The Army is beginning a new pilot program aimed at cutting excess equipment from its units, with the service’s chief of staff telling reporters on Monday the effort may result in “fairly substantial” reductions.
New Army Chief Gen. Randy George said the program will begin with two units, the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Liberty in North Carolina and the 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart in Georgia, and is led by Army Forces Command and Army Materiel Command.
“I’ve given them 90 days…to get rid of excess equipment,” George said during a press conference at the Association of the United States Army’s annual conference in Washington, D.C. “There’s equipment that’s excess that you don’t need. Let’s say it’s extra vehicles that are left there. And then other [area] is to review our [Modified Table of Organization and Equipment] to make sure that all the things we’ve had through the years that has slowly been added to property books and that we don’t necessarily need in a fight going forward, that we’re taking that off of the plate.”
George said the equipment that’s considered excess and cut will depend on the type of unit, with the pilot program set to inform the approach the Army takes on a larger scale.
“I can come back to you with specifics. But, in some cases, it will be fairly substantial on the amount of equipment I think we can reduce,” George said. “The goal here is to reduce the complexity for our company commanders and our units that are out there so they’re not dragging this extra equipment around.”
George, who was sworn in as the new Army chief last month, is spearheading the initiative as the service continues its major modernization initiative to field new equipment across the force while assessing its force structure and capability requirements to best posture for competition in the Indo-Pacific.
The new Army chief said Monday the excess equipment cut from units could be upgraded and stored for future use, broken down for parts or simply set aside if no use is required.
“Initially, we’re going to bring it into a warehouse. I don’t want the company commanders and first sergeants to try to figure that out. We’re going to pull it out and then we’re going to figure that out with our logistics experts,” George said.