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In a possibly related storyFast and light: Army overhauls its gear strategy
Apr. 13, 2014 - 06:00AM |
By Paul McLeary
Staff writer Army times
FILED UNDER
News
Congress & DOD
WASHINGTON — The Army is putting the finishing touches on a bold new strategy for how it pre-positions stocks of critical equipment around the globe, how it uses those stocks to speed deployments — and who pays for it.
Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno ordered the revised strategy last year as part of his vision to make the service more capable of deploying quickly to meet threats, and assist in humanitarian and disaster relief missions.
And a key element of the plan is to pass off some of the cost of using and resetting the equipment to the combatant commanders.
“What we want is for [advanced positioned stocks] to be a part of the theater, a part of the plan, a part of the combatant commander’s thinking, a part of the allies’ thinking,” as opposed to being a static reserve, one senior officer said.
The idea is to break up the massive stocks of vehicles, weapons, and ammunition the Army has traditionally warehoused across the Middle East, Europe and aboard ships into smaller, theater-specific “activity sets” that troops can simply fall in on. This way, units can fly in with only their personal gear and make use of the heavy equipment already in place, then leave the equipment behind once the event is over.
“When we let someone use it, they pay for it,” an Army official said. “Instead of it being the Army, we let people use it and they pay for the use. The cost comes from the combatant commander.” Cost would involve restoring the gear to its original condition.
The new strategy is “fiscally sound, it keeps us from buying readiness that we don’t need because you’re not having to move stuff around, and you’ll have the capability and capacities that you’ll need for those exercises that you want to do more regularly,” the officer added.
Odierno’s review has already saved $30 million, since some of the stored equipment that combatant commanders had no need for has been retired or sent elsewhere.
One activity set is being used by rotational forces in Europe.
When the 1st Cavalry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team from Fort Hood, Texas, falls in on dozens of brand-new Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles this spring at multinational training centers in Europe, it will be the first unit to take advantage of the new plan.
The 30 M1A2 Abrams tanks and 70 upgraded M2A3 Bradleys, along with 40 tracked armored vehicles, 150 wheeled vehicles, about 10 pieces of engineer equipment and 10 Paladin M109A6 self-propelled howitzers, which make up the European Activity Set (EAS) can’t compare to the wall of armor deployed across Germany during the Cold War. But the idea is no longer to mass armor across the Fulda Gap.
Instead, positioning armor stocks at the Grafenwöhr joint training facility and the Joint Multinational Readiness Center at Hohenfels, Germany, will allow a succession of rotational brigades to use them for training activities with European allies.
Army officials estimate they’ll save about $10 million a year by having units use the EAS, as opposed to shipping a brigade’s worth of equipment to Europe and then back home.
Service officials say they’re working closely with the combatant commanders and the Army component commands to design activity sets that best fit the region’s needs.
“It’s being largely driven by the combatant commanders, and that’s sort of our strategy,” the officer said.
Bill Roche, a spokesman for US Army Europe (USAREUR), wrote in an email that USAREUR “receives a significant amount of funding to cover the maintenance and repair costs for the rotational units,” but that units are still required to bring equipment back to ready-for-issue standards prior to turn-in with USAREUR funds.
The Army’s 1st Brigade Combat Team is tasked with being part of the NATO Response Force, and as such will conduct drills across the continent with NATO allies using the new equipment.
While European Command is the first to make use of an activity set, the Pacific theater and Africa are where the idea could really suit the Army’s shifting posture. Specifically, the service’s “Pacific Pathways” initiative — which would train and equip soldiers to deploy quickly across the region — is a key cog in the plan.
Part of the plan, still a work in progress, is to make more use of the Navy’s large, medium-speed roll-on/roll-off (LMSR) ships that the Army leases to move equipment across the Pacific.
“The time is right to begin using the LMSRs in a more effective way,” the officer said, adding that the ships could be used to move troops around the region for training exercises to reduce the number and duration of boots on the ground. Reserve soldiers could also use the ships during training periods to reduce costs by allowing them to train while partnering with allies.
Using the ships this way would signal a commitment by the United States to the Pacific region, service officials contend, by allowing troops to move quickly from place to place while underscoring the American commitment to partnering and humanitarian missions.
Army explores sea-basing helos
Apr. 13, 2014 - 06:00AM |
By Marcus Weisgerber and Paul McLeary
Staff writers Army times
FILED UNDER
News
Congress & DOD
WASHINGTON — The Army is considering certifying some of its attack helicopters to operate from ships — a mission historically conducted by the Marine Corps — as the service looks to broaden the role it would play in an Asia-Pacific battle.
Operating from ships at sea “seems to be a growth capability, and we do sense that there is increasing demand out there” in South Korea and U.S. Central Command, said the Army’s director of aviation, Col. John Lindsay, at an April 8 event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.
The service has been running drills on landing AH-64 Apache helicopters on Navy ships in recent months, but “we’ve gotta make sure that we have the appropriate demand signal coming in from the combatant commanders,” Lindsay said, to determine “how much maritime capability does the Army need to invest in.”
