Budget cuts are forcing the Army to lose its competitive edge

[Dos Equis]

Makes this election all the more important. 

Budget cuts are forcing the Army to lose its competitive edge
Michelle Tan, Army Times
April 5, 2016

(Photo: Spc. Jacqueline Dowland/Army)

The Army is being forced to sacrifice modernization in favor of readiness even as America’s enemies become increasingly capable, senior leaders testified Tuesday on Capitol Hill.

“Our competitive advantage we’ve continually banked on is decreasing, [and] the Army risks losing its qualitative overmatch in future conflicts,” said Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center. “With the 74 percent decrease in Army modernization total obligation authority since 2008, the risk to mission and soldiers is increasing.”

This risk is compounded by the growing demand for land forces around the world, McMaster told the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Airland subcommittee.

“We’re having a harder and harder time for the small force to keep pace with the demand,” he said.

He added that the Army is “behind in modernization against current and future threats,” and “we have no current major ground combat vehicle in development,” which is why the Army’s Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles likely will remain in the Army’s inventory for the next 50 to 70 years, even after they’re obsolete.

Another critical area where the Army is lagging is cyber and electronic warfare, McMaster said, citing the ongoing conflict in Ukraine as a “real wake up call.”

The Army’s fiscal 2017 budget request prioritizes readiness and assumes risks in modernization, said Lt. Gen. Michael Williamson, the military deputy in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology.

“Due to resource constraints, we simply cannot modernize the entire force with the most modern equipment,” he said. “Therefore, we must do so selectively.”

The service also is “continually modifying equipment to extend its service life,” including with the UH-60 Black Hawk, AH-64 Apache and CH-47 helicopters, and the M109 Paladin, Williamson said.

“We cannot put our soldiers at risk without the right equipment at the right time in the right place to accomplish their mission,” he said.


The Army continuously updates its CH-47 Chinook helicopters to extend its service life, even as the service is forced to cut is modernization budget. Here, soldiers with 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division rush out of a CH-47 during a training exercise. (Photo: Sgt. Grant Matthes/Army)

To mitigate many of these challenges, the Army needs “long-term, sustained and predictable funding,” said Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson, the deputy chief of staff for operations (G-3).

“We assume risk by reducing end-strength, delaying modernization,” he said. “These tradeoffs mortgage our future readiness.”

Balancing end-strength, readiness and modernization is a “fundamental issue” for the Army, said Lt. Gen. John Murray, deputy chief of staff for Army programs (G-8).

“It’s a balancing act, and I’m more concerned about the cumulative risk than I am with one budget,” he said

When asked about the size of the Army — the active Army is slated in 2018 to reach an end-strength of 450,000, down from a wartime high of 570,000; and the overall total Army is supposed to number 980,000 — the generals all agreed that any move by Congress to stop the drawdown must be accompanied by the appropriate funding.

Without the right funding, “it could be disastrous,” McMaster said, adding that it typically costs about $1 billion for every 10,000 soldiers.

Such a move would force the Army to choose between properly training and equipping its soldiers with slowing down modernization even further, Murray said.

“If you increase the number of soldiers without an increase in the top line, we will ensure the readiness of our soldiers, so modernization will take another hit,” he said. “It would slow down production to the minimum sustainment rate and further decrement [military construction]. It makes the problem we have right now even worse.”

It also is much easier to retain a capability than have to rebuild it, McMaster said.

When the Army grew its brigade combat teams during the height of the war, it was “a 31-month ordeal” to build an armored brigade combat team from scratch, Murray said.

The Army must be able to maintain ready land forces that can deploy rapidly and transition quickly into conducting operations, McMaster said.

“These land forces have to have mobility, they have to have protection, they have to have lethality,” he said. “A lot of times you’ll hear the term ‘light and nimble.’ Well, Richard Simmons is light and nimble, and we don’t send him to go do harm to somebody.”

http://www.armytimes.com/story/military/capitol-hill/2016/04/05/budget-cuts-forcing-army-lose-its-competitive-edge/82672258/

[TuHolmes]

Why are they losing their edge?

We spend more than the next 10 countries combined? How is it possible we aren't light years ahead of all of our enemies?

[GigantorX]

Why are they losing their edge?

We spend more than the next 10 countries combined? How is it possible we aren't light years ahead of all of our enemies?

It's more than just a dollar amount.

Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard.

Personnel, training, force readiness,  modernization, weapons development, weapon system purchases, maintaining a global footprint...the list goes on and on and on and that's not even getting into manpower at the Pentagon/DoD and all of the bureaucratic inefficiencies, there are a ton of things that have nothing to do with fighting wars that take up space and money. That budget allotment gets eaten up pretty fast hence the 'robbing Peter to pay Paul' that is going on in the Army at the moment.

[TuHolmes]

It's more than just a dollar amount.

Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard.

Personnel, training, force readiness,  modernization, weapons development, weapon system purchases, maintaining a global footprint...the list goes on and on and on and that's not even getting into manpower at the Pentagon/DoD and all of the bureaucratic inefficiencies, there are a ton of things that have nothing to do with fighting wars that take up space and money. That budget allotment gets eaten up pretty fast hence the 'robbing Peter to pay Paul' that is going on in the Army at the moment.

