The Army on Monday released its $185.9 billion budget request for fiscal year 2025, with officials confirming its recent aviation restructuring resulted in shifting $4.5 billion to new priorities over the coming years.
Under Secretary of the Army Gabe Camarillo told reporters ahead of the Army’s budget rollout the request keeps the service’s modernization efforts “on pace,” to include a $1 billion increase in procurement, up to $24.4 billion, as more new systems are moving from development into production.
“This [FY] ‘25 request meets the Army’s commitments under the National Defense Strategy and the Secretary of Defense’s priorities to defend the nation, take care of our people, and succeed through teamwork,” Camarillo said. “The shift in [Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E) funding] from FY ‘24 to ‘25 shows a progression of many of our key capabilities and systems, going from R&D into production to include some of the aviation rebalancing as well and production of new aviation platforms.”
With the Pentagon’s $849.8 billion FY ‘25 budget request adhering to the debt limit deal’s one percent spending cap, the Army’s $185.9 billion topline represents an essentially flat 0.2 increase from its FY ‘24 request (Defense Daily, March 11).
The $24.4 billion for procurement in the Army’s budget is a 4.5 percent increase over its FY ‘24 request, while the $14.1 billion for its RDT&E account is a 10.8 percent decrease as the service places an emphasis on the move into new production efforts.
The FY ‘25 budget request “fully implement[s] the aviation rebalance strategy,” Camarillo noted, which the Army first announced in early February and included canceling the potential multi-billion dollar development of the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) (Defense Daily, Feb. 8).
Along with the ending FARA, the Army in early February also detailed plans to end production of the UH-60V Black Hawk digital cockpit upgrade, delay production of the GE [GE] T901 ITEP engine and move to retire Shadow and Raven drones, adding it would free up resources for investments in the continued development of the Bell [TXT]-built Future Long Range Assault Aircraft, a new multi-year contract for UH-60Ms to be awarded in FY ‘27, eventual full-rate production of the CH-47F Block II Chinook and research and development into unmanned systems.
“It was an effort to, I just want to emphasize, do two things. One is to make sure that we were adapting to what we saw on the changing battlefield, and secondly, to address industrial based concerns regarding the end of production on Chinook and the Black Hawk platform. We were able to do that. I would say the overwhelming preponderance of whatever resources were reallocated as a result of this decision, they were overwhelmingly reinvested in the aviation portfolio,” Camarillo told reporters, noting a small amount of the reallocated funds will go to increased investment in barracks and soldier housing.
The $4.5 billion that will now be reinvested in the new aviation priorities over the next five years includes $525.5 million the Army will no longer spend on FARA development, which had been in a competitive prototyping phase with Sikorsky [LMT] and Bell, and $111 million planned operation and maintenance costs for Shadow and Ravens that won’t be required with those planned divestments.
With the Army’s commitment to moving the CH-47F Chinook Block II toward full-rate production, the FY ‘25 budget request includes $465.2 million and officials noted the service’s near-term intent to procure six of the aircraft a year.
The Army had not included funding for CH-47F Block IIs in its recent budget requests as it assessed the path forward for the program, while Congress has added funds in final appropriations bills covering a few of the new aircraft to sustain what Boeing has previously called a “minimum sustaining rate” for the platform (Defense Daily, April 27 2023).
Boeing [BA] previously told Defense Daily it’s set to deliver the first three upgraded CH-47 Block IIs to the Army by mid-2024 (Defense Daily, Nov. 13).
Doug Bush, the Army’s acquisition chief, told reporters part of the $4.5 billion shift is going toward funding the next multi-year Black Hawk procurement contract that’s part of the aviation restructuring, which is expected to be about $800 million a year covering 24 aircraft starting in FY ‘27, and $25 million in R&D to work on future upgrades for the helicopter.
The Army in June 2022 signed what was expected to be the final multi-year UH-60 Black Hawk contract with Sikorsky, awarding the company a five-year deal worth $2.3 billion for delivery of 120 H-60M helicopters (Defense Daily, June 27 2022).
With options, the Army said the 10th multi-year deal for Black Hawks could potentially be worth $4.4 billion and cover up to 255 helicopters.
The $4.5 billion will also toward increased investments in unmanned systems, to include the Army’s launched effects program and its Future Tactical UAS effort, which received $149 million for production and $128 million for RDT&E funding in the request.
Camarillo noted the Army’s FY ‘25 budget request resources the service’s recently announced force structure adjustments, while adding the changes didn’t necessarily result in significant savings.
“The other question we get a lot is if you’re bringing force structure down, are there savings? The reality is if you look over this [Future Years Defense Program five-year spending projection] in the back years of it, as all these new force elements come online, there really aren’t any savings. If there’s anything, there’s a little bit in FY ‘25, but that’s already been accounted for in our budget as we brought down some of the force structure early that we have just announced, but it’s only for one year,” Camarillo said.
For additional modernization priorities, the Army noted its FY ‘25 request has $2.8 billion for procurement and $602 million for continued development of Integrated Air and Missile Defense capabilities, including $516.6 million for four more RTX [RTX]-built LTAMDS radars and $657.6 million to cover 12 launchers and 48 missiles for its Indirect Fire Protection Capability (IFPC) program.
The Army’s FY ‘25 request also includes $1.2 billion for its hypersonic weapons program and $447 million for development and procurement of counter-small drone capabilities, with additional funding for FY ‘24 pending in the supplemental spending bill before Congress.