility in Gulfport, MS and studied the feasibility of pre-positioning assets in Europe with promising results. It seemed to be smart to make an arrangement between COMPO 1 and COMPO 3 to integrate the strategic storage element of ARLOG XXI into the emerging pre-positioning strategy involving more CS/CSS assets. This alternative has the potential to achieve real gains in the transformation of APS in the near term. It also increases the accessibility of critical Army CS/CSS capabilities in the Reserve Component by reducing some of the major obstacles in deploying equipment. And most importantly, it provided an affordable option to execute the APS Transformation strategy.

There was some recognition within the APS Transformation ICT that there would likely be opportunities to make adjustments to APS through the course of current operations. The pre-positioning strategy should incorporate the near-term reconfiguration opportunities presented by deploying equipment, the download of APS afloat, and the restructuring of APS-2.

There were other ongoing studies and initiatives that support the analysis in this memorandum. The ongoing DPG directed study on world-wide pre-positioning (Sub-study of Operational Availability) has taken an interest in both the pre-positioning of more CS/CSS equipment and the integration of the RC into the strategy. Similarly, RAND has concluded that within the current and near term capabilities in the Army, pre-positioning CS/CSS (e.g. Tactical Wheeled Vehicles) is an essential element in achieving deployment goals. The Center for Army Analysis (CAA) conducted an analysis on the effectiveness of configuring APS in terms of Common User Items rather than unit equipment sets.

It was clear that a fundamental change was required in the Army's pre-positioning strategy. This was brought about by a changed strategic environment and by the Transformation of military capabilities. Based on sound analysis, the prevailing position was to increase the pre-positioning of CS/CSS assets and sustainment materiel. There is real potential to achieve this strategy through innovative combinations of programs (AC and RC). Certain actions in current operations may be used to aid in the implementation of some elements of the strategy. The ability of the Army to meet the sustainment demands of the Interim and Objective Force with legacy CS/CSS equipment can be significantly enhanced by APS. The value of APS will prove to be essential to mitigating the increased strategic risks associated with transforming the Army while at war.