[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 111-133]
ARMY ACQUISITION AND MODERNIZATION PROGRAMS
__________
HEARING
BEFORE THE
AIR AND LAND FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
MARCH 10, 2010
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TONGRESS.#13
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AIR AND LAND FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE
ADAM SMITH, Washington, Chairman
JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
SILVESTRE REYES, Texas CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington
MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania DUNCAN HUNTER, California
JIM COOPER, Tennessee JOHN C. FLEMING, Louisiana
JIM MARSHALL, Georgia MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado
JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania W. TODD AKIN, Missouri
GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona JEFF MILLER, Florida
NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts JOE WILSON, South Carolina
LARRY KISSELL, North Carolina FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
FRANK M. KRATOVIL, Jr., Maryland ROB BISHOP, Utah
BOBBY BRIGHT, Alabama MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio
WILLIAM L. OWENS, New York TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
DAN BOREN, Oklahoma
Doug Bush, Professional Staff Member
John Wason, Professional Staff Member
Scott Bousum, Staff Assistant
C O N T E N T S
----------
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2010
Page
Hearing:
Wednesday, March 10, 2010, Army Acquisition and Modernization
Programs....................................................... 1
Appendix:
Wednesday, March 10, 2010........................................ 47
----------
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10, 2010
ARMY ACQUISITION AND MODERNIZATION PROGRAMS
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Bartlett, Hon. Roscoe G., a Representative from Maryland, Ranking
Member, Air and Land Forces Subcommittee....................... 4
Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Chairman, Air
and Land Forces Subcommittee................................... 1
WITNESSES
Gilmore, Dr. J. Michael, Director, Operational Test and
Evaluation, Office of the Secretary of Defense................. 30
Lennox, Lt. Gen. Robert P., USA, Deputy Chief of Staff of the
Army, G-8...................................................... 5
Markowitz, Dr. David M., Director of Capabilities Integration,
Prioritization, and Analysis and Technical Advisor to the
Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army, G-3......................... 12
Phillips, Lt. Gen. William N., USA, Military Deputy to the
Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Technology,
and Logistics.................................................. 8
Sullivan, Michael J., Director of Acquisition and Sourcing, U.S.
Government Accountability Office............................... 37
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Gilmore, Dr. J. Michael...................................... 82
Lennox, Lt. Gen. Robert P., joint with Lt. Gen. William N.
Phillips and Dr. David M. Markowitz........................ 54
Smith, Hon. Adam............................................. 51
Sullivan, Michael J.......................................... 92
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
Mr. Kissell.................................................. 113
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Mr. Kissell.................................................. 117
Mr. Owens.................................................... 117
ARMY ACQUISITION AND MODERNIZATION PROGRAMS
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Air and Land Forces Subcommittee,
Washington, DC, Wednesday, March 10, 2010.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:11 p.m., in
room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Adam Smith
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
WASHINGTON, CHAIRMAN, AIR AND LAND FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. Smith. We will go ahead and call the meeting to order.
We just finished up a series of votes, so I am sure there will
be other members trickling in. We want to be respectful of our
witness' time and take advantage of it as much as we can. We
are fortunate in the sense that we have now a lengthy debate on
the House floor, so we will not have votes for quite a while
and should be able to get the hearing in without the normal
interruptions--so pleased about that. And we will go ahead and
get started.
The subcommittee meets today to receive testimony on the
Army's acquisition and modernization budget request for fiscal
year 2011. And we welcome our witnesses for today. We have
Lieutenant General Robert R. Lennox, who is the Deputy Chief of
Staff, G-8. We have Lieutenant General William Phillips,
Military Deputy to the Assistant Secretary of the Army,
Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, and Dr. David M.
Markowitz, Director of Capabilities, Integration,
Prioritization and Analysis and technical advisor to the Deputy
Chief of Staff, G-3.
You must have a very big business card--or, sorry, not big
so much as lengthy, lots of words on it.
That will be our first panel. We will have a second panel
as well. Dr. J. Michael Gilmore, who is the Director,
Operational Test and Evaluation for the Office of the Secretary
of Defense (OSD), and Mr. Michael Sullivan from the General
Accounting--Accountability Office (GAO), director of
acquisition and sources. So we will have two panels of
witnesses today.
In addition to these witnesses, the subcommittee
specifically requested that the Army bring subject matter
experts on all the major programs in the budget, so members
should not hesitate to ask detailed questions.
And I will leave it to your gentlemen's judgment as to who
is best to answer those. All we ask is if we do have people
come up, they be sure and speak clearly into the microphone and
identify themselves before they answer questions.
The Army's fiscal year 2011 base budget includes $10.3
billion in research, development, test and evaluation and $21.3
billion in procurement. The Army is requesting an additional
$150 million for R&D and $8.9 billion in procurement in the
overseas contingency operations (OCO), formally known as the
supplemental. So we have a new name for it, but it is the same
issue. And we will hopefully have that up sometime soon as
well.
Overall, this total request for $42.9 billion appears to be
a solid request that will provide the Army with most of what it
needs for today's wars and investments in future capabilities.
And I think that is the major challenge of this committee. We
have many obligations and, obviously, national security is of
utmost importance at all times, but particularly important when
we have our troops at war in two separate places in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
At the same time, even with those critical needs, we live
in a world of finite resources, finite resources that seem to
be getting more finite all the time, so I respect the difficult
job that you gentlemen have to balance those needs, make sure
we are providing for the warfighter, and at the same time doing
it in a way that we can afford. It is a big challenge, and that
is what this committee is going to be very focused on.
With regard to specific programs, this hearing will
highlight several new initiatives and changes to ongoing
programs. First, the subcommittee expects to hear an update on
the Army's new Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) program. This
program, begun in the wake of the termination in the Future
Combat Systems' (FCS) manned vehicles, seeks to field a new
infantry carrier by 2017. And as we go forward with this, the
committee's main concern is that, frankly, we get a better
result than we got out of Future Combat Systems.
And we understand the challenges. It is our view that a
big, big part of the challenge was that we set a very, very
aggressive set of specifics, capabilities that we were looking
for out of these programs that were perhaps a little bit
unrealistic in terms of what they were going to be able to
achieve. At the same time, we then set it on a very aggressive
schedule, which put us in a position of having to authorize
procurement of pieces of equipment that had not yet tested out.
It was a bad combination, and we hope we have all learned
from that experience as we go forward with the Ground Combat
Vehicle, as well as our other programs, to make sure that we
are realistic about the capabilities that we can accomplish and
then set a timeline that makes sense, because we want to make
sure that we are not procuring stuff that has not yet been
proven to work.
To do that, I think we need to be very diligent on those
issues as we go forward. The Ground Combat Vehicle will be a
central piece of that.
So we hope we will do better on that. And I think similar
things can be said about the other pieces that are left of the
Future Combat Systems program, which is now dubbed the Early
Infantry Brigade Combat Team (EIBCT).
Again, a lot of the pieces of that were very ambitious, and
we did not quite measure up. And as we we are going forward
with determinations of what to buy out of those remaining
pieces, we want to make sure that it has tested out. We had
some very concerning test results recently on a number of the
programs within the EIBCT, and we want to make sure that those
are fixed before we go forward and buy more.
And we also have a concern that the Future Combat Systems
program, even though it has been officially terminated, its
base contract with the lead systems integrators (LSI), Boeing
and SAIC, lives on. So we have sort of main contractors for a
program that has now been changed.
As a result of this contract, the Army appears destined to
be committed to using an LSI for the EIBCT program through
2014, more than five years after the base FCS program was
terminated by the Department. So we will want to see how that
balances out. I am curious about your thoughts on that.
With regard to the Stryker vehicle program, I am aware that
the Army is considering a new double-V hull upgrade for some
Strykers in order to improve their protection against
Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). I look forward to hearing
an update on the status of that plan today. We obviously
consider this to be a very important issue, since it is force
protection focused.
At the same time, we want to make sure that we can do it in
a way that doesn't take away the advantages that the Stryker
gives us. We have a number of the Stryker brigades actually out
of my district, out of Fort Lewis. I have had the opportunity
to talk to a number of soldiers from within those brigades.
They love the Stryker. They love the Stryker mainly because of
how mobile it is. It gives them at least a little bit of the
ability to control their own destiny in a firefight or if they
encounter an IED.
So we want to make sure we strike that balance. At the same
time, if we can make it safer, do it in a responsible way and
get this program done, we would love to be able to get that
done. So I want to hear from you about how we can go about
doing that.
Another issue facing the Army this year is the future of
the M4 carbine. Now, the Army has fielded hundreds of thousands
of these weapons in recent years and is now looking at both an
upgrade program and a potentially new weapon development effort
as well.
And basically, you know, what we are going to be looking at
on that is, you know, balancing the reports, and there were a
lot of troubling reports about the performance of the M4 with a
lot of the tasks that have frankly shown it to be performing
quite well. And if it is performing quite well and if in fact
this is just anecdotal stories about problems with the gun, not
a systemic problem, then obviously that is the most cost
effective way to deal with it.
We also want to hear more about how you plan to balance the
looking at a new gun while at the same time looking at ways to
update the one that you have. How are you planning on balancing
that out to meet the needs and do so in a cost effective way?
Finally, today's hearing also covers areas that don't get
that much attention in the media, but which represent very
large annual investments by the Army: communications, equipment
and trucks.
This is a critical year for the Joint Tactical Radio System
(JTRS), which recently transitioned to the Army for program
management. The success or failure of elements of this program
will have long-lasting implications for Army communications and
network equipment.
In the area of trucks, the Army continues to spend billions
a year on a wide range of vehicles. Of note this year is a
shift to production for Army medium trucks from BAE to Oshkosh.
We are also interested and we understand at both BAE and
Oshkosh with different vehicles, we have a fair number of
vehicles that have been completed but have not yet been
distributed. And we are curious about the reason for that delay
and how big a problem you think that delay is and what we are
doing to deal with it, if in fact it is a problem.
In addition, the Army's future plans for Humvee production
appear to have changed significantly with funding for new U.S.
Army Humvees being zeroed out in the 2011 budget submission,
and we would be curious to hear more about your thinking behind
that decision and the future, how it impacts the future of our
tactical vehicles.
With that, I will turn it over to the ranking member on the
committee, Mr. Bartlett, for his opening statement. And I will
also ask unanimous consent to submit--I have additional
comments in my statement that I did not read--to submit those
for the record.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith can be found in the
Appendix on page 51.]
Mr. Smith. Mr. Bartlett.
STATEMENT OF HON. ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
MARYLAND, RANKING MEMBER, AIR AND LAND FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. Bartlett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First, I would like to take this opportunity to welcome my
friend from Washington to the Air and Land Forces Subcommittee
and congratulate him on his selection as chairman. This
subcommittee has a long record of working together in order to
properly equip our Army and Air Force. I am looking forward to
working with you. Again, Mr. Chairman, welcome.
To our witnesses for both panels, thank you for being here.
We are very fortunate to have each of you serving our country
and to have you here today. I would also like to congratulate
General Phillips on his recent promotion to lieutenant general.
Mr. Chairman, I have just a couple of issues I would like
to quickly highlight. First is in regards to electromagnetic
pulse (EMP). Essentially all of our new weapons systems have
been built with a waiver for EMP hardening. I won't get into
the details here, although I believe it is an extremely
important issue. General Phillips and I briefly discussed this
last week, so I know the Army plans on following up with me in
the near future to discuss my concerns.
In addition, I continue to be concerned about the continued
decline in research and development (R&D) funding. From 1983
till today, our investment in basic defense research as a
percentage of GDP has declined by 50 percent. As a farmer, I
will tell you that this is no different or less dangerous than
a farmer eating their seed corn.
It is politically easy to cut research, because we can't
see the future harvest from innovation. However, as a scientist
and engineer, I can guarantee you that unless we reverse the
decline in basic applied and advanced research funding, we will
cripple America's ability to maintain a technological world
leadership in future decades.
This not only impacts potential future capabilities for our
warfighters, but also has an industrial base impact. With our
technical workforce aging, we are in danger of losing our
intellectual capital. We need to develop the next generation of
engineers and scientists that will ensure the world's greatest
innovators reside here in this country. So I hope to learn more
from the Army in regards to how they are doing in this area.
Thank you for being here, and I look forward to your
testimony.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Bartlett. And thank you
for the welcome to the committee.
It is a privilege to be the chair of this committee. I have
served on it for many years and appreciate Mr. Bartlett's
leadership and very much appreciate what the former chairman,
Mr. Abercrombie, and Mr. Bartlett did in working in a
bipartisan way. There are certainly disagreements on this
committee. The great thing about it is frequently they are not
partisan, and they are always handled in a very professional
way. And I hope I can live up to the standard that Mr.
Abercrombie and Mr. Bartlett have set in that regard.
And with that, we will turn it over to our witnesses for
the testimony. My understanding is that General Lennox is going
to go first.
General, you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. ROBERT P. LENNOX, USA, DEPUTY CHIEF OF
STAFF OF THE ARMY, G-8
General Lennox. Well, good afternoon, Chairman Smith,
Ranking Member Bartlett and distinguished members of the
Subcommittee on Air and Land Forces.
We thank you for this opportunity to discuss the Army
acquisition and modernization programs and specifically those
that involve the fiscal year 2011 budget request. We are
pleased to represent the Army leadership, members of the Army
acquisition workforce, and the more than one million courageous
men and women in uniform who have deployed to combat over the
last eight years and have relied on us to provide them with
world-class weapons systems and equipment for mission success.
As Chairman Smith mentioned, my name is Bob Lennox, and I
am the Deputy Chief of Staff for the Army, the G-8. And my
responsibility in that capacity is equipping the Army units
primarily. I am joined today by Lieutenant General Bill
Phillips, the Military Deputy to the Assistant Secretary of the
Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, and by Dr. Dave
Markowitz, the Director of Capabilities Integration,
Prioritization and Analysis in the Army G-357.
I will start the comments, sir, by talking about Army
modernization and what is different this year from last. In our
primary three lines of effort that we are going to be following
in Army modernization, first is our plan. Our first line of
effort is buying new, buying new equipment to fill capability
gaps.
The Secretary of Defense has talked recently about winning
today's wars and then having the capability to hedge against an
uncertain future. And that is the aim of our procurement, and I
think you will see it. Our main focus in our modernization
program is the Brigade Combat Team modernization strategy. If
you will permit me, I will come back and talk about that a
little bit later.
But we have also invested in a number of capabilities
designed to win today's wars. So, for example, the Extended
Range Multi-Purpose (ERMP) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). We
have invested in fiscal year 2011 about $500 million in an
Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) capability
designed to help win today's fight. In fact, there is a Quick
Reaction Capability in Afghanistan performing today.