Lindsay acknowledged that over the long term, “we still have some work to do” to determine how much the Army wants — or needs — to invest in operating Apache helicopters from naval vessels, but there is serious work being done.
The Asia-Pacific region, an area of increased focus for the U.S. military, is primarily maritime. The Pentagon has said it does not envision prolonged land wars in its future after more than a decade in Afghanistan and Iraq, and is planning to shrink the Army. Experts say the Pacific is a theater geared more toward Navy and Air Force capabilities, due to the sheer size of the region.
So how does the Marine Corps feel about the Army doing this?
“I’ve never been on a crowded battlefield,” Lt. Gen. John Wissler, commander of III Marine Expeditionary Force and U.S. Marine Corps Forces Japan, told the Defense Writers Group on April 11. “I’ve never been anywhere where I said ... ‘There’s too many guys here.’ ”
But there would be challenges. While the Army is “making strides in learning how to operate” at sea, Wissler said there is an “unknown, hidden cost” associated with operating aircraft in saltwater environments.
“[Marine Corps] helicopters are different than [Army] helicopters,” he said. “The maritimization of an aviation platform is a very extensive, technical thing. If you don’t do it, you suffer significant challenges.”
Col. Frank Tate, the Army’s chief of aviation force development, said he is preparing to head to Fort Rucker, Ala., in mid-April to attend a conference that would discuss the effects of seawater on the Army’s rotary-wing aircraft.
“The Army is not new to this idea of maritime operations and ship operations,” Tate said at the same event.
In a nod to Marine Corps sensitivities over the issue, Tate was quick to point out that flying Army helicopters from the decks of ships isn’t new. He was involved in operations in Haiti in the early 1990s, when the Army flew Apaches off the back of Navy frigates.
But Wissler noted that the deployment to Haiti had “significant impacts to helicopters and readiness” across Army aviation since they were not built to operate from ships.
“They had a mission, they met the mission, they went and executed the mission and that’s what we all do,” he said.
Wissler said the Marine Corps does not have a shortfall in sea-based aircraft; however, the number of amphibious Navy ships is limited.
The ship shortage has restricted the types of training Marine Corps pilots can do at sea.
Wissler also said there are challenges to operating in an amphibious environment, and that adding the Army to the mix would require in-depth planning.
“That’s easy stuff; we’ll sort through that,” he said.
“If the Army has a capability to bring in an amphibious environment, a capability that we need as a joint war-fighting team, good on them,” Wissler added. “I just think there’s challenges to it. I say that because I know they know there are challenges to it.”
Pentagon condemns 'provocative' Russian military action against U.S. Navy ship
Apr. 14, 2014 - 01:16PM |
By Andrew Tilghman
Staff writer Navy times
FILED UNDER
News
ROMANIA-UKRAINE-RUSSIA-US-FRANCE-CRISIS ZOOM
U.S. Navy personnel are pictured aboard the USS Donald Cook on April 14. Romania's president Traian Basescu hailed the deployment of U.S. and French warships in the Black Sea, a 'token of solidarity' in the wake of the Ukraine crisis. (Petrut Calinescu / Getty Images)
A Russian fighter jet on Saturday made repeated “provocative” close-range, low-altitude passes above the U.S. Navy destroyer Donald Cook while it was steaming in the Black Sea, heightening Cold War-style tensions that have continued to escalate for weeks, a defense official said.
The Russian SU-24 Fencer made a total of 12 passes above the destroyer that is equipped with the powerful Aegis missile defense system. The incident occurred in international waters about 48 hours after the Navy ship arrived in the Black Sea.
The aircraft did not respond to multiple queries from the Donald Cook’s bridge. The Navy destroyer did not respond and the incident ended after about 90 minutes. The fighter jet did not appear to be carrying missiles under its wings, official said.
“This provocative and unprecedented Russian action is inconsistent with international protocols and previous agreements on the professional interaction between our militaries,” Army Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said Monday.
Warren said the incident was unprecedented. The U.S. and Russia have had no contact since the incident, he said.
“The Donald Cook was never in any danger. ... The Donald Cook is more than capable of defending itself against an SU-24,” Warrant said.
The provocative acts come about a month after Russia launched a ground invasion of Ukraine’s Crimea region and the Russian military amassed an estimated 40,000 troops along Ukraine’s eastern border. Russia maintains a large naval base in Crimea.
The Donald Cook was dispatched to the Black Sea last week in an effort to reassure NATO allies, which includes Romania, of U.S. support in the face of Russian aggression.
The ship has now pulled into port in Constanta, Romania, Warren said, near the Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base, which is a permanent post for several thousand U.S. troops, including airmen and Marines.
Russia’s aggressive actions have prompted Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, Supreme Allied Commander Europe and chief of the U.S. European Command, to draw up a strategic shift in forces across his region. Breedlove is expected to make those plans public Tuesday.
