The Army has resigned itself to fighting with the weapons, vehicles and gear it has on hand for at least the next 10 years when it plans to begin replacing that equipment.
Not until 2025 or so will the Army have the budgets necessary to trade in its baseline systems – the UH-60 Black Hawk, AH-64 Apache, Bradley Fighting Vehicle, M1 Abrams main battle tank and Stryker wheeled vehicle – for new platforms, according to Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley.
In the meantime, the service plans to purchase evolutionary upgrades to existing vehicles while investing in basic research and development on leap-ahead technologies like Future Vertical Lift that will enter service beyond 2025.
“In the near term, the Army will continue to invest in incremental improvements for the highest operational return on existing systems and build new systems only by exception,” Milley said at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual exposition in Washington, D.C.
Near-term investments will be focused on improvements in lethality, protection, the mission-command network, integrated air and missile defense, rotary wing and ground mobility, emerging threats and rapid development of offensive and defensive cyber, Milley said. With new acquisition authorities, Milley is keen to purchase proven, off-the-shelf gear on a shorter timeline while making targeted investments in programs that will reliably deliver capabilities and avoid the pitfalls of past development boondoggles.
“This is a top priority for us,” Milley said. “We must do better. We can do better. We must exploit our science and technology to create options for a very challenging future battlefield and have an acquisition system that is up to the task, an acquisition system that can deliver on time and on budget. We cannot afford acquisition failures.”
Army chief weapons buyer Katrina McFarland said she and Army Materiel Command chief Gen. Gustav Perna are shifting their focus from buying new to sustaining the equipment and associated supply chain already in the Army inventory under the banner of “transitioning to sustainment.”
While the Army struggles to modernize, officials also recognize that the most expensive part of a platform’s life is not its purchase price but the funding required to keep it running for its expected service life or longer. Anything the Army buys from now on must come with an established sustainment plan that maximizes the performance of the platform while minimizing maintenance work and cost, McFarland said.
The Army amassed a lot of equipment – the Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected (MRAP) vehicle being a prime example – that it bought in haste to fill an urgent operational need but has no plans for sustaining. As new vehicles like the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) and Armored Multipurpose Vehicle (AMPV) come online, they must deliver with tailored sustainment plans, she said.
During a rousing keynote speech to AUSA, Milley lamented about uncertain budgets, shrinking force structure and modernization difficulties but warned potential adversaries from “grossly underestimating” the U.S. military and “misreading our capability.”
“Despite everything we’ve been doing, we will stop you and we will beat you harder than you have ever been beaten before. Make no mistake about that,” Milley said. “When the political leadership of the United States decides to deploy its Army and we show up on your turf then you know the game is for real and the stakes are for keeps. The other thing you know is you are going to lose. You will lose to the American Army. … We will destroy any enemy anywhere, any time.”
He also put to bed the common refrain that the Army is smaller than it has been since World War II, at the end of which it consisted of 8 million soldiers in 89 divisions engaged in two full-fledged wars on opposite sides of the planet. The number of soldiers in the Army, ships in the Navy or aircraft in the Air Force is less important than the combat capabilities each soldier, sailor and airmen has at their disposal, he said.
“An M1 tank today is significantly more capable than a Sherman tank of World War II,” Milley said. “Arguably, a platoon of M1s, four M1 tanks, could arguably defeat Patton’s Third Army with hundreds of M4 tanks. So the quantity versus quality argument when you start talking World War II versus today gets a little bit silly.”
“We need to make sure we have the most capable Army to deliver specific effects on the battlefield relative to security interests.”