We are buying aviation capabilities. We are forming the
12th Combat Aviation Brigade, and in fiscal year 2011 we begin
the purchase of the 13th Combat Aviation Brigade. And it will
be about $6.6 billion invested in the 13th Combat Aviation
Brigade.
And we are buying to equip our reserve component. In fact,
the Army National Guard from September 2008 to September 2010
will experience 11 percent increase in their equipment on hand
and a 12 percent increase in their modernization rates. So that
is the first line of effort, buying new capabilities to fill
the capability gaps that we need for today and in the future.
The second one is sustaining existing systems through the
insertion of upgraded capabilities, recapitalization, and then
in fact divesting capabilities that we no longer need, trying
to keep our forces relevant and capable for the future.
For example, we are talking about the OH-58 Delta Kiowa
Warrior. We see having to sustain the Kiowa Warrior through
2025, and we are investing in upgrades not only to the safety
of the airframe, but enhancing the cockpit and sensors as well.
This includes efforts to lighten the soldier's load.
And I was fortunate enough to talk to the committee about
13 months ago about force protection. I understand there is a
committee hearing on this next week.
But we are comfortable talking about those issues today,
improvements on things like the Improved Outer Tactical Vest
(IOTV), fielding plate carriers that are about six pounds
lighter than the IOTV to help our soldiers lighten the load and
what they carry, and then divesting our oldest equipment, the
UH1 Huey, born in Vietnam. The last one went out of the
inventory in December 2009.
And the last M35 deuce and a half truck that you have heard
about over all these many years will be out of the inventory by
the end of fiscal year 2011. So that is our second priority
area: continuing to sustain and upgrade the fleet that we have
got and divesting capabilities that are no longer useful.
The third area is fielding according to Army priorities.
And in October of 2009, we published the Army equipping
strategy. And in there we talked about going away from a tiered
readiness approach to one that fields the soldiers with the
equipment they need to be successful in combat.
So every soldier going to combat, regardless of component,
regardless of being in the active force, the National Guard or
Reserve component, is fielded with the very finest equipment
that we can field. And this includes priority and National
Guard units doing homeland security missions, disaster relief,
and support to civil authorities.
And you will find that in the National Guard, for example,
our investment from 2001 through the end of our program in 2015
will amount to an average of $3.4 billion a year to enhance
their readiness for those missions.
Now, if you will permit me, sir, I will go back to our
Brigade Combat Team modernization strategy and spend a few
moments on what we think is our hallmark effort. And this is
the main change on our modernization strategy from last year to
this year when we had a Future Combat Systems focused
modernization strategy, and today it has changed to the Brigade
Combat Team modernization strategy.
There are four elements to the Brigade Combat Team
modernization strategy. The first is incremental improvements
to our network. Empowering soldiers, dismounted soldiers, is
one of the critical aspects of our incremental modernization
strategy in the area of network, giving them the capability to
receive digital information to know where they are, where the
enemy is, and empower them on the ground to make the most
knowledgeable decisions in an era where the individual soldier
is so much more important than even ever before.
The second aspect of that is to being able to accomplish
battle command on the move. Today we fielded the Warfighter
Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T) Increment One program, the
Warfighter Information Network Increment One, and that is about
fielded. And that starts to provide broadband capability down
to our lowest units. Increment Two, which fields starting in
fiscal year 2012, starts to deliver a capability of battle
command on the move. And Increment Three, then, adds an aerial
layer and enhances that battle command on the move capability.
That is element one of our Brigade Combat Team modernization
strategy.
Our second one is the pledge that we will incorporate the
Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles and the MRAP
All Terrain Vehicle (ATV) into our formations.
The third tenet is accelerating and fielding of capability
packages to Infantry Brigade Combat Teams (IBCTs). These are
the FCS spinouts that we think are technologically ready, that
include things like small robots, unmanned sensors, the Class I
UAV unmanned aerial vehicle, vertical launch vehicle, to 29
IBCTs, Infantry Brigade Combat Teams, by fiscal year 2016.
Now, as Chairman Smith mentioned, these did have some
challenges in their initial round of testing. They were found
to be oversize in some case, overweight in other cases, and in
some cases the mean time between failures did not measure up to
the standards we want.
There are two more testing opportunities. There is one this
August, and there is one next summer. We think we are on a path
to demonstrate the capabilities that we can accomplish those
capabilities.
But I want to assure this committee that if the
capabilities do not measure up, we will not go forward with
those capabilities, and we will not put them in the hands of
our soldiers. And I think you will find if you look at the
history of some of the capability spinouts, that we have made
those kinds of decisions on systems that have not measured up
in the past.
And, finally, the last part of our Brigade Combat Team
modernization strategy is the Ground Combat Vehicle. We think
this is critically important. It is designed to provide a
versatile range of capabilities that include force protection,
off-road mobility, urban operational mobility, and to contain
the size, weight and power to carry the network and expanded
capabilities that we need today and into the future.
In closing, in support of the Army modernization, the Army
has submitted a research development and acquisition budget
request of about $32 billion for fiscal year 2011. We believe
that this budget appropriately allocates resources between
bridging advanced technologies for our soldiers currently in
the fight and developing new technologies to bring the required
capabilities to soldiers in the future. As such, we meet our
leadership's intent of concurrently preparing our soldiers for
success today and transforming to meet the demands of the 21st
century.
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Bartlett and members of the committee, on
behalf of the soldiers and their families, we greatly
appreciate the tremendous support we receive from this Congress
and the American people. In order to successfully implement the
plans we shared with you today, we urge your continued support.
Providing all of America's sons and daughters who serve in
our Army with the most capable equipment for the battles they
are fighting today and are likely to face in the future are the
responsibilities that the Army takes seriously and is committed
to accomplishing. Thank you for your time. I will now be
followed by Lieutenant General Phillips.
[The joint prepared statement of General Lennox, General
Phillips, and Dr. Markowitz can be found in the Appendix on
page 54.]
Mr. Smith. Thank you, General.
General Phillips.
STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. WILLIAM N. PHILLIPS, USA, MILITARY DEPUTY
TO THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE ARMY FOR ACQUISITION,
TECHNOLOGY, AND LOGISTICS
General Phillips. Chairman Smith, Congressman Bartlett,
distinguished members of the subcommittee, I, too, am grateful
for this opportunity to discuss the fiscal year 2011
President's budget in Army acquisition and modernization
programs.
With this budget request, we are investing in the future
force capabilities while enhancing the capabilities of our
soldiers in the current fight. I am pleased to appear before
you today with General Lennox and Dr. Markowitz. We are very
grateful to the members of this subcommittee for what you have
done to provide our Army and our soldiers the equipment that we
have today that are in combat.
If I could just reflect upon my most recent assignment,
which was 11 months, a little over 11 months in Iraq and
Afghanistan, serving beside our soldiers, they are amazing on
the field of battle. And they are amazing for a number of
reasons.
Number one, the American people have entrusted us with
their sons and daughters, their most precious assets. Secondly,
this committee and the Congress and the American people have
provided us the resources with which we can build and develop
programs and put them in the hands of our soldiers.
For those two things in particular, I have watched them
operate on the field of battle, and I have been so impressed
with how they operate. They truly are amazing, so thank you and
the American people for entrusting us with those resources to
be able to be successful. And we constantly strive in support
of the American people to be good stewards of those resources.
Sir, today is a great day for the Army and a great day for
the Army Acquisition Corps. This morning at 1030 hours, the
Under Secretary of the Army swore in Dr. Malcolm O'Neill,
formerly Lieutenant General Malcolm O'Neill, as the Army
Acquisition Executive and the Assistant Secretary of the Army
for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology. He takes over from
Mr. Dean Popps, who has served our Army so well over the last
eight years. So, sir, it was an honor to welcome Dr. O'Neill to
our team.
Mr. Chairman, the Army has a comprehensive modernization
plan, as articulated by General Lennox. With lessons learned
from more than eight years of persistent conflict focused on
future challenges and promising technology investments, we are
pursuing a capabilities-based incremental modernization
strategy.
Number one, develop and incorporate new capabilities and
technology. Modernize and capitalize existing equipment and
reset and invest those that are no longer necessary for our
formations. And number three, we will field and distribute
capabilities in accordance with the Army's resource priorities
and also the Army's force generation.
I understand, Mr. Chairman, that there are several programs
of interest to this committee, and with your permission I will
briefly discuss their status.
We have organized the combat formation in a modular
construct focused on the Brigade Combat Team. General Lennox
has stated the Brigade Combat Team modernization plan includes
modernizing the network over time, rapidly developing and
fielding a new Ground Combat Vehicle, and incrementally
fielding capability package that best meet the needs of
soldiers and units as they train and then get ready to deploy.
Increment One of the Early Infantry Brigade Combat Team
systems, including the network integration kit Class I unmanned
aerial system, the small unmanned ground vehicles, and urban
and tactical unattended ground sensors, have been approved by
the Defense Acquisition Executive for low rate initial
production.
The Army released a request for a proposal for the
technology development phase of the Ground Combat Vehicle in
late February. It will be our first combat vehicle designed
from the ground up to operate in an IED environment.
With regard to the existing vehicles upgrades, the Army's
combat platform modernization program is focused on
standardizing the 31 heavy Brigade Combat Team sets with two
variants of our dominant combat platforms. That is the M1A1 and
A2 Abrams and the M2 Bradley fighting vehicles.
The Stryker program received full rate production decision
on 8 of 10 variants. This versatile and lethal vehicle can be
deployed in trouble spots worldwide in all spectrums of
operations.
The Paladin Integrated Management Program (PIM), or Paladin
PIM, is the Army's first fire support modernization effort for
the Paladin howitzer to enhance the delivery of accurate and
timely fires where and when needed. It is an important
cornerstone of our modernization strategy.
Modernization of our tactical wheeled vehicles is providing
our soldiers with the best possible protection, payload and
performance. At the heart of our plans is the Joint Light
Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) with the Marines to replace the Humvee
starting in about 2015.
We will continue to procure and field the family of medium
tactical vehicles to replace vehicles in the immediate fleet
that are over 30 years old. Recapitalization of our family of
heavy tactical vehicle fleet will focus on variants of the
aging Heavy Expanded Mobile Tactical Truck, better known as the
HEMTT, as well as incorporate much of MRAP into our future
forces as they are released from current operations.
On another matter of great importance, the Army is
committed to continuing to improve our small arms capabilities.
We are fielding a new semiautomatic sniper rifle, the M110, a
new 40-millimeter grenade launcher, and developing a light 50-
millimeter machine gun.
We are also taking a dual approach regarding the M4 to
improve the current weapon system as we look forward to a new
carbine requirement, as you mentioned in your opening comments,
Mr. Chairman.
We are also working to deliver the best ammunition to our
warfighters while at the same time fostering environmental
stewardship. The M855 A-1 cartridge designed for the M16 and M4
family of weapons and the M249 squad automatic weapons meet
both of these goals as a green program while providing
consistent shot-to-shot performance against all targets. They
will be available for fielding in June.
Information is key to success on the battlefield, and our
new radios will provide enhanced communication capabilities to
our forces. The Joint Tactical Radio System will provide a
mobile tactical radio communications network. The Ground Mobile
Radio (GMR) will provide multi-channel operations within
integrated global positioning system capability and the
handheld manpack and small form fit program, which will
provide, among several capabilities, a small, form fit radio
for various ground sensors, unattended vehicles, and unmanned
aerial vehicles.
Our aviation platforms continue to meet tremendous
challenges of today's combat environment. Continued
modernization of our helicopter fleet--Black Hawks, Chinooks,
Apaches--is absolutely vital to operations in Afghanistan and
Iraq. And, sir, having flown in Iraq and Afghanistan in
practically every aircraft that the Army is flying with today,
they have performed magnificently--to date, about 3.7 million
combat hours across both Iraq and Afghanistan.
As General Lennox stated, we remain committed to the
requirement for a manned armed aerial scout helicopter. A
formal Analysis of Alternatives (AOA) is ongoing as we continue
with upgrades of the Kiowa Warrior fleet. The Army is
partnering with the Air Force and fully endorses the joint
force theater lift effort.
The light utility helicopter, or Lakota, continues to meet
all cost, schedule and performance targets and has been fielded
to the National Guard across 13 states to conduct disaster
relief, counter drug operations, and institutional training
missions as well as test and training centers for the Army.
Army unmanned aircraft systems are vital capability for our
deployed forces. Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance
capabilities are significantly enhanced by platforms such as
the Raven, Shadow, Constant Hawk, Persistent Threat Detection
System, or PTDS, as well as the enhanced medium range
reconnaissance and surveillance system which evolved from the
Aerial Common Sensor program of a few years ago. Additionally,
the Extended Range Multi-Purpose UAV system is also on the
verge of providing us a tremendous capability on the field of
battle.
On another important issue, Mr. Chairman, we appreciate the
support by the members of this subcommittee and Members of
Congress as we work to rebuild the acquisition and contracting
workforce to handle the increased workload in managing our
acquisition programs as well as a number of contracted actions
and contracted dollars, which in the last 15 years has
increased by about 500 percent along with a subsequent
reduction in the number of people.
Along with the additional workforce personnel, we thank you
for authorizing five additional general officers for
acquisition. We have promoted three colonels to general officer
as of this date. And most recently, I served as the commanding
general of Joint Contracting Command Iraq and Afghanistan. And
currently in Iraq and Afghanistan today, we have Brigadier
General Camille Nichols, another Army general.
So with your help and the help of the Office of the
Secretary of Defense, we are working aggressively to reverse
the years of decline in authorized strength levels and restore
the skill level of our acquisition and contracting workforce to
deal with the growing complexities of our business environment.
At the same time, the Weapons Systems Acquisition Reform
Act of 2009 is helping us to ensure that our programs are
healthy and that all problems are identified and program
adjustments made to them to keep them healthy. By building more
discipline, oversight and transparency into the process, we are
better able to provide services, deliver mature technologies,
and rapidly procure the equipment that our warfighters require
and deserve.
Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of this Subcommittee
of Air Land Forces, your deep and abiding commitment to our men
and women in uniform is widely recognized throughout our ranks.
We thank you for your continued support of the outstanding men
and women of the United States Army and their families. Mr.
Chairman, I look forward to your questions.
[The joint prepared statement of General Phillips, General
Lennox, and Dr. Markowitz can be found in the Appendix on page
54.]
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much.