Right, but that just means that we are wasting money in places right?

If you are saying that spending that amount doesn't mean we are going to be kicking ass, then we have to be wasting that shit.

[tonymctones]

Right, but that just means that we are wasting money in places right?

If you are saying that spending that amount doesn't mean we are going to be kicking ass, then we have to be wasting that shit.

I think a lot of it has to do with staying on the cutting edge. It's a lot more expensive to be the one creating new technology, weaponry etc than to be the one developing already worked out tech

[tonymctones]

Not to say that we aren't wasting money, it's the government now. That being said there is a lot more being spent on social programs than the military so if we're going to try and save money from cost cutting the military isn't a top priority

[headhuntersix]

Right, but that just means that we are wasting money in places right?

If you are saying that spending that amount doesn't mean we are going to be kicking ass, then we have to be wasting that shit.

We're not training...we need a massive equipment refit. We need new planes..not the sexy F35's but refuelers and transports. SOF units are hotbedding small arms....its a shit show right now. The Army is wasting hundreds of millions supporting Obama's bullshit latin American crusades. There is a lot of mission related misspending that has very little to do with what folks would commonly recognize as a military function. Some of that is Bush's fault but Obama has made things worse and also cut funding. On top of it the world is worse now then 8 years ago.

[Dos Equis]

Budget cuts leaving Marine Corps aircraft grounded
By Lucas Tomlinson, Jennifer Griffin 
Published April 15, 2016 
FoxNews.com

EXCLUSIVE: Since 1775, the U.S. Marine Corps has prided itself on being “The Few" and "The Proud." But while the Corps takes pride in doing more with less, senior Marine officers are warning that the Corps' aviation service is being stretched to the breaking point.

Today, the vast majority of Marine Corps aircraft can’t fly. The reasons behind the grounding of these aircraft include the toll of long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the fight against ISIS and budget cuts precluding the purchase of the parts needed to fix an aging fleet, according to dozens of Marines interviewed by Fox News at two air stations in the Carolinas this week.

Out of 276 F/A-18 Hornet strike fighters in the Marine Corps inventory, only about 30% are ready to fly, according to statistics provided by the Corps. Similarly, only 42 of 147 heavy-lift CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters are airworthy.

U.S. military spending has dropped from $691 billion in 2010 to $560 billion in 2015. The cuts came just as the planes were returning from 15 years of war, suffering from overuse and extreme wear and tear. Many highly trained mechanics in the aviation depots left for jobs in the private sector.

“Quite honestly, it is coming on the backs of our young Marines,” Lt. Col. Matthew “Pablo” Brown, commanding officer of VMFA(AW)-533, a Hornet squadron based at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort in South Carolina. “They can do it, and they are doing it but it is certainly not easy.”

Brown's squadron is due to deploy to the Middle East in the coming days.

Lack of funds has forced the Marines to go outside the normal supply chain to procure desperately needed parts. Cannibalization, or taking parts from one multi-million dollar aircraft to get other multi-million dollar aicraft airborne, has become the norm.

To get one Hornet flying again, Marines at Beaufort stripped a landing gear door off a mothballed museum jet. The door, found on the flight deck of the World War II-era USS Yorktown, was last manufactured over a decade ago.

“Imagine taking a 1995 Cadillac and trying to make it a Ferrari,” Sgt. Argentry Uebelhoer said days before embarking on his third deployment. “You're trying to make it faster, more efficient, but it's still an old airframe … [and] the aircraft is constantly breaking.”

Maintaining the high-performance Hornets is a challenge with 30,000 fewer Marines, part of a downsizing that has been ongoing since 2010.

“We don't have enough of them to do the added work efficiently. We are making it a lot harder on the young marines who are fixing our aircraft,” said Maj. Michael Malone of Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 31.

Sometimes it takes the Marines 18 months to get parts for early model F-18 jets whose production was halted in 2001.

“We are an operational squadron. We are supposed to be flying jets, not building them,” said Lt. Col. Harry Thomas, Commanding Officer of VMFA-312, a Marine Corps F/A-18 squadron based at Beaufort.

The cuts include those made by the Obama administration as well as the sequestration cutbacks agreed to by Congress.

Lt. Col Thomas, call sign “Crash,” deployed to the Pacific with 10 jets last year. Only seven made it. A fuel leak caused his F/A-18 to catch fire in Guam. Instead of ejecting, he landed safely, saving taxpayers $29 million.

Thomas has deployed eight times in all, including six to Iraq and Afghanistan. Right now only two of his 14 Hornets can fly. His Marines deploy in three months.

“We are supposed to be doing the type of maintenance like you would take your car to Jiffy Lube for replacing fluids, doing minor inspections, changing tires, things of that nature, not building airplanes from the ground up,” he added.

The aircraft shortage means pilots spend less time in the air.

“This last 30 days our average flight time per pilot was just over 4 hours,” said Thomas.

