The Army on Thursday detailed 20 programs it cut, delayed or reduced in its new budget request, with the list accounting for $1.13 billion of the $2.4 billion the service realigned to bolster modernization efforts in fiscal year 2021.
Officials provided the list to reporters which names of 10 program cuts totaling $314.8 million and another 10 delayed or reduced efforts covering $815.8 million.
Photo: BAE Systems
The cuts come from the Army’s “night court” review process, which looks to find savings from low priority programs that can be shifted toward modernization priorities and future weapon system development.
Earlier this week, the Army rolled out its FY ‘21 budget request, which included a plan to cancel 41 programs and delay another 39 to find a total of $13.5 billion to shift over the five-year budget plan through FY ‘25 (Defense Daily, Feb. 10).
The largest cuts included in the “Top 10” list come from the Army’s plan to stretch its procurement of Joint Light Tactical Vehicles, which would save $201.6 million, as well as reducing the number of Bradley fighting vehicle upgrades for $222.2 million.
Officials told reporters on Tuesday the Army may also consider potentially adding another vendor to drive down production costs of JLTV, which is built by Oshkosh Defense [OSK], when the program is up for a follow-on deal in FY ‘22 (Defense Daily, Feb. 11).
The Army also plans to cut the BAE Systems Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System rocket program to free up $122.2 million and the Mobile Intermediate Range Missile for $90 million.
The list also includes service life extension programs for Lockheed Martin’s [LMT] Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems and Army Tactical Missile Systems, saving $42.5 million from cutting the former and $35.6 million from reducing the latter.
The latest round of “night court” also included cutting the Explosive Hazard Roller, Vehicle Optics Sensor System for $21.6 million and the High Mobility Engineer Excavator for $16.4 million.
Additional savings came from reducing or delaying modifications to Armored Engineer Vehicles at $126.2 million, $92.9 million from the Cloe Terrain Shaping Obstacle, $36.6 million from the Lightweight Laser Designator Rangefinder and $30.6 million from the Distributed Common Ground System-Army.