Dr. Markowitz. And if you could keep your comments
relatively brief, I want to make sure we give members a chance
to ask some questions. I think that has been a pretty good and
thorough outline of what we are talking about. If we could keep
it in sort of the five-minute range, that would be great. Thank
you.
STATEMENT OF DR. DAVID M. MARKOWITZ, DIRECTOR OF CAPABILITIES
INTEGRATION, PRIORITIZATION, AND ANALYSIS AND TECHNICAL ADVISOR
TO THE DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF OF THE ARMY, G-3
Dr. Markowitz. Yes, sir.
Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Bartlett, distinguished
members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to
appear before you to discuss the Army's modernization program
and requirements processes.
My name is David Markowitz, and I am the Director of
Capabilities Integration within the Army G-3. The directorate
is responsible for the review, validation and approval of
material requirements. Additionally, we recommend overall
program priorities to Lieutenant General Thurman. As requested
in your letter, I will briefly highlight important aspects of
the requirements process for both current operational needs and
long-term programs.
Let me start first with operational needs statements, or
ONSs. ONSs support the Chief of Staff of the Army's vision to
build a versatile mix with tailorable and networked
organizations. An ONS is a request from a commander in the
field to headquarters Department of the Army for either
existing equipment or new capabilities to meet unexpected
mission demands.
In 2009 the Department of the Army received or was
processing approximately 2,500 ONSs, requests from commanders
in the field asking for more than 6,000 separate types of
equipment. The vast majority of these requests were for
existing Army items.
Joint Urgent Operational Needs Statements, or JUONSs, are
similar to ONSs, except the request goes through joint
channels. They are approved by the joint staff and assigned to
a service or agency by the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
There are far fewer JUONSs, but they are almost entirely for
new capability development. The Department of the Army is
currently working on roughly 10 JUONSs.
To ensure the Army is providing the right capability at the
right time, we have regular weekly meetings with theater that
review, validate and source theater needs. Over the past two
years, we have created a prioritization process to ensure that
our limited resources are used in the most urgent demands.
The process is timely by collapsing the requirements,
resourcing the acquisition activities into a condensed
synchronized effort. Based on lessons learned, the Army updated
Army Regulation 71-9 this past December to codify these
changes.
The Army is also taking steps to assess the material that
we have rapidly fielded to support the war. The Army set up the
capability development for rapid transition process. Run by our
Training and Doctrine Command, we obtain warfighter feedback,
including assessments by the Army Test and Evaluation Command's
reports, to make recommendations on what to do with the
capability for the long-term.
There are three types of recommendations: incorporate into
a program of record, sustain only for the war effort, or
terminate. Today, the Army has reviewed 452 new material
capabilities with 10 percent recommended for transition to an
acquisition program, 25 percent for termination, and the
remainder to sustain for the war.
As to long-term requirements, the Army is internalizing the
Secretary of the Army and the Chief of Staff of the Army's
guidance on implementing a cost culture within the Army. This
closely aligns with the goals of the 2009 Weapons Systems
Reforms Act.
We are working with the Office of the Secretary of
Defense's cost assessment and program evaluation agency on
announcement of alternatives, guidance and implementation. We
are also working with the acquisition community to ensure that
requirements from major defense acquisition programs are
reassessed annually to see if certain capabilities are causing
large cost growth.
Additionally, under the leadership of the Under Secretary
of the Army and the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, we are
performing a series of capability portfolio reviews to set the
context for modernization. This is a new endeavor recently
begun this calendar year.
We are holistically examining separate capabilities like
tactical wheeled vehicles or precision munitions and making
recommendations to revalidate, modify or terminate
requirements. The Secretary of the Army has asked that after
one year we assess our progress and make recommendations for
institutionalizing this activity.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That concludes my opening remarks,
and I look forward to your questions.
[The joint prepared statement of Dr. Markowitz, General
Lennox, and General Phillips can be found in the Appendix on
page 54.]
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, gentlemen. We will in the
questions try to keep to the five-minute rule, even for me and
the ranking member, because I want to give all members a
chance. We will go through multiple rounds of questioning, if
necessary, to make sure we get all members' questions, but do
want to keep it moving as quickly as possible.
And so, gentlemen, as you are answering a question, if you
see the five-minute light is up, if you could try to--I mean, I
don't want you to stop in mid-sentence or anything, but if you
could try to wrap it up as quickly as possible, that would be
appreciated.
I am going to start asking about the EIBCT program. And I
guess the question we have, and I know the statement that you
are not going to field anything that isn't ready to go, and yet
we don't at the moment have the tests that show that most of
this is ready to go, so the first question is, you know, why
not just delay it for a year?
Why is there a budget request for procurement on this stuff
in there? That kind of puts us back into the betting on the
come problem that we had with Future Combat Systems. Why did
you make that decision in this specific instance?
General Phillips. Sir, great question. What we have learned
from the FCS program throughout its years of development, what
we wanted to do in coordination with OSD was to leverage our
investment in FCS itself. So as we look forward to bringing our
strategy for the capabilities packages that encompasses the
EIBCT, we worked with OSD and developed a strategy at the
direction of OSD, actually, to be able to field the capability
as soon as possible.
So we developed the capability packages, but we know that
within those packages itself, each item may not be as mature as
the other items. And as General Lennox said in his opening
comment, we are not going to field anything that is not
suitable, effective on the field of battle for our soldiers.
Mr. Smith. But cutting through that, I think you are saying
some of it is ready, some of it is not. You are going to buy
what is ready. But is that actually the case? I mean, what are
the pieces of it that have tested out that you are confident
right now to buy?
General Phillips. Sure, we have that test that we just did
for the Limited User Test (LUT) last August, last summer, for
the EIBCT pieces, the network integration kit, the Small
Unmanned Ground Vehicles (SUG-Vs), the Tactical Unattended
Ground Sensor (TUGS) and the Urban Unattended Ground Sensor
(UUGS), there were some issues that----
Mr. Smith. I think there are about maybe three people in
this whole room who understand what you just said----
General Phillips. Yes, sir.
Mr. Smith [continuing]. But that is okay----
General Phillips. The small unground----
Mr. Smith. Go ahead, please.
General Phillips. The small unground vehicle, the tactical
and urban ground systems, the sensors that you would use inside
a IBCT. We know there are issues with them through the limited
user test that we just had.
In conversation with Director, Operational Test and
Evaluation (DOT&E) and GAO, we know that we have challenges
that we face like, for instance, weight on some of the small
unmanned ground sensors. Some of them are about almost twice
the weight that they should be. We know that we have
reliability challenges with some of those IBCT systems.
But what those tests have allowed us to do is understand
where those challenges are. And for us, we have to design or
develop fixes into those systems. We know 94 percent of the
fixes associated with the limited user test last September, and
right now we are in the process of implementing those fixes, so
when we go through the next fix and then the next session would
be a test in August of another limited user test, we will hope
to have 94 percent of those issues fixed.
Mr. Smith. Well, just so you know, the committee's going to
keep a careful eye on this, obviously. We are very early in the
process. You know, it will be a while before we passed the
final bill. But, you know, our inclusion of these items is
going to depend on our confidence as well as yours about what
is going to be fielded and what is not going to be fielded.
The other question about some of these components, the new
components, is some of them are very expensive, much more
expensive than what they are replacing. And, you know, we have
to sort of measure the capabilities versus cost. Are we really
getting that much more capability?
And one example that has been brought to my attention is
the unmanned aerial system (UAS) for the EIBCT will cost
$360,000 each when the Army's current similar system, the Raven
UAV, costs $17,000. You know, basic question is first of all,
do you accept those numbers as being roughly accurate? And if
so, then basically what you are saying is this new thing is
going to be 21 times better than the old thing, to use a
technical term. Is that really the case?
General Phillips. Sir, I would answer part of this and then
let General Lennox take it from there.
Mr. Smith. Yes.
General Phillips. But you have to look at the maturity of
the program as well when you compare one to the other and the
capability that it provides. Raven is a very mature system. I
think we fielded well over 800 of those in theater already
flying today.
And the Class I UAV is still in development as a part of
the EIBCT, so when you are early in development, some of those
systems are going to be expensive, but as you go forward into
more toward full rate production, the costs of those systems
are going to certainly be reduced. And then it is a measure.
You hit it right on the head--the capability that it provides
versus the cost, because that is the balance that you have to
achieve.
Mr. Smith. Just off the top, what is the increased
capability here with this UAV versus the old one?
General Phillips. Sir, the current Class I UAV weighs about
17 pounds. It provides you a hover stare capability. It is not
a fixed wing like the Raven, so you can hover over a certain
location, and you can just get the stare down capability with
that UAV. It is relatively easy to fly with soldiers. It has
been tested in a test environment at Fort Benning, at Yuma and
many instances.
Soldiers like this system. It provides them great ISR
capability, great situational awareness of what is happening on
the battlefield, to fly over a building and to hover and give
that stare down capability. Great situational awareness, sir.
But there are issues with that system. One is the noise. It
is a noisy system that we need to reduce the decibels on the
field of battle. That was one of the issues that came out of
the recent LUT is how can we reduce the acoustics associated
with this vehicle.
Mr. Smith. Okay.
General, did you have anything quickly? I am out of time,
but----
General Lennox. Sir, I think General Phillips covered it.
Mr. Smith. Okay. Great.
Mr. Bartlett.
Mr. Bartlett. Thank you.
My first question is a follow-up to my opening statement
for either General Phillips or General Lennox. Could you
comment on the Army's research and development funding in the
near term and far term? Specifically, could you give us an idea
of how the Army is leveraging capabilities from its science and
technology budget?
I would also like to ask you to provide the committee with
an assessment of how the Army might use additional funds for
research and development, if they were made available.
General Lennox. Sir, thanks for your question. The Army has
kept over the last several years research, development, test
and evaluation funding at about--RDT&E funding at about the
same level, so it has been consistent over the last couple of
years.
We think the amount that we are asking for in fiscal year
2011 is adequate. We have had remarkable successes, as you know
from your background, in the investments we made in Science and
Technology (S&T) and some from Fort Detrick, as you are well
aware, the investment in some of the bandages and work that the
Medical Research Command did there in adding capabilities to
help stop and staunch the loss of blood very quickly.
There have been a number of systems and capabilities that
we have taken to the battlefield that have come out of our S&T
program, a lot of work on future armor capability. So it is
very important to us, and we think we have about the right
amount, sir.
General Phillips. Sir, I would just add a couple of things.
One is OSD has been working with us very closely, and they have
designated the Army in a couple of areas to be able to focus on
key things. One is focal plane array for Infrared (IR) high
definition. We have the best sensors on the battlefield today.
With this S&T investment of about $93 million, which brings up
to about $160-or-so million this year in this kind of
technology, it will ensure that we have the edge for our
soldiers that are using the next generation of IR sensors.
The other one that I would share with you, sir, would be
force protection. Our investment out of that $1.9 billion that
General Lennox just mentioned, the majority of that will go
into force protection systems. The OSD has designated the Army
as the deployment force protection task force lead, and we are
going to invest about $170 million in that effort alone.
Mr. Bartlett. Thank you.
I have a second question for Dr. Markowitz or General
Lennox. During our Air Force posture hearing, we had an
opportunity to discuss the Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA) program
with General Schwartz. I still have some concerns about the
ability to meet the original validated Army Joint Cargo
Aircraft requirement, which I believe was for 78 planes.
In a series of hearings, no one has said that that
requirement has gone away. As you know, the Quadrennial Roles
and Missions Review released last year clearly stated the
option that provided most value to the joint force was to
assign the C-27J to the Air Force and the Army. As you may
know, the Army uses its plane. The Air Force has the plane. We
now are going to have only 38 planes. There is a clearly
validated use for that plane in this country by the Guard for
national security issues.
And my question is how are we going to meet the Army's
originally validated needs of 78 planes, plus the stateside
needs was only was only 38 planes?
General Lennox. Sir, you are right. The actual Joint
Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) approved number is for 75
Joint Cargo Aircraft. There was a commitment for 78. The Army
had said they would buy 54, and I believe the Air Force would
buy the remainder. And currently, when that program transferred
to the Air Force, I think it currently stands at about 38
aircraft, so I think you have all the facts correct.
We in the Army believe we have a requirement for the direct
support role of fixed wing aircraft. We have had a recent pilot
interact that has demonstrated that this has proved
tremendously successful. There are two C-130s that the Air
Force has dedicated to a Combat Aviation Brigade, proved
tremendously successful, and we are waiting for the combatant
commander in Afghanistan to ask for that capability.
Mr. Bartlett. The original 78 planes--there has been no
study after that to indicate that the Army requirement is in
fact anything less than the original 75, 78 planes, correct?
General Lennox. Not that I am aware of, sir.
Mr. Bartlett. Thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman, the Army continues to say they need 78
planes. The program has been transferred to the Air Force, who
didn't want the program. They now have only 38 planes. Clearly,
the needs of the Army cannot be met with this, and this
provides us with a continuing challenge. Thank you very much.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much.
Before I call on Mr. Kissell, I just want to follow up
briefly on something I asked earlier when we were talking about
the cost of the new UAV. I get that as you build them over
time, you have the possibility of the cost getting down. I
would note that apparently we have committed to nine brigade
sets of that UAV, and the average $260,000 cost is for all
nine.
So that is pretty far out down to the right before we start
to see that coming back down, so I would be interested in--not
now, but perhaps a better explanation for how that additional
cost is justified, because that piece of it doesn't seem to
help that much in this particular instance.
Mr. Kissell.
Mr. Kissell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would also like
to join the ranking member in welcoming you to your new
capacity with our committee as our chairman, looking forward to
working with you.
And, gentlemen, welcome to our committee. And I have two or
three questions, and I really hadn't figured out who is best to
answer them, so when I ask the question, whoever wants to jump
in, I would appreciate it.
We had a full committee hearing this morning. We had
commanders for European Command, Africa Command and the Joint
Forces Command. Two of the three commanders cited as one of
their big concerns is cyber security. Just wondering what are
we doing in technology and procurement and development to
alleviate these concerns.
General Lennox. I think we are looking at each other,
because we don't have a very good answer for you, sir. But let
me start. The Army is committed to the Department of Defense's
stand up of Cyber Command, and we have recently signed up for
Army Cyber Command. So we will be standing up a three-star
headquarters dedicated to this effort.
I think that I will have to take for the record, unless
someone else has a better answer on the specific cyber kind of
procurement things that we are doing to support that effort.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 113.]
Mr. Kissell. I would appreciate that very much.
It was mentioned in one of the opening remarks about the
National Guard. I am from North Carolina, and our general,
General Ingram, and who is head of our North Carolina Guard,
was with me today, expressing some concerns as we bring into
these Army aviation brigades that where is equipment going to
come from to supply these additional demands?