Ten years ago, Marine Corps pilots averaged between 25 and 30 hours in the air each month, according to one pilot. “This is the worst I’ve seen it,” he added. Another pilot who asked to remain nameless told Fox News that Chinese and Russian pilots fly more hours each month than Marine Corps pilots.

Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornets are supposed to have a shelf life of 6,000 hours, but they are being refurbished to extend the life to 8,000. There is talk that some aircraft might be pushed to 10,000 hours while the Marine Corps waits for the 5th-generation Joint Strike Fighter, which is slated to replace the F-18, but has been plagued by cost overruns.

“Our aviation readiness is really my No. 1 concern,” Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller told Congress last month. “We don’t have enough airplanes that we would call ‘ready basic aircraft."

Col. Sean Salene oversees nine helicopter squadrons at Marine Corps Air Station New River in North Carolina.

“Unlike previous wars, we did not have a period of time afterwards where we did not have tasking,” said Col. Salene. “There was no time to catch our breath.”

Maj. Matt Gruba, executive officer of HMH-461, a Super Stallion squadron at New River took Fox News reporters inside one of the large helicopters, which has sent thousands of fully loaded Marines into combat over the past three decades.

Inside, hundreds of small wires cover every surface of the helicopter except the hard non-skid deck. It’s up to the Marine maintainers to inspect each one. One failure could be catastrophic, as happened in 2014 when a Navy MH-53E Sea Dragon crashed off the coast of Virginia after a fire engulfed the aircraft due to faulty fuel lines.

"It would be easy to miss some small minute detail, some small amount of wear [which] could potentially, eventually cause a fire,” Gruba said

Lt. Gen. Jon M. "Dog" Davis is the Marine Corps' deputy commandant for aviation, tasked with getting his aircraft back in the air.

Davis ordered the Corps to refurbish all of the old CH-53E helicopters to their pre-war condition, including fixing the chafing wires and jerryrigged fuel lines that were repaired in theater.

"The biggest thing is right now after 15 years of hard service, of hard fighting and deploying around the world, is we don't have enough airplanes on the flight line,” Davis said.

The cuts have not sat well within the military leadership. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Fox News’ Bret Baier in a recent interview that he felt betrayed when told to cut billions from the budget after having already done so.

“I guess I’d have to say I felt double-crossed. After all those years in Washington, I was naïve,” he said.

And last week, the Army’s top officer, Gen. Mark Milley, said cuts could mean more American troops could lose their lives.

“If one or more possible unforeseen contingencies happen, then the United States Army currently risks not having ready forces available to provide flexible options to our national leadership. ... And most importantly, we risk incurring significantly increased U.S. casualties,” Milley testified last week on Capitol Hill.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/04/15/budget-cuts-leaving-marine-corps-aircraft-grounded.html?intcmp=hpbt1

[240 is Back]

Repubs taking over the senate didn't change things like everyone had hoped.

[Dos Equis]

Army shrinks to smallest level since before World War II
Jim Tice, Army Times
May 7, 2016

The Army’s latest headcount shows that nearly 2,600 soldiers departed active service in March without being replaced, an action that plunges manning to its lowest level since before World War II.

During the past year the size of the active force has been reduced by 16,548 soldiers, the rough equivalent of three brigades.

Endstrength for March was 479,172 soldiers, which is 154 fewer troopers than were on active duty when the Army halted the post-Cold War drawdown in 1999 with 479,424 soldiers, the smallest force since 1940, when the active component numbered 269,023 soldiers.

Barring unexpected delays, the Army is well-positioned to achieve, or exceed, its budgeted end-strength of 475,000 soldiers by Sept. 30, the end of fiscal 2016.

Without congressional or Defense Department intervention, the drawdown will continue for two more years, with endstrength hitting 460,000 soldiers in 2017, and 450,000 in 2018.

The latest official demographics from the Defense Manpower Data Center shows that in addition to the 479,172 soldiers who were on active duty April 1, the Army’s reserve forces totaled 548,024 soldiers, for a total force of 1,027,196 soldiers.

The drawdown master plan calls for a Total Army of 980,000 soldiers on Sept. 30, 2018.

DMDC statistics show that 348,463 soldiers were in service with the Army National Guard on April 1, and 199,561 with the Army Reserve.

The active component total for the end of March  includes 4,321 West Point cadets, which is 32 fewer than in February and 45 fewer than in January.

The number of women serving on active duty April 1 stood at 69,171, a total that includes 15,654 officers, 52,698 enlisted soldiers and 819 West Point cadets.

The female population of the Regular Army was reduced by 340 members in March.



http://www.armytimes.com/story/military/careers/army/2016/05/07/army-shrinks-smallest-level-since-before-world-war-ii/83875962/

[andreisdaman]

I think a lot of it has to do with staying on the cutting edge. It's a lot more expensive to be the one creating new technology, weaponry etc than to be the one developing already worked out tech

this is actually true........plus the chinese are ripping us off like taking candy from a baby......the problem is that we would still be far far ahead if we were protecting our secrets the way we should be...the chinese save 100's of buillions not having to do research and development...they simply steal the research and development we have already paid for