He had heard rumors along the line that we would either be
taking the equipment from existing Guard capabilities or they
would be shut off from new equipment until these brigades were,
you know, fully supplied. I think you did mention that there
would be, like, 11 or 12 percent increase in equipment going to
the Guard. What can I tell General Ingram so he won't have to
worry about this?
General Lennox. First, sir, General Ingram has done a
remarkable job with the North Carolina Guard, and their
deployments and soldiers have done a fantastic job in combat.
My compliments to you and to your state's National Guard team.
We are standing up two Combat Aviation Brigades. The 12th
Combat Aviation Brigade is a collection of currently existing
active component units that we are putting together and
fielding to deliver a capability to alleviate the heavy demand
in combat of aviation requirements. That is happening right
away out of current assets.
The 13th Combat Aviation Brigade has been fully funded over
the program to be fielded in fiscal year 2017. The Secretary of
Defense has asked us to come back to see if there is a way to
expedite fielding that capability either through early
procurement or through a combination of pooling assets from
both the active and reserve component forces that can get that
capability for the Nation to deploy faster.
It is our commitment to every Guard unit that we will
modernize their equipment. And in the end, if there is a
Secretary of Defense approved borrowing action under 1225.6, we
will note that, and they will be reimbursed with planned and
programmed aircraft.
Mr. Kissell. So I can tell General Ingram that it is going
to be okay.
General Lennox. I believe so, sir.
Mr. Kissell. Okay.
Last question. We have from time to time people come to us
with good ideas. And they are kind of research and development.
I share the ranking member's concern that if we don't fund the
R&D at a high level, that it is just very shortsighted.
We have had people come to us with ideas, and these are
very legitimate ideas on how to make body armor stronger and
lighter in weight, a more of a classified nature of vehicle
that the Army is looking for, and an idea that would help our
equipment engines last longer. What do I tell these people? How
should they proceed in getting these ideas listened to and for
you to become aware of them so that you can be aware of these
good ideas?
General Phillips. Sir, that is a great question. And what I
would ask is that they engage with us in the acquisition
community. At various times for various systems, we will send
out requests for information, and we will run industry
conferences.
And we have program executive offices (PEO) that exist all
throughout our Army that manage programs. Well, today we manage
over 700 programs. One of those is PEO Soldier that you
mentioned about body armor. We are always looking for industry,
to talk to industry and have them interface with us and to
provide us their feedback.
For GCV we held two industry conferences--Ground Combat
Vehicle--two industry conferences where we got about, I think,
about 40 or so, maybe more than that, white papers back from
industry. We welcome industry's input into our processes, sir.
And if you have someone in particular that you would like us to
talk to, we would certainly be glad to chat with them.
Mr. Kissell. We will follow up.
And thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, gentlemen.
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
Mr. Hunter.
Mr. Hunter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, gentlemen, for being here today and thank
you for your service.
Talking about the M4, I just want to stick with that. If it
is shown that we need a new weapon and that we are going to
replace the M4 or the M16, the issue that I have, basically, is
that Title 10 limits companies allowed to bid on critical small
arms components for specified small arms, including the M4. You
know this. There are three companies right now that are allowed
to bid based on Title 10.
One of those companies makes the Ma Deuce. The other two
can't compete for small arms. Out of those two that are allowed
to actually compete for small arms, one of those is a foreign
company, a Belgian company. So there is only one American
company that can compete with itself, I guess, being the one
American company, if you want an American manufacturer for
either the upgrade to the upper receiver of the M4, which we
are thinking about doing, if needed, or for a brand-new
replacement for it.
Last year the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)
again required a report on the small arms industrial base while
also giving the Secretary of Defense the authority to expand,
modify or change the companies in small arms production in the
industrial base.
I understand that in December the Army denied entry to one
or more well-known domestic small arms companies, including the
largest gunmaker in the entire nation. The largest gunmaker in
America was excluded as a small arms option for the M4.
Based on the changes made in the fiscal year 2010 NDAA to
expand or modify the companies in the small arms production
industrial base, can you explain why the Army is not embracing
competition? That is my first question--two more to follow
here.
Have you urged Secretary Gates to modify or change the
companies in the small arms production industrial base? And
lastly, are you confident that by limiting competition, if your
answer is no to those first two, are you confident that by
limiting competition to these three companies based on a
decade-old study, that our soldiers and Marines and pretty much
everybody in every service, as we are all going to use the same
thing pretty much, are you confident that they are getting the
best bang for their buck and that the American taxpayers are
getting the best bang for their buck, too?
General Phillips. Congressman, thank you for your question
and thank you for your service.
A couple of points. The M4 is an extraordinary weapon
today. We have continued to improve it. Over 400,000 have been
fielded today. It performs extraordinarily well in theater. In
my 11-plus months there, I heard one complaint, and it was from
a division commander about the magazine on the M4.
Mr. Hunter. Sir, I don't mean to interrupt. I like the M16
and the M4. I have shot targets at 500 meters away in the, you
know, prone position. I am a triple expert rifle, pistol. I
like it, too. What I am saying is, if we have to upgrade it, if
Congress or DOD or you deem that it is necessary, then what?
Those are where my questions go here.
General Phillips. Sir, got it. And our dual strategy,
really, is to, number one, upgrade the M4 as we know it today.
And we believe that we, do a full and open competition process,
we will be able to upgrade the M4, which will add to the
already 62 improvements that we have made over time to that
weapon system.
The other piece of the dual strategy is to go out with full
and open competition for what might be the follow-on to an M4.
And the capability development document is being drafted now.
We think that the ammunition--or, I am sorry, the small
arms industrial base is very robust and that there will be
adequate competition there. And we know that in the previous
National Defense Authorization Act that on the 31st of March of
this year that the Secretary of Defense will have the authority
to actually waive some of those requirements so we can go
forward with full and open competition, sir.
Mr. Hunter. Have you urged him to waive those requirements
to allow more than one competitor into the open competition?
General Phillips. Sir, we have not at this point. The study
that you mentioned earlier in one of your comments is being
prepared now within the Army. The reason it took a little bit
of time is because we had to go out to about 14 different
organizations that have a stake in the weapons systems that we
are preparing. It wasn't an easy task just internal to the
Army. We had to go out to get that information. And we should
have that back to OSD near-term probably within the next 30
days, sir.
Mr. Hunter. Thank you, sir. And, you know, basically what
we are looking at here is if you only have one competitor--it
is a great company, by the way; it is a great rifle that we
have now--but it is not competition if you only have one
company competing for it.
I don't think we ought to allow a foreign company also to
be making the next carbine, if we choose to make it or to
upgrade the one that we have now. I think it ought to be an
American company, and I think we ought to do everything in our
power to urge Secretary Gates, and your power as well, to let
all of these great American small arms manufacturers into this
fight. But thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
Mr. Marshall.
Mr. Marshall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to just
make a few brief remarks, and then I am going to yield the
balance of my time to Mr. Bartlett.
JCA C-27--I am not particularly troubled by the fact that
the Air Force has been at least given the maintenance,
sustainment, modernization end of this, since Army just was
fixated on contractor base services and doesn't really have the
interest or capability to do depot work on something like this.
The Air Force can do that. And I suppose the Air Force
could have the platform as long as it is providing Army with
the services that Army needs and in the way that Army needs
those services provided.
And the challenge that we had in Vietnam, and certainly
history suggests it is not going to work real well if what we
get now is what happened in Vietnam, is that where lift is
concerned, at least, the Air Force has a strategic view and
where this kind of lift is concerned, Army has a very tactical
view. And that clash did not serve us well with--was it the
Grizzly? I can't remember the platform in Vietnam.
General Lennox. Caribou, sir.
Mr. Marshall. Caribou? And ultimately, we concluded that
Army had to have the platform.
To what Mr. Bartlett previously said about requirements, I
would simply add that the latest study I am aware of is
Institute for Defense Analyses's (IDA) analysis of different
mixes of lift, given different kinds of challenges. And if we
believe that we are going to have these kinds of long-term,
simmering conflicts in the future, IDA concluded that we didn't
just need 78. We needed 98 of these things to be most cost-
effective across the board.
So I hope Army is thinking about more than 38 in the future
here, even if Air Force happens to have the platform, you know,
temporarily or permanently, because it seems to me Army's view
is more than 38, based on all Army has said thus far. And then
IDA chimes in and, at least for the conflicts that it looks
like we are going to be in for a little while, says it should
be even more than that.
And with that, let me just transfer it back to Mr.
Bartlett.
Mr. Bartlett. I thank the gentleman very much for yielding.
I would first like to identify myself with the concerns of Mr.
Hunter. You can't have a full and open competition if you have
excluded many of the potential players. I have no idea why we
have done this.
Back to the Joint Cargo Aircraft, specifically I would like
to know how the Army is currently meeting this requirement in
Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). For example, what is the
impact to the sustainment and availability of the CH-47? I
understand that because we don't have enough of the Joint Cargo
Aircraft, we are now using helicopters and commercial rented,
leased aircraft to meet these needs. Is that correct?
General Lennox. Sir, it is correct. There are record uses
of the CH-47 in Afghanistan. It is a climate and an area that
lends itself to helicopters, but there are record uses of the
CH-47, and that is putting quite a burden on the fleet. And
there is contract aircraft being used to the tune of about $8
million a month, I believe. But I will follow up specifics on
the amounts.
I think it is up to the combatant commander to some extent,
so I don't want to necessarily say that this is the right
solution or it is not the right solution. The combatant
commander gets a chance to say, request what kind of airport
support they need based on what they see in their theater.
Mr. Bartlett. But when he runs out of Joint Cargo Aircraft,
then he has to use something else, correct?
General Lennox. Sir, right now there are C-130s being used.
I don't think we have yet deployed our first Joint Cargo
Aircraft to Afghanistan. I think that won't happen until next
year. And we are using a combination today of C-130s in small
numbers and contract aircraft and relying on the CH-47 Chinook.
Mr. Bartlett. But aren't many of the airstrips there pretty
short, so that we are limited in where we can use the 130?
General Lennox. I am not an expert, sir, on the C-130 and
the airstrip constraints there. I do know that there was
infrastructure constraints there in terms of how much room
there is on the ground. And I do think that affects how many C-
130s you can bring into theater.
Mr. Bartlett. Yes, it is my understanding that in
Afghanistan the Joint Cargo Aircraft is even more essential
because of this infrastructure availability. Thank you very
much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you for yielding, sir.
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
Mr. Coffman.
Mr. Coffman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I understand that we are going to have a hearing, upcoming
hearing, Seapower Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee, where we
will be discussing force protection issues, but since the Army
has the preponderance of folks on the ground, I would like to
ask some of your views in terms of modernization.
First one would be the helmet. I understand that our
current Kevlar helmet does not protect against 7.62 mm. And I
wonder if you could first address what is being done there.
General Lennox. Sir, I would like to not talk about the
specifics of what the helmet can and cannot do. We are looking
at a more capable version of the helmet in concert with the
Marine Corps. The initial effort, I understand, has run into
some challenges in terms of meeting those requirements, so it
has been delayed a little bit. But the Army is after providing
at the same weight, so we don't add weight to the soldier load,
a more capable helmet.
Mr. Coffman. Where are we at right now in terms of reducing
the load requirement in terms of the protective vest?
General Lennox. Sir, we made substantial requirements since
I testified before this committee last year. The IOTV itself,
the improved outer tactical vest, is lower in weight than the
earlier version of the outer tactical vest by, I think, about
three pounds.
The plate carriers that are designed specifically for
soldiers to wear in high altitudes in eastern Afghanistan, for
example, dismounted soldiers that will be climbing hills, that
is about six pounds lighter. And we have fielded those now in
substantial numbers.
In addition, we have done things like improve the boots,
improve the vest, and improve some of the machine gun weight.
So we are trying everything we can to take some of that weight
off the soldiers.
General Phillips. Sir, the only thing I would add to that
is that we are trying to give the commander options as well, so
depending on what kind of environment they are in. Obviously,
they are in combat. You want the maximum number of protection.
But if they are back on a forward operating base, then you
might need a lesser level of protection, so you might go from
31 pounds, pull a couple of plates out and go down to 25
pounds.
Mr. Coffman. Would that be taking out the side Small Arms
Protective Insert (SAPI) plates? Very well.
In terms of we take casualties through snipers, and the
preponderance of casualties, I think, in Afghanistan are
through snipers and through IEDs, roadside bombs, can you tell
me--in terms of modernization we were talking about various ISR
platforms. Is there anything on the horizon to provide better
force protection for our folks on the--for our soldiers and
Marines on the ground?
General Lennox. Sir, the Army is committed to tackling the
common IED problem where we do receive most of our casualties.
And as you know, there is no panacea. We have recently fielded
the MRAP ATV vehicle to provide enhanced protection and off-
road capability, thanks to the help of Congress and the
Department of Defense.
We have fielded a number of efforts to enhance ISR. Task
Force Observe, Detect, Identify, and Neutralize (ODIN)--
Afghanistan, which was very effective in Iraq, is now fielded
in Afghanistan. A number of different ISR platforms are being
fielded. Human terrain teams are out there trying to make a
difference, and ground clearance vehicles have been taken from
Iraq, where the instances are lower, and moved to Afghanistan.
So there is a full court press in a number of different ways.
It has not solved the problem, but I think we have made
dramatic improvements.
General Phillips. Sir, I would add to that that we have
fielded systems like the Persistent Threat Detection System.
There are six of those in Afghanistan. I have watched them
personally operate in Iraq inside the headquarters, and that
gives a forward operating base a tremendous capability to
protect against threats that exist within a few kilometers of
the forward operating base (FOB) itself.
You mentioned sniper. As a part of our investment in S&T,
we are going after trying to see if we can defeat the sniper by
acoustics, and some of those are classified programs----
Mr. Coffman. Sure.
General Phillips [continuing]. That we are going to push
forward to try to go after that threat in particular.
Mr. Coffman. Thank you, I----
Yes, did you have a----
Dr. Markowitz. Yes, sir, it is just that we have worked
very closely with OSD. They have had a special task force on
counter IED activities. We work closely with them and with
theater.
There is a large list of new and improved capabilities that
we are working, all the ranging from more persistent forms of
stare to different types of explosive detections, chemical
sniffers, to different types of Tactics, Techniques, and
Procedures (TTPs) and contractors in the field to kind of help
the linguists and those other areas of identifying and
targeting the IED network. So we are looking across the full
range, sir.
Mr. Coffman. Mr. Chairman, if I could, one comment? And
that is that I think we have learned one thing, and we cannot
up-armor ourselves out of this, you know, in terms of
protecting our soldiers and Marines on the ground. And so I
think really we obviously need to focus on ISR capabilities.
Every time we increase, you know, the weight of our vehicles,
they increase the size of their explosives.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
Mr. Wilson.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you all for being here and thank you for your
efforts in modernization.
And I appreciate so much the service of Congressman
Coffman. He served, and so as he discusses the issues, he is
telling you from his experience in the combat theaters. So I
appreciate him so much.
On the other hand, I just went through training, and that
is at the National Training Center. It was an extraordinary
experience 10 years ago, and I tell you this as a compliment.
All of the equipment I have is in a museum, and so from the
boot to the helmet. And so I just want to thank you all for
expediting.
And I want to join with Mr. Kissell that as people bring
innovations to us, I know we want to get these to you as
quickly as possible. And in particular, I have been very
intrigued at initiatives brought to my office concerning fire
suppression capability. And that concerns me so much with, as
indicated by the munitions, but virtually anything to reduce
the possibility of just the heinous nature of fire.
Could any of you comment on what is the latest on that? And
what can we do to help you?
General Phillips. Sir, I share your concerns about that,
and my old boss, who is Dr. Markowitz's boss, is Lieutenant
General Thurman, and he underscored enough that we have to do
everything possible to limit the impact of fire and the damage
that it does to our soldiers.
On each vehicle there are multiple ways of addressing it to
aim at protecting soldiers. First and foremost is the fielding
of the fire resistant uniform. We have done that in the old
version. As we are about to produce another uniform, fire
resistant will be the very first thing to go into it.
We are experimenting with different kinds of limits to
protect the soldiers now so that--they wouldn't wear the old
hoods; too heavy, too hot--so we are experimenting with lighter
variants.
On each vehicle there are about three different ways to
suppress fire. First is the optical sensor that senses fire and
automatically shuts off the fuel and reacts. Because of
complaints, comments, lessons learned from theater, we have
added external fuel cutoff valves that a first responder at the
scene can pull this, if the fuel has not been cut off, and cut
the fuel out.
And then as we build our vehicles, and especially our heavy
trucks, we have added things like blankets and fire resistant
coatings around the fuel tanks. And those are all some of the
things that we have done. I think we have done some extensive
experimentation. There have been people with ideas. I think we
have looked at every idea that has come forward, and we welcome
an opportunity to do that again, sir.
Mr. Wilson. And how would we, if people bring innovations
to us, how could we expedite that--not show favoritism as much
as to promote the protection for our troops?
General Phillips. Sir, a couple of ways, and I will go back
to my earlier comments. We have various program executive
offices. Offices that may have responsibility for that:
Aviation in Huntsville for aviation systems, Tactical Wheeled
Vehicles up in Warren. We have the Rapid Equipping Force that
would welcome any industry partner who has an idea that could
bring that forward.
We welcome those ideas, because as General Lennox said,
what we do today is not enough. We must do better tomorrow to
protect our soldiers and give them the best equipment. And that
includes fire protection. As an aviator for 30 years flying in
helicopters, you sort of grow up thinking about fire, because
helicopters, if they crash, they are probably going to burn.
We have the same kind of mentality now, I believe, in our
tactical wheeled systems and our other systems, and we need to
continue to grow the same kind of protection inside of them. We
welcome industry's ideas. If we can help with anyone in
particular, sir, we will gladly engage.
General Lennox. Send them our way, sir. We will get them to
the right people.
Mr. Wilson. Well, and I appreciate that. And it is not just
for me. I obviously would want it for every Member of Congress
as people bring in innovations to us.
And since I have only got 30 seconds, I also want to thank
you all for promoting unmanned aerial vehicles. I say this as a
parent. I had two sons serve in Iraq, and I always hoped that
there was a UAV overhead. And so the technology that has been
promoted and presented for our troops, we as American citizens
appreciate that, and I only want more, so for our troops.
Thank you very much. I yield my time.
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
Mr. Platts.
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First, I want to just thank all of our witnesses and
especially thank you for your service. And the work you do is
so important. As Congressman Wilson just said, what you are
doing truly is about the safety of our troops on the ground and
those in uniform. You, both generals, you certainly appreciate
that more than I can.
On this specific follow-up to Mr. Kissell and Mr. Wilson,
if it is possible, because I think we all have that opportunity
where an industry in our districts comes to us and says, ``Hey,
we have got a great new idea, state-of-the-art,'' if it is
possible for the record back to the committee to share in your
offices who would be the right person or person and so we all
have that, and then we can just direct.
That would be wonderful with my district, central
Pennsylvania, heavy manufacturing base and a long history of
support, industrial, military industrial, BAE Systems, General
Dynamics. Going way back, my brother, who runs forklift at
Harley Davidson, when he started there he was on the bomb line
at Harley Davidson. Not many people knew there were bombs
casings being made in the same factory as bikes, but that has
now moved on elsewhere.
The specific question--Mr. Hunter kind of touched on the M4
issue pretty in detail, and Roscoe, Mr. Bartlett, followed up
on the importance of that competition being healthy, engaged--
is there any more detail on the specific timeframe of the
upgrades versus the Request for Proposals (RFP) for the new
version, or the, you know, the advanced, you know, next stage,
where we stand on that?
General Phillips. Sir, we expect in the next maybe up to 60
days or so, but within the next 60 days, we anticipate that we
will get the RFP out for the upgrade to the M4 carbine, the
upgrade competition.
I think when we went out for a Request for Information
(RFI), we got over 20 responses back from industry, so we are
pretty confident that we have the capability out there with a
robust industrial base, that we will be able to accomplish the
upgrades that we want for the----
Now I will transition to the actual competition for
another, the follow-on, the next generation, per se. And that
critical--or that capability development document is still
going forward to the Joint Requirements and Oversight Council.
We would like to get it out this fiscal year, but I can't
commit to you that we will be able to do that until we get the
requirements through the process to OSD and vetted. And then we
will get the RFP on the street as soon as possible.
If I could also state, we want full and open competition
for this new system, so that is what we will go forward with
and that is what we will present to OSD as well, sir.
Mr. Platts. Okay. I appreciate that and the emphasis on
full and open, and probably goes without saying that we got
great American manufacturers here that--full and open so
American jobs are created as we go forward with that new
version.
And did I understand correctly that one of the challenges
has been that 14 different entities--it is not just the Army,
but who you are partnering with in the other branches and that
use the same weapons platform?
General Phillips. Sir, many, many services, Special
Operations Command (SOCOM), Marines, others use our weapons.
And a lot of the systems that we buy are used by the other
services. Another example away from small arms, but ammunition,
single manager for conventional ammunition is PEO Ammunition at
Picatinny Arsenal. So our Army program executive office buys
bombs and bullets and other ammunition systems for the other
services.
So many of the requirements that we have today that we have
worked within our acquisition process are actually borne joint
before the requirement is ever approved. I hope that answers
your question, sir.
Mr. Platts. Thank you. And just a final comment on the M4.
It is not the 7.62 mm, but my 13-year-old's Christmas present
that he was just hoping for under the tree was the .22 caliber
version of the M4 that does shoot wonderfully. We target shoot
a lot, and so another vote of confidence in the M4--different
caliber, but a great weapon.
So appreciate the advancements that you are doing and
ultimately how that does translate to the men and women out
there in harm's way, us doing everything we can. And my thanks,
if you can convey back to your staffs, both civilian and
uniformed, in the important work you are doing on that
acquisition and research development and all of that. It is so
important to protecting our heroes out there, so----
General Phillips. Sir, you bet. Will do.
Mr. Platts. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yield back.
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
Actually, I will follow up on that and ask what is sort of
the--what I think the logical is here, that if the M4 is
performing so well, why are we having a competition to go out
and try to build a new rifle? And as I understand it, you are
also looking at ways to update the current M4. So I am worried
that this has been sort of--it was pushed a little bit
politically, because there were some stories about the M4 not
performing well.
And to your credit, to the Army's credit, now, you did a
thorough investigation of whether or not that was happening.
And the answer that seemed to come back was that, no, it is not
happening, that, you know, every weapon that we are going to
put out there could, you know, potentially it won't perform
perfectly. There will be problems.
But relative to any, you know, comparable study of the
effectiveness, the M4 is, as Mr. Hunter, who has operated it,
pointed out, it works. And yet after all that, the result is we
are going through, you know, what is going to be a somewhat
costly study to try to look at an alternative. And I agree with
the comments of my colleagues about if we go through that
process, we do want to make it as open to competition as
possible. My question is why are we going through that process?
General Lennox. Sir, I think the Secretary of the Army
decided about this time last year to commit to a full and open
competition as a result of some of the concerns that you
mentioned. The current system can compete against that, so we
think that the outcome of this, you know, the M4 was stand on
its own or not, or it might encourage innovation so something
better could come from it, so----
Mr. Smith. So it is possible that you go through this
process analysis of alternatives, analysis of ways to retrofit
the existing M4 and you say, ``You know what? We got what we
want. We are going to stick with it.''
Okay. That is helpful.
General Lennox. Absolutely, sir.
Mr. Smith. That definitely answers that piece of the
question.
I had mentioned in my opening statement about the backlog
of trucks that are completed, but not being shipped where they
are supposed to go. Could you talk a little bit about that?
General Lennox. Yes, sir. There are about 5,000 medium
tactical vehicles now at a plant in San Antonio awaiting
shipment. Most of those came about because as the truck was
being developed, we asked for an armored cab. And we did our
testing simultaneous with production, so we discovered things
in the testing that then had to go back and be modified in the
truck before it can be accepted, so----
Mr. Smith. Trucks aren't actually--they are not ready.
General Lennox. They are not ready. Those are not ready.
Mr. Smith. Okay.
General Lennox. We have heavy trucks. We have about 14
heavy trucks that also have to undergo some modification, minor
modifications before they are accepted. They all have
distribution instructions so that the minute they are ready and
accepted by the Program Manager (PM), they are capable of being
shipped.
Mr. Smith. Okay. And just could you walk us a little bit
through in more detail the Stryker decision on, you know,
upgrading them, you know, to making them, basically up-armor
them so they can survive blasts, if they happen to come across
one?
And specifically, one of the questions that in talking to a
number of people about this I have not had 100 percent
clarified is if we decide to go with this double-V format--
personally, as a proud University of Washington graduate, I
think they should have called it a W but, you know, nothing is
perfect--if they do in fact do that, is it possible--and I
think in speaking with you gentlemen, I think you said it
wasn't--to put that new hull on the existing Strykers?
Or would it have to be simply, okay, we are going to change
the Stryker going forward? I mean, that is one of the big
questions I have about this proposal.
General Lennox. Yes, sir, you have got it exactly right. It
would require a completely new hull, so it is a new production
vehicle.
Mr. Smith. You could not put it on the existing----
General Lennox. You cannot retrofit it, sir. I think they
have tried to do some of that, and they found out that the
welding--you don't sustain the same force protection when you
do it.
I would like to compliment the members on their
encouragement of innovation and ideas. GD is the one--General
Dynamics Land System actually came up with this idea for the
double-V shaped hull, brought it to us. And that was in
January, and now this is March, and I believe the Secretary of
the Army or Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition,
Logistics and Technology has sent this forward to OSD.
Our goal is to produce the test vehicles. If they work, we
have one brigade set of vehicles that we sent to Afghanistan
and put it in the hands of our soldiers, sir.
Mr. Smith. And that is the goal of this committee is, you
know, as I mentioned in my opening comments is the Stryker is
great in many ways. If there is a way to make it more
survivable and better protect our soldiers, you know, on our
committee we want to get those out there as quickly as
possible, so we want to work on that.
I did have a--I will ask just one more question and see if
any more members have. Could you talk about the Humvee
recapitalization program a little bit, what your plans are,
because I understand your plan is not to build any new Humvees,
but there are looks--you are looking at ways to update the ones
that we have? Can you walk us through what your plans are on
that?
General Lennox. Yes, sir. The Army has met its acquisition
objective on Humvees, so we have actually accelerated stopping
the buying of Humvees a couple of years early, somewhat
influenced by the fact that in theater commanders are reluctant
to let soldiers go out because of vulnerability of the Humvee.
We have----
Mr. Smith. They are relying more on the Stryker and the
MRAP. Is that----
General Lennox. Yes, sir. Exactly.
Mr. Smith. Okay.
General Lennox. We have in fact requested funding in the
2011 OCO bill to start a recap program for Humvees. We have
currently a recap program that is about to end at several of
our depots. So what the Army is wrestling with now is how to
bridge the capability between the ending of that program this
year, maybe early next year, and the 2011 funding that we are
requesting.
Our plan is to recap some of the oldest Humvees and make
sure that we bring them up to a capability where they are
useful until we can bridge them into the JLTV of the future.
General Phillips. Sir, if I could add just to that very
quickly, we are going to issue the--really, the last order for
Army Humvees this month to AM General. And that is going to
happen actually probably in the next few days. However, on the
horizon, our emerging requirements from other services, we have
over 150,000 Humvees operating in the Army today, other
services, Special Operations Command, foreign military sales.
So what we know that are emerging requirements on the
horizon will probably keep AM General and producing new Humvees
probably through the first couple of months of fiscal year 2013
not through Army orders, but through Foreign Military Sales
(FMS) and other services.
Mr. Smith. I would be really curious to pursue that. And I
am way over time here, but to find out, you know, if the
Humvees aren't actually being used, and you mentioned a couple
of other areas where they might be, you know, building more of
them, recapitalizing them, I mean if we are doing that on a
program the military is reluctant to use, I would really want
to look closely at the wisdom of pursuing that. So we will
follow up on that more.
Sorry--just turned myself off.
I do want to get the second panel up here, but I also want
to respect members. I am not going around to everybody, but I
will give Mr. Bartlett a chance to ask further questions, if he
has them, and I will just sort of ask if any of the other
members have anything for the good of the order they want to
add to this panel.
Mr. Bartlett. I just have one comment, Mr. Chairman. It was
fairly obvious, I think, to almost everybody for a number of
years that Future Combat Systems was in real trouble. And, you
know, we have to find some way to pull the plug earlier before
we spend extra billions and billions of dollars. I hope that
somebody is looking at this as a model on how we can do better
in the future. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. An outstanding point. Thank you.
Any other members have anything further for this panel?
Mr. Marshall.
Mr. Marshall. First, I apologize. Thank you for service.
And secondly, to just chime in with Mr. Bartlett, we ought to
know that a proposed weapons system is in trouble when we
cannot explain it in a way that, you know, normal Members of
Congress can understand.
And the Future Combat Systems was this evolving thing that
nobody ever really understood. We just shouldn't even come
forward with things that we can't present with some
specificity. It is really unfortunate, because we did waste an
awful lot of money trying to pursue that before it got killed.
Thank you, gentlemen.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
Any other members' comments?
Well, thank you very much. Appreciate your service and your
testimony. And we look forward to working with you on all these
very, very important issues.
With that, we will go to our next panel, Dr. Michael
Gilmore and Mr. Michael Sullivan. And we will take a brief
break here while we are waiting for people to change positions.
Mr. Smith. Looks like we are about ready to go. I will give
you gentlemen another extra minute there to give folks a chance
to take their seats.
Thank you very much. We have introduced our witnesses
earlier, but I would do it one more time. Dr. J. Michael
Gilmore, who is the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation
Office of the Secretary of Defense, and Mr. Michael J.
Sullivan, Government Accountability Office, Director of
Acquisition and Sourcing.
And, Dr. Gilmore, my understanding is that you are going to
go first. You may proceed.
STATEMENT OF DR. J. MICHAEL GILMORE, DIRECTOR, OPERATIONAL TEST
AND EVALUATION, OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
Dr. Gilmore. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members
of the committee.
At your request I am here today to discuss test planning
and test results for the systems composing Increment One of the
Early Infantry Brigade Combat Team, or EIBCT, as I will refer
to it, as well as test planning results for selected components
of the Joint Tactical Radio System, or JTRS program, as well as
results from testing of the Army's Extended Range Multi-Purpose
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle System, or ERMP. So I will just go
through those in turn.
Beginning first with the EIBCT, the Army conducted what
they called a limited user test, which is a test under fairly
operationally realistic conditions.
Mr. Smith. I am sorry. I forgot to do this with the first
panel as well. You have submitted statements for the record.
Those statements will be read into the record, and you don't
have to read the whole thing. We will put it into the record.
You summarize as best you see fit. Thank you.
Dr. Gilmore. Okay. And that is what I am doing. I am not
planning on reading all of that statement that I submitted.
The Army conducted a limited user test of the EIBCT during
August through September of 2009 at Fort Bliss. This was the
first test in an operationally realistic environment of the
components of the EIBCT system. It was a force-on-force test
consisting of an infantry company and a scout platoon equipped
with all of the EIBCT systems--and I will explain more of what
they were individually--executing missions against an opposing
threat force.
And then also there is the non-line of sight launch system
(NLOS-LS), which consists of rockets with a capability to
attack moving and stationary targets, mostly vehicles, up to a
range of 40 kilometers. And there was actual live firing under
operationally realistic conditions, a test done of that system
in January and February of this year.
And so based on the results of those tests, as well as
developmental testing that preceded those tests, my assessment
is that each of the EIBCT systems requires further development
prior to conducting initial operational test and evaluation,
which under current schedules would take place in fiscal year
2011.
And all of the systems have notable performance
deficiencies, and the demonstrator liability for each of the
systems falls below the Army's requirements, and in many
instances well below the Army's requirements.
Now, taking the individual systems, the non-line of sight
launch system, or NLOS-LS, requires further developmental and
operational flight testing to demonstrate improved reliability
and the required performance of the precision attack missiles
infrared seeker.
During a recently conducted flight test under operationally
realistic conditions, two of six missiles fired achieved target
hits, and four missed their targets. The reason for one of the
failures has been identified fairly definitively. The Army has
a pretty good idea of what led to two of the other failures.
And then the last failure, the root cause is still under
investigation.
But testing has demonstrated NLOS-LS is making progress in
some areas. The missile warhead can kill armored vehicles when
it hits vulnerable areas. And missiles using what is called the
laser designate mode when a laser is shined on a target and the
seeker in the missile tries to hit that spot on the target, in
that mode there has been demonstrated success where five of
seven targets have been hit in both operational and
developmental testing.
And in a limited user test that was conducted in 2009--that
was before this most recent flight testing--where the operation
of NLOS-LS with simulated, it was demonstrated to be
interoperable with the Army's fire support network and in those
simulated engagements was effective in processing electronic
fire commands and in engaging enemy targets. But those were
simulations.
As far as the Class I Unmanned Aerial System is concerned--
that is the air vehicle with an electro-optical and infra-red
sensor that can be used to observe enemy movements--that system
meets most of the Army's requirements for air vehicle flight
and sensor performance. And it was used extensively during the
recently conducted limited user test, the one that was
conducted last year.
However, it suffers from poor reliability, and it is also,
as General Phillips noted, noisy. It can be heard from a fair
number of kilometers away. It also can be spotted from a fair
number of kilometers away. That is a double-edged sword.
Sometimes that is actually good. In the testing it was observed
to actually scare some of the opposing force away. It made them
want to take cover, but in general it is a problem.
Because it was unreliable, that UAS, that unmanned aerial
system, was not employed as the backpackable company and
platoon level asset that was envisioned by the Army, and that
is a potential problem, because the UAS lacks the range to be
employed regularly in combat as it was in the test.
As far as the small unmanned ground vehicle is concerned,
the SUG-V, it demonstrated a capability to remotely investigate
potential threats. However, the range over which it can be
operated, which is supposed to be on the order of a kilometer,
in the test was demonstrated to be much shorter, on the order
of 50 to 75 meters when there were a lot of buildings around,
and on the order of 100 meters or so in more open terrain.
That is a problem, because it exposes the operators to
hostile fire and identification. And in fact, a number of the
operators in the limited user test were evaluated as being
killed, because they were exposed.
Both the urban unattended ground sensor, the UUGS, and the
tactical unattended ground sensor, the TUGS, demonstrated
little contribution to unit situational awareness. The images
they collected were often blank or blurry and provided little
actionable intelligence, and very few of the images were sent
forward to higher echelons of command and beyond the platoon
and company level.
As far as the network integration kit is concerned, it is
composed of computers and in particular the ground mobile radio
that is part of the JTRS system. That has demonstrated a
capability to receive sensor data and pass messages, and still
images over the Army's current battle command network, but it
is falling well short of the Army's reliability requirements,
and soldiers report that it is very difficult to use.
Also, its ability to pass information securely and reliably
within a network composed of many nodes is yet to be
demonstrated. And in fact, some of the testing that has been
done demonstrates that it has problems forming a 30-node
network.
According to the Army's Test and Evaluation Command, the
greatest reliability likely to be achieved without substantial
redesign for the network integration kit, the two sensors and
the small and ground vehicle, as well as the Class I UAS, is
below the required reliability for each system. So if the
maximum reliability that you can get by fixing without major
redesign is below the required reliability, that means, then,
an extensive redesign would be needed to achieve the required
reliability.
Finally, the Army will execute a second limited user test
of all the systems during August through September of this
year, and this will be an opportunity to assess the fixes that
the Army is now identifying. Some of the changes that are being
made to systems that were mentioned by General Phillips, I
think, were identified before these tests, the limited user
tests were done.
The Army is in the process of doing production
qualification and other testing of the systems that presumably
will surface additional improvements and changes that have to
be made. It is going to be challenging to get all of those
changes in so that we can test production representative
equipment in this upcoming limited user test.
That is the goal at this point, and then, of course, the
initial operational test that is supposed to take place next
year. We also want to test production representative equipment
with all the changes incorporated.
As far as the JTRS, ground mobile radio or GMR, and the
handheld manpacks small form factor or HMS radios are
concerned, those programs are working at a complete system
development prior to testing in an operational environment
scheduled for November of 2010, this year.
But these tests are dependent upon the success of the
developmental testing that is ongoing, the development of
supporting waveforms, how the radios actually transmit
information, and network management tools that is how the
radios are formed into a network and how that network is
managed, and the completion of other requirements, including
radio network architectures that means which units will have
the radios and which units will communicate with one another,
and then plans for managing the network. So there is a lot of
work that needs to be done for those tests to be executed
correctly.
The rifleman radio, which is part of the HMS program,
conducted a limited user test in April 2009 that highlighted
deficiencies in reliability, battery life range, and also what
we call an immature concept of operations. The soldiers
basically had a hard time figuring out how to use the radios to
maximum advantage.
That radio, the rifleman radio, reliability battery life
and transmission range were well below user requirements by
factors of two to four. There is a new version of that,
upgraded version of that radio in development, which is
supposed to address many of those problems, but we haven't
tested it yet.
The program will conduct a series of tests from April
through June of this year to verify correction of deficiencies
identified in this limited user test, and the results of these
tests will support an acquisition review in August of this
year, and the rifleman radio initial operational test in
November of 2010.
Manpack radio development testing is being conducted,
leading to a limited user test in November of 2010, so that
testing for a number of these radios is supposed to sort of
come together late this year. But completion of the planning
for that test again awaits user requirements, including network
management plans.
The ground mobile radio, or GMR, is experiencing now an
eight-month delay in developmental testing due to late delivery
of hardware and software. And what that has resulted in is
basically a compression of the schedule for doing the testing.
So they still want to do the operationally realistic testing on
the same schedule. That means there is going to be less time
available to test, find problems and fix them leading up to
that operationally realistic test.
Execution of that test, that limited user test, depends
upon not just fixing problems that are discovered in that now
shortened developmental test program, but also delivery of a
functional wideband networking waveform (WNW) that is very
important. That has to be incorporated in the ground mobile
radio in order for it to transmit large amounts of information
like, for example, images from the sensors I just described,
among other things.
Developmental versions of that WNW, wideband networking
waveform, performed poorly in tests that have been conducted
and drew concerns from the National Security Agency with regard
to security features. GMR--our program is working to integrate
a new functional, secure WNW in the GMR prior to a November
2010 limited user test.
The GMR is a critical component of the network integration
kit, and if it is delayed, then presumably there could also be
an effect, perhaps the delay, on fielding the EIBCT systems.
Now, the overall schedule leading to all of these tests, as
I have already alluded to, contains substantial risk, because
there is little time to address corrective actions. There is
dependence upon yet to be demonstrated waveforms and network
management capability, and these requirements need to be
finalized.
Mr. Smith. I am sorry to break in here. It is just that all
this prompts a question that I just can't wait to ask. And that
is it does not seem like these things are going to be ready
anytime soon within the configuration that we would need them
to be. I mean, the UAV alone--I mean, if the whole big
advantage of the new UAV is that, you know, it has got that
hoverability, hoverability doesn't do you much good if
everybody can hear it, and, you know, on down the line of all
what you put forward.
In your estimation at this point, does it make sense to
have any procurement money going in at this point for these
programs, all of which, if I am hearing you correctly, are not
just a little tweak here, a little tweak there--I mean, they
are way off from meeting the capabilities that we are asking
them for.
I don't know if you view it as part of your job to make
this type of a judgment as to whether or not we should be
procuring these things, but I am curious in light of that, you
know, explanation of all those deficiencies in all those
programs, is it foreseeable that by the end of this year they
will have those things fixed to a level that makes sense to buy
them? It doesn't seem to me--I mean, a layman's view, but----
Dr. Gilmore. I would really rather demure on saying whether
I think it makes sense to try and proceed with production, and
the reason is that I am supposed to be the objective evaluator
of the systems.
Mr. Smith. Okay. Let me ask the question differently.
Dr. Gilmore. But let me say this.
Mr. Smith. Yes.
Dr. Gilmore. Let me say this, which I think will respond to
part of your question.
Mr. Smith. Okay.
Dr. Gilmore. It will be a challenge, a major challenge, to
correct all the deficiencies that we have identified. And the
Army acknowledges that. The performance deficiencies that I
noted are a concern, but the reliability problems are a
particular concern.
Based on the experts that we have consulted, the
reliability shortfalls that were demonstrated in this test
normally would imply that you would need on the order of
perhaps two years to do redesign efforts in order to be ready
and meet the reliability requirements that the Army currently
says it wants to meet.
Now, later this year and in fact throughout the year, but
later this year, I think in the November timeframe, the Army is
going to need to review progress in improving reliability of
the systems and also review whether all of those requirements
actually makes sense, because there is a history of requiring
more reliability than is needed. We want systems that are
reliable, but sometimes we try to press too far. And we will
obviously be involved with the Army in doing that kind of an
evaluation, so----
Mr. Smith. And I get that but, you know, in this instance,
and I will inquire further of you and of others, it doesn't
seem like, you know, we are looking for a big leap ahead in
ability and, gosh, you know, we are only getting about halfway
there, but we are still leaping ahead.
I am struggling with a lot of these things to see how they
are any better than what we have right now. Now, granted, I am
sure there is an answer to that, and I will try to get that.
But that, I think, is the big question. Is there progress here
at all in terms of the capability over what we are buying now
for a lot less money in some instances?
Dr. Gilmore. Well, we have worked with the Army at the
direction of Dr. Carter to institute what we call a comparative
test now for the initial operational test and evaluation, which
will be done next fiscal year. But in that test we are going to
have a battalion that is equipped as the units are being
deployed now, conducting the same missions and being evaluated
in the same way that a battalion equipped with these systems--
--
Mr. Smith. And when is that? I am sorry--when is that test?
Dr. Gilmore. That is next year. That is next fiscal year
that initial operational test is going to be conducted.
Mr. Smith. Okay.
Dr. Gilmore. So we will have information at that time on
how well the systems are improving the capability of the unit
through all what we are buying. And we need a battalion's worth
of equipment in order to do that test.
Mr. Smith. Okay. Sorry to hijack there--please.
Dr. Gilmore. Oh, I do it for you.
Then as far as the ERMP, which is the last system that your
letter asked me to assess, the secretary directed a surge in
ISR, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support for
operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq. And as part of that
surge, the ERMP Quick Reaction Capability (QRC), there is one
unit that has already been deployed, and there is a second QRC
that will be deployed later this year.
And in the ERMP we have something that we developed for all
these major systems called a test and evaluation master plan
(TEMP), which describes how they should be tested. And that so-
called TEMP calls for a series of operational tests conducted
in conjunction with the unit training to support that surge.
So what we are doing is incorporating into our test
planning training to support the surge. These units, these ERMP
units, are being deployed before full operational testing takes
place, but we are trying to incorporate the training and other
things that need to be done to get the units out there early as
part of our testing plan. And so far that has been quite
successful.
The initial operational test and evaluation of the full
system is scheduled to be conducted in September 2011 with a
full rate production decision in April 2012. And as I said,
there will be at least two of these quick reaction units that
have been deployed prior to that testing.
The Army conducted what they call a customer test in April
of last year, and my office provided what we call an early
fielding report, which is required under law in that
circumstance, to the defense committees in September 2009,
assessing the ability of that first Quick Reaction Capability
of that unit to accomplish its wartime mission.
And what we found was that--and that testing was conducted
in flights over Edwards Air Force Base--what we found was that
that unit did effectively employ the ERMP as it existed at that
time, although the ERMP, the aircraft, was limited in its
capability at that time. It didn't have synthetic aperture
radar. It was not able to employ hellfire missiles. It did not
have a secure line of sight communications, and it didn't have
satellite communications capability at that time.
The development just hadn't proceeded far enough for all
those capabilities to be ready, but since that customer test in
April 2009, actually all of those systems, all of those
additional capabilities have been incorporated in the aircraft,
and they are being used in Iraq right now, and they will be
available for the next QRC when it deploys later this year.
The Army plans to conduct another limited user test at the
National Training Center this time with the Quick Reaction
Capability II unit, so that unit will be involved in testing,
and at the same time it will be training for its deployment
later this year. And as part of that testing and training, it
will also be operating with other units with which it will be
operating when they all go to the theater later this year.
Full production representative testing will occur in an
initial operating test in fiscal year 2011 for ERMP, and then
there will be a follow-on operational test in 2012, because
there are going to be additional capabilities, in particular
new synthetic aperture radar incorporated in the aircraft that
we need to test later on.
And all of those tests will be conducted in conjunction
with the unit's deployment to the National Training Center, so
there will be testing and training that we will be combining in
that series.
And so my assessment of what has happened with ERMP,
notwithstanding the fact that we are deploying this capability
before we have done full operational testing, the testing that
has been done has been robust, and it has been very useful,
because it has been combined with the training, and we do need
to get these capabilities out as quickly as we can. And I think
this is a good example of how we have been able to do that and
also test them.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Gilmore can be found in the
Appendix on page 82.]
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
Mr. Sullivan.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL J. SULLIVAN, DIRECTOR OF ACQUISITION AND
SOURCING, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Mr. Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Bartlett and other members of the committee.
Before I start, I would just like to introduce Bill
Graveline here to my left. He has been the assistant director
on the Future Combat Systems program for GAO for longer than
probably he wanted to be--probably 8 to 10--well, since 2003.
So he has got all of our corporate knowledge, and I am kind of
new to it. I have him in case your questions get too tough.
It is my pleasure to be here with you today to discuss the
current status of the Army's modernization efforts since the
secretary's decision to restructure the Future Combat Systems
program back in April.
My testimony will focus on current challenges and
opportunities for the Army as it moves forward with its
modernization plans, including its current contracting
activities, our views on the status of the Brigade Combat Team
initial increments, and our views on the ground combat
development effort as well.
For the time being, the Army is using the modified Future
Combat Systems development contract to continue to increments
of development of the Brigade Combat Team equipment and its
supporting network. It has also awarded a contract to procure a
long lead items for the initial Brigade Combat Team equipment
and has issued a modification to that contract recently to
begin low rate initial----
Mr. Smith. If I could ask, Mr. Sullivan, your testimony----
Mr. Sullivan. Yes.
Mr. Smith. Dr. Gilmore did a pretty thorough job of
covering a lot of the specific details of that. If you see
things that are redundant, if we could please move past that.
Mr. Sullivan. Okay.
Mr. Smith. We want to get to some questions. I think we get
kind of the overall gist. If there is something new in addition
that you want to add----
Mr. Sullivan. Okay. What I would probably do is just
summarize our views on how the testing went and where they are
today in the acquisition strategy.
In light of the issues that we have discussed here today
and the problems that they have had in the task and focusing
mostly on the reliability problems that they had, we are
concerned at this point that the Army's production decision
that was approved by the Department is too risky at this point.
The Army is proceeding with procurement despite having
acknowledged that the systems are immature, unreliable and
can't perform as required. The decision to move into production
with this risk is also at variance with DOD's own acquisition
policies, some of the new policies and some of the best
practices that emphasize knowledge-based and incremental
product development.
As a result, in our soon to be released report, which is
out for comment right now and with the committee, I believe--it
is still in draft form--but we are intending to recommend that
the Army correct all of the maturity and reliability issues
with the initial increment that testing has or will identify
before the Department approves any additional production lots
moving forward and before any of the systems are fielded. So
that is kind of where we are on Increment One and follow-on
increments.
Our views on the Ground Combat Vehicle development effort
are perhaps a little more optimistic at this point. DOD made a
material development decision this February, and over the next
several months, it will be conducting an analysis of
alternatives, which has recently been kicked off.
Once the analysis of alternatives is done, I believe, in
early fall this year, it is planning to follow that with a
Milestone A decision on whether to award multiple contracts to
begin technology development in order to mature technologies
prior to going to Milestone B.
In addition, it is currently proposing the use of
competitive prototyping with multiple contractors during
technology development, which will emphasize mature
technologies. And it is planning a preliminary design review to
validate contractor readiness to go to systems integration
prior to Milestone B in fiscal year 2013.
These are all pretty much plans that go according to a lot
of the new policies that have been laid in, a lot of the
acquisition reforms that were heard about last year, and tend
to follow best practices, although they are still very much in
their infancy and can change. Current plans are to deliver the
initial vehicle in fiscal year 2017, about seven years from
Milestone A to first delivery.
So, Mr. Chairman, as you can see, the current post-Future
Combat Systems modernization environment is mixed with what is
going on today, and it is still taking form. It is important to
note that when we add up all of the funding available in the
Future Years Defense Plan (FYDP) today for ongoing development
and procurement funding for Brigade Combat Team increments and
development funding for the Ground Combat Vehicle, this
represents about $24 billion of investment in the Army's plan
budget from 2011 through 2015.
With that amount of money on the line, it is critical to
get these things right this time, we think. That is why we will
also be recommending that the Army report to the Congress by
the end of the fiscal year the details of its new modernization
acquisition strategy in full, including plans for program
management and contracting strategies.
Mr. Chairman, that completes my statement, and I will be
happy to take questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sullivan can be found in the
Appendix on page 92.]
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much.
On the Ground Combat Vehicle, it seems that the Army's--you
know, they have issued their request for proposal for it at the
same time they are doing an analysis of alternatives, as I
understand it. Does that fit with the acquisition policies when
you do the analysis of alternatives first and then make the
request? How do those two things mesh?
Mr. Sullivan. That is a good question, and I think there is
probably a nuanced answer to this because, first of all, I
think the analysis of alternatives they are doing is not--you
know, there are different types, I guess, of analysis of
alternatives.
If you are trying to come up with a material solution for a
new capability to defeat a new threat or something like that,
you might start an AOA much more broadly and consider first
whether you need an airplane, a tank or a ship, and then kind
of get down to what the material solution would be.
In this case, I think it is pretty clear that they are
replacing Ground Combat Vehicle, so they start out, I think,
with less broad scope that way. That is less risky, in my
opinion.
What we have done is we have looked at it and asked why
they would need to be, is there a reason to be concurrently? Is
there an urgent need for these, the Ground Combat Vehicle,
right now that they have to press it into an acquisition
program and start spending a lot of money today? And if there
isn't, why not take the time? Do an analysis of alternatives,
which should be informing proposals anyway, probably, for new
technology.
That would be the question that we have right now. Why? You
know, there is no truly urgent need to get this program going
now, so why not do the AOA first and then see what you get out
of that and see if that can inform contractors' proposals.
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
And, Dr. Gilmore, back on the EIBCT and then the other
component parts, I think, you know, what I am going to need to
research more carefully is what exactly is the increase in
capabilities, as I said. I mean, it is pretty clear that the
program is not where they want it to be and that it is going to
take a bit of a pull together there.
Now, that has all kinds of implications in terms of
budgetary decisions in the short term, but I am also curious
that if we are going to make that type of investment, I think
it is going to need to be a little bit clearer, at least to me,
why, you know, what is the improvement?
And I would ask you one question about that. So we are
going to field a battalion, basically, of the new equipment and
tough it out as opposed to a battalion of the old equipment.
Can you walk me through--and this is my ignorance to a certain
extent--the timing on that, why that is happening? It is
happening next year, as I understand it. In the meantime we are
procuring and moving forward with a lot of this equipment and
testing it.
I guess I don't understand how that sort of plays out. You
would like to have that test performed first before you even
buy all this stuff and figure out whether or not it is going to
help you. Is this something they have done historically in a
lot of other programs? Can you enlighten me a little bit?
Dr. Gilmore. Actually, with regard to conducting initial
operational test and evaluation, the low rate initial
production units are used to do that.
Mr. Smith. Okay.
Dr. Gilmore. So typically, we start to produce, but we
would like to make sure that we have production--we have to
make sure that we have production representative equipment in
those so-called, low rate initial production (LRIP), units.
Those are what we buy in order to do operational testing.
Mr. Smith. Okay.
Dr. Gilmore. Now, of course, we oftentimes also buy more of
these LRIP units than are actually needed for testing for the
reasons.
Mr. Smith. Right.
Dr. Gilmore. But the short answer to your question is yes,
this is what we typically do.
Mr. Smith. Right. And is there an additional threshold in
terms of--because, obviously, you don't want to procure a bunch
of stuff that you know isn't going to work, just to run this
test. So I imagined there is an initial threshold of, okay, let
us get it to this point, and then we procure for the test that
we are talking about. Is that the way it plays out?
Dr. Gilmore. Our major concern, I mean, the exact threshold
that is associated with approving Milestone C, it has not been
my experience there is an exact threshold. There is a lot of
judgment involved there----
Mr. Smith. Okay.
Dr. Gilmore [continuing]. Judgment on the part of the
Department's leadership, particularly the Under Secretary for
Acquisition. And Dr. Carter in his acquisition decision
memorandum (ADM), which I assume you have read, acknowledged
clearly all of the problems that I have discussed----
Mr. Smith. But made the decision to go ahead.
Dr. Gilmore. But as I recall, the ADM said because of the
secretary's direction to provide capability to our soldiers in
the field as quickly as possible, we will proceed. But he has
specified a number of constraints on funding. There are also a
number of reviews that he is going to conduct throughout the
year, including reviews of the results of this production
qualification testing and other testing on the EIBCT systems.
There are going to be at least two of those reviews this year
to review those results.
So, yes, we do use these LRIP units. It is a matter of
judgment as to when a Milestone C is granted, you know, whether
it should be granted, given progress in the program. When it is
to initial operational test and evaluation, which will be in
the fourth quarter of 2011--I think you were pressing me for a
little bit more specificity on when it would be--it is
currently scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2011.
We would insist upon fully production representative
equipment, and there are other so-called operational test and
readiness criteria that are specified in this test and
evaluation master plan, capabilities in terms of reliability
and performance that the equipment should have demonstrated at
that point.
Mr. Smith. Okay.
Dr. Gilmore. Basically, it needs to be fully production
representative.
Mr. Smith. Makes sense.
Mr. Bartlett.
Mr. Bartlett. Thank you very much.
Dr. Gilmore, as you know, the Increment One Early Infantry
Brigade acquisition decision memorandum signed by Dr. Carter
directs DOT&E and the Army to conduct, as part of the initial
operational test and evaluation, a comparative test of the
EIBCT equipped units with units equipped as currently deployed
for operations.
Given the reliability and maturity concerns that have
already been discussed, this is obviously going to be a very
important test. Can you give us an idea of how the planning is
going, if you have any issues or concerns going forward with
this comparative test?
Dr. Gilmore. As was directed in the ADM you mentioned, I
was asked to work with the Army to develop an initial plan,
which I have done, which was also supposed to contain detailed
information on the measures of effectiveness and measures of
performance that we would use to compare the ability of both of
these units equipped with the systems and not, to accomplish
wartime missions. And that has all been done.
The planning will continue over the next many months. We
have to decide on what kinds of scenarios that we are going to
use. I am interested in making sure that we have distressing
scenarios, you know, a mission that will be hard to accomplish,
that involves surprise, so that we can discern the benefits in
situational awareness that the sensors in the EIBCT system are
supposed to provide.
They are supposed to provide enhanced situational
awareness, and then the NLOS-LS is supposed to provide a
somewhat unique capability to hit moving targets, and so we
want to make sure that scenarios are constructed to highlight
those features as well or show that we haven't achieved an
increase in capability in that regard.
So I guess I would say in summary that we have started
well. We have detailed measures of effectiveness that we will
continue to look at and evolve. And we have embarked on a
process to define the scenarios and do the other planning that
is necessary, and that is going well.
The one thing I am concerned about, and I am concerned
about this with regard to the second limited user test that is,
you know, another company level test that is supposed to be
done later this year, is that we not repeat the problems that
we had in the limited user test that was done this past year,
where we had a good test plan, but we did not execute it.
We did not collect as much data as we could. We think that
a number of the failures that occurred actually weren't
reported, so probably these estimates of reliability that are
in my detailed testimony are actually optimistic, even though
they are not very good.
We want to make sure that we don't commit those same
mistakes again, and we are working hard with the Army, with the
Army Test and Evaluation Command, to make sure that we have
enough observers and enough gatherers of data and interpreters
of data and analyzers of data so that we don't re-create those
problems that really caused a lot of lost information in the
last test.
And given my conversations with the leadership of the Army
Test and Evaluation Command and the interactions my staff is
continuing to have with them, I am fairly confident we won't
re-create those problems.
Mr. Bartlett. Thank you.
Mr. Sullivan, this is more of an acquisition policy lessons
learned kind of question. I would like for you to compare and
contrast two things. Number one, what went wrong in terms of
acquisition strategies with the DOD Army decision to begin low
rate production for Increment One of BCT modernization with
two, what the Army is promising and what we hope transpires as
they move ahead with the Ground Combat Vehicle?
Mr. Sullivan. Yes, sir. Good question. I think what went
wrong with the Increment One is basically if you look at DOD's
new policies and the things that have come out of some of the
legislation that was passed last year, and if you look at best
practices that GAO has looked at a lot from some world-class
companies, who developed some pretty complicated products, what
you find is the new policy calls for reliability growth curves
coming out of the critical design review that is based on
production representative prototypes.
Add to it that before you have a Milestone C, typically,
you want to have a reliability growth curve established, which
is basically mean time between failure rates and things like
that that you have plotted on a curve and you have established
on that curve a trend towards improvement.
That is what you need to have established in order to
reduce the risk enough to go to low rate procurement. And we
don't believe they did that. We think that they have not
established the trend yet and so that the decision to begin low
rate production and commit procurement dollars to that
Increment One is too early and too risky. That is what we mean
when we say it is at variance with the new policies and with
best practices.
But what we see in Ground Combat Vehicle is a program, a
plan that has been laid out that really pretty much you can see
that they have taken the reform legislation, the changes to the
acquisition policies that have been put into the 5000 Series,
and looked at a lot of the best practices and are trying to do
things much more incrementally, much more knowledge-based.
They have a plan now to go with only mature technologies.
They are going to do a lot of competition early. There are a
lot of systems engineering funding upfront in order to get
requirements right. You know, the one thing we would question
why they are doing--they have let proposals out before they are
done with an AOA, but we still think the AOA will be done in
time to inform the technology development part of this.
And so the program as is laid out now reduces risks at the
proper time. It is trying to--it has got plans in there to
balance requirements, to take care of the trade space before
they made that Milestone B decision, which is where really the
big money starts getting spent on an acquisition program.
The Increment One for the Brigade Combat Teams has rushed--
they have kind of rushed through that low rate procurement
decision.
Mr. Bartlett. Thank you.
Dr. Gilmore. If I could, I would like to make one comment
on reliability growth planning with regard to the EIBCT. The
test and evaluation master plan for EIBCT has recently been
revised. It is setting in my office. It now incorporates
detailed reliability growth planning and reliability growth
curves in testing. So I think that is relevant to the
discussion.
Mr. Smith. And just so I follow up a little bit and be
educated along the way here--I know some of it; I have seen
some of it, but keeping track of all of it is complicated, but
very important--as I understand it, we already in 2010 we have
procured the money for the test battalion, basically.
And they haven't spent that yet for the very simple reason
that they don't have a product worth buying yet. So they have
still got that money. And then what they are asking us to do
and what has been put into this budget is actually to procure--
and correct if I am wrong--three out of the nine brigades long-
term with that equipment, which just initially, you know, it
seems like a pretty big pull.
So that is going beyond the test step, before any of this
testing is done, and that even if you were willing to take that
risk with this program, because you do have to take some risks.
I do recognize that. We want to get this stuff in the field so
that, you know, our troops have what they need. And you can't,
you know, wait for everything to be perfect before you do that.
I understand that balance.
But within the acquisition area, this sort of advance
procurement before testing is approved, again as I understand
it, it is supposed to be somewhere in the 10 percent of what
you are buying range. Three out of nine rather comfortably
above 10 percent--doesn't that violate the acquisition reform
approach that we have done? And what do your--first of all,
does it? And second of all, what would be the justification for
doing that?
Did you want to----
Dr. Gilmore. As I am reading the ADM here, it says that Dr.
Carter approved low rate initial production for one Brigade
Combat Team and long lead of no more than $70 million, which is
a down payment for the second Brigade Combat Team.
Mr. Smith. Okay.
Dr. Gilmore. And anything in addition to that is going to
be dependent upon the results of the testing and everything
else that is done this year and the outcome of these two in
progress reviews that are going to be conducted. That is my
understanding.
Mr. Smith. That is two instead of three.
Dr. Gilmore. Yes, well, it is sort of one-plus instead of
three. It is one--he approved the procurement for one EIBCT and
long lead, but not for funding for the second. So, yes, we have
started, but we haven't committed to all three.
And then procurement of the non-line of sight launch system
was limited to $35 million, depending on completion of flight
testing, and that flight testing was just completed last month.
And that will be the subject of some of these reviews that take
place over the next few months.
So I add that information to you.
Mr. Smith. Okay.
Dr. Gilmore. That is my understanding of what is going on.
And I think I have already commented upon, as much as I can----
Mr. Smith. Absolutely.
Dr. Gilmore [continuing]. On the rationale for the
Milestone C decision to proceed with low rate initial
procurement.
Mr. Smith. Gotcha.
Mr. Sullivan.
Mr. Sullivan. Yes, I wouldn't dispute that Dr. Carter
looked at this very carefully and understands the risks and has
put some decision-making in there to try to mitigate those
risks.
But I guess what we see is when you have--if I could just
for a minute, in 2003 that--in 2003 when Future Combat Systems
started as another transaction, by the way, that was right
after the Department did their last policy revisions for
acquisition policy and tried to put more risk mitigation into
those policies.
This is just so reminiscent of that. You know, you have
policies for a reason. So there is momentum. I guess my point
is that they are past Milestone C now.
I believe--don't quote me on this, but I think somewhere
around $400 million of procurement money is in the fiscal year
2010 budget, and another 600-and-some, so by next year, if that
budget holds, they will have $1 billion of procurement money
invested in Increment One, and they don't know the reliability
at all at this point. So it is a variance threat.
Mr. Smith. No, that certainly seems to me to be at least
worthy of a raised eyebrow and further inquiry.
Mr. Sullivan. And I think that is kind of where we are now
as with the raised eyebrow, you know. It is just beginning, and
we want to stay in there. The recommendations we are making, we
don't believe they are draconian in any way and probably are
reasonable. So we have to keep an eye on them.
Mr. Smith. I think that is all we have got.
Oh, sorry. Mr. Bartlett.
Mr. Bartlett. I would like to join the chairman in his
concern about rush to procurement, when the equipment that we
are now using is not demonstratively deficient. I think of the
MRAPs program, and clearly, there was a clear and urgent need
for MRAPs, and we pulled out all the stops and made that
procurement in record time.
But where there is no driving need like that, I am having
some trouble, along with the chairman, understanding why we
rush so much with such huge expenditures of money. If what we
have got is pretty good, why can't we do it very deliberatively
with much less expenditure of money and much less risk?
Mr. Sullivan. I just think that is an excellent point. In
MRAP, you know, they made the trades early, told the warfighter
what they were going to get before they started, and then
delivered that. And here, the requirements may go down on this
before it is all done, and that should have happened in
Milestone B----
Mr. Bartlett. Right.
Mr. Sullivan [continuing]. Or before Milestone C, anyway.
Mr. Smith. And I will just conclude by saying that is
something we are going to be taking a very, very close look at,
you know, is the requirements.
And throughout this whole discussion, I am reminded of
something that my predecessor, Mr. Abercrombie, said about the
Future Combat Systems, which was, you know, it seems like the
Army, you know, was tired of the Navy and the Air Force having
all these big-ticket items going way crazy over budget and
getting all the money. And, you know, they are the Army, so
they get just a little piece here, a little there, so they had
to come up with their own massive program so they could get a
piece of that as well. He, obviously, was being facetious.
And I do understand clearly the need, you know, to update
our brigades as we go forward. But I think we have to go from
just sort of that general understanding that with technology,
with improvements and innovation, we want to try to get, you
know, the best equipment out there as often as we can with a
clear understanding of what that improvement is, not just the
general notion that, you know, the next thing we build is
always going to be better than the last thing we built, so we
had better start building something new, which I realize is not
what they have done.
But they have got to come up with much more specificity as
to why this is getting better and how it is going to get
better, if we are going to proceed on this. And we will
continue to work on that in the weeks and months ahead before
we do our bill out of committee.
And then I imagine we will continue to work on this
throughout the legislative process as, you know, any of these
problems will have some ongoing testing. There will be
certainly further analysis, and we will want to see that on a
regular updated basis and make adjustments accordingly in what
is in our authorization bill.
So I thank you gentlemen for your work--very technical,
very difficult, and very, very important to do our best to get
it as right as we possibly can. And we certainly could not do
that without both of you and our previous panel as well. So
thank you very much for your testimony.
And with that, we are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:26 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
March 10, 2010
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March 10, 2010
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?
=======================================================================
WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING
THE HEARING
March 10, 2010
=======================================================================
RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. KISSELL
General Lennox. The Army is actively acquiring and pursuing a broad
range of capabilities to counter an equally broad range of cyber
threats. For example, the Army is acquiring capabilities that not only
address network and enclave perimeter security but also host-based
security, e-mail security, web security, cyber situational awareness,
cyber forensics analysis and other requirements. Concurrently, the Army
is transforming the business processes for procurement and acquisition
of products that defend against cyber attacks, beginning with its
process for vetting Information Assurance (IA) products. The Army has
hosted several meetings with other DoD organizations, including Office
of the Secretary of Defense/Networks Information Integration (OSD/NII)
and the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), to discuss testing
at the product level. The Army is actively engaged with OSD/NII in the
staffing of DODI 8100.EE, Unified Capability, which is intended to
establish procedures for achieving reciprocity throughout DoD for key
information technology products. [See page 18.]
?
=======================================================================
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
March 10, 2010
=======================================================================
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. KISSELL
Mr. Kissell. During the hearing I asked about the Army's
procurement and acquisition of products to defend against cyber
attacks. Is the Army pursuing feasible solutions to the wide variety of
cyberthreats?
General Lennox and General Phillips. The Army is actively acquiring
and pursuing a broad range of capabilities to counter an equally broad
range of cyber threats. For example, the Army is acquiring capabilities
that not only address network and enclave perimeter security but also
host-based security, e-mail security, web security, cyber situational
awareness, cyber forensics analysis and other requirements.
Concurrently, the Army is transforming the business processes for
procurement and acquisition of products that defend against cyber
attacks, beginning with its process for vetting Information Assurance
(IA) products. The Army has hosted several meetings with other DoD
organizations, including Office of the Secretary of Defense/Networks
Information Integration (OSD/NII) and the Defense Information Systems
Agency (DISA), to discuss testing at the product level. The Army is
actively engaged with OSD/NII in the staffing of DODI 8100.EE, Unified
Capability, which is intended to establish procedures for achieving
reciprocity throughout DoD for key information technology products.
Mr. Kissell. Is the Army integrated into the national defense
strategy?
General Lennox and General Phillips. Yes, the Army is fully
integrated into the national defense strategy. As stated in the report
of the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, the national defense strategy
recognizes that ``the Department of Defense balances resources and risk
among four priority objectives: prevail in today's wars, prevent and
deter conflict, prepare to defeat adversaries and succeed in a wide
range of contingencies, and preserve and enhance the All-Volunteer
Force.''
Due to our national objectives and the character of the conflict in
Afghanistan and Iraq, Army forces--multipurpose and special
operations--are the forces of choice for prevailing in today's wars.
Both of those wars involve operations among the people which highly
value the human intelligence capabilities of ground forces and the
discriminate, precision application of force that only ground forces
can provide. Your Army also provides the expeditionary endurance
necessary to convert immediate battlefield successes into longstanding
strategic success.
In nearly all of our Nation's wars, significant ground forces have
played a central role in achieving our national political objectives.
The same is true today in Afghanistan and Iraq. Army forces are
versatile. They can be employed across the spectrum of operations to
support civil authorities and render assistance to distressed people,
to restore basic services to populations, to secure and rebuild nations
as part of the interagency team, and defeat state and non-state forces
that threaten our national interests or our allies.
Finally, the priority objective of preserving and enhancing the
All-Volunteer Force is aimed, we believe, directly at the Army. Our
Soldiers and their Families have willingly and selflessly deployed
multiple times to Iraq and Afghanistan, but the stress of eight plus
years at war is felt on every Army installation, in every Army unit,
and in every Army Family. We are dedicated to doing whatever is
necessary to fully support those Soldiers and Families that have
dedicated their lives to the defense of our Nation.
Mr. Kissell. How does Cyber Command plan on organizing, training,
and coordinating with the Services?
General Lennox and General Phillips. As Cyber Command is under the
purview of U.S. Strategic Command, issues related to that organization
are outside our purview upon which to provide a response.
Mr. Kissell. Is the Army vulnerable to an attack that could
compromise operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Korea?
General Lennox and General Phillips. Just like any organization
with a large computer network, the Army faces daily risk of attacks and
is constantly identifying and defending against new and emerging
threats. While network security in a combat zone is of high importance
and has its own specific and particular challenges, the Army approaches
network security at a global level. Vulnerabilities in any part of the
network potentially create a possible attack vector, which ultimately
could affect Army operations. Risks range from something as simple as
poor user training and out-of-date anti-virus software, to complex
cyber attacks requiring the investment of millions of dollars to
mitigate if the attack is successful. These costs do not begin to
qualify or to quantify the impact to operations when a network is
unavailable.
Currently, thousands of potential threats are defeated every day
via technology fielded through multiple layers of network defense; and
a structured, tiered response to actual incidents that minimizes the
impact and the cost to operations. Additionally, the Army continues to
identify and to invest in new technologies in order to keep pace with
the known and predicted threats.
To meet the unique capabilities that Army operations require, the
Army, under a three-star billet, will stand up Army Forces Cyber
Command (ARFORCYBER), which also will support U.S. Cyber Command. The
majority of the forces for a combined Army operations center are
already in place at Fort Belvoir, VA. The new command will bring
unprecedented unity of effort and will synchronize all Army forces
operating within the cyber domain.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. OWENS
Mr. Owens. Section 818 of the Fiscal Year 2010 National Defense
Authorization Act allows the Secretary of Defense to ``eliminate,
modify, or add to the firms included in the small arms production
base.'' The original small arms industrial base legislation limiting
competition was based on a 1994 Army Science Board report. Since the
industry has substantially changed in the last 16 years, what changes
will you make to the small arms industrial base to expand competition
and encourage innovation?
General Lennox. The Army will review its requirements for small
arms critical repair parts and industrial capability to meet those
repair parts requirements. If and when the Army determines that changes
are supportable, the Army will make appropriate recommendations for
change to the Secretary of Defense. At this time, the Army has no
difficulty in acquiring critical repair parts, barrels, bolts and
receivers, for the designated small arms.
Mr. Owens. The Army Procurement Justification Book indicates the
Army requests $20.1 million to procure 11,494 M4 carbines and that the
carbines will be procured from Colt Manufacturing Company, Inc. with a
sole source, firm fixed price contract. Why is this a sole source
contract and not competitively bid?
General Lennox. The Army is initiating a new Individual Carbine
full and open competition to potentially replace the M4. Until the new
carbine is fielded, the Army must continue to sustain the M4
capability. If the Army were to compete the production of the M4, and a
new vendor was selected, it would take up to two years to qualify the
new vendor's production line and would cause up to a two year break in
M4 deliveries. As a result, the Army's plans to seek a sole source
justification and authorization for these reduced production
deliveries.
Mr. Owens. What are the Army's plans to develop, test, and compete
a follow-on to the M4?
General Lennox. The Army will initiate a Full and Open competition
for the next Individual Carbine (IC) as soon as the IC Capabilities
Development Document is validated by the Joint Requirements Oversight
Council. The candidate weapon systems will undergo various
environmental and performance testing before the selection of the best
overall candidate. The successful offeror will take over delivery of
carbines to the Army as soon as it successfully completes all necessary
additional testing, the production line quality is verified, and the
production capacity is sufficient to meet the Force's fielding
requirements.
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