[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 116-35]
HEARING
ON
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT
FOR FISCAL YEAR 2020
AND
OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED PROGRAMS
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TACTICAL AIR AND LAND FORCES HEARING
ON
DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY MODERNIZATION PROGRAMS
__________
HEARING HELD
MAY 1, 2019
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
37-511 WASHINGTON : 2020
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SUBCOMMITTEE ON TACTICAL AIR AND LAND FORCES
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey, Chairman
JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri
JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut PAUL COOK, California
RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona MATT GAETZ, Florida
SALUD O. CARBAJAL, California DON BACON, Nebraska
ANTHONY G. BROWN, Maryland JIM BANKS, Indiana
FILEMON VELA, Texas PAUL MITCHELL, Michigan
XOCHITL TORRES SMALL, New Mexico, MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
Vice Chair DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia
KATIE HILL, California
JARED F. GOLDEN, Maine
Carla Zeppieri, Professional Staff Member
Jesse Tolleson, Professional Staff Member
Caroline Kehrli, Clerk
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Hartzler, Hon. Vicky, a Representative from Missouri, Ranking
Member, Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces........... 3
Norcross, Hon. Donald, a Representative from New Jersey,
Chairman, Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces......... 1
WITNESSES
Jette, Hon. Bruce D., Assistant Secretary of the Army for
Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, Department of the Army.. 5
Ludwigson, Jon R., Acting Director, Contracting and National
Security Acquisitions, Government Accountability Office........ 8
Murray, GEN John M., USA, Commander, Army Futures Command,
Department of the Army......................................... 6
Pasquarette, LTG James F., USA, Deputy Chief of Staff, Army
(Programs), Department of the Army............................. 7
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Jette, Hon. Bruce D., joint with GEN John M. Murray and LTG
James F. Pasquarette....................................... 44
Ludwigson, Jon R............................................. 56
Norcross, Hon. Donald........................................ 41
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
Mr. Langevin................................................. 77
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Mr. Cook..................................................... 83
Mr. Gallego.................................................. 85
Mrs. Hartzler................................................ 82
Mr. Norcross................................................. 81
Mr. Turner................................................... 85
.
DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY MODERNIZATION PROGRAMS
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces,
Washington, DC, Wednesday, May 1, 2019.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:37 p.m., in
room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Donald Norcross
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DONALD NORCROSS, A REPRESENTATIVE
FROM NEW JERSEY, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON TACTICAL AIR AND
LAND FORCES
Mr. Norcross. The hearing will come to order. The Tactical
Air and Land Forces Subcommittee meets today to review the
Department of the Army's modernization programs for the fiscal
2020 budget request.
The Army has made significant changes, and that is an
understatement, and some very tough choices with regards to the
2020 request to fund future capabilities without asking for an
increase to their budget top line.
Our subcommittee intends to examine the rationale behind
each choice with the senior Army leaders that we have with us
today.
I would like to welcome our distinguished panel of
witnesses.
Dr. Bruce Jette, Assistant Secretary of the Army for
Acquisition and Logistics and Technology.
General John Murray, Commanding General, Army Futures
Command.
And I would like to thank both of you for meeting us up at
Picatinny and spending the day with us, very informative and
very helpful.
Also joining us is Lieutenant General James Pasquarette,
Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army, G-8, and Mr. Jon Ludwigson,
Director of Contracts and National Security Acquisitions,
Government Accountability Office [GAO].
Thank you for joining us today.
I know we are all looking forward to your testimony and
this is something that has been very much on top of everybody's
mind because of the scrubbing that the Army has done over the
course of the last year.
The subcommittee will review a broad portfolio of Army
ground, aviation, ammunition, and air and missile defense, and
soldier individual equipment programs.
The Army's fiscal 2020 modernization request, research and
development acquisition programs, totals $34 billion,
essentially in line with last year's enacted amount. Though the
Army's modernization top line did not change, the programs
funded under these accounts certainly did. The subcommittee
wants to learn about these changes, the reasoning behind it,
and the associated risk that was taken or improved.
To fund the future modernization priorities, the Army
leadership conducted a yearlong examination of all research and
development procurement programs, weighing the cost and
benefits of each against the Army's current needs and with the
anticipated future threats in support of the new National
Defense Strategy.
Some 180 programs were deemed less relevant, that is
certainly a relative term, to our strategy and were not as
capable as a replacement, therefore not worth the expense. They
were cut from the fiscal 2020 request.
One of the subcommittee goals today is to better understand
the context, the analysis behind those decisions.
One significant program reduction involves an upgrade to
the CH-47F Chinook helicopter. Despite having invested
significant funds to develop the Block 2 aircraft with greater
lift, increased range capabilities, the Army deferred the
program indefinitely, using the assumption that the aviation
community would absorb the risk to the heavy-lift mission, and
the industrial base will somehow weather this loss.
The subcommittee expects to hear more about the Army--how
you reached these conclusions and how the service intends to
manage this risk going forward.
Army modernization has had a rocky road. The Army leaders
with us today are familiar with that and the history and are
committed to a new way of planning and managing modernization.
Most important, the Army leaders have [reorganized] for the
future, standing up the Army Futures Command, General Murray's
new command, and creating of the cross-functional teams to
identify and develop solutions to serve the top six
modernization priorities.
They are long-range precision fire; next-generation combat
vehicles; future vertical lift; Army network; air and missile
defense; and soldier legality--lethality, excuse me.
The committee expects to hear how the fiscal 2020 request
will address these modernization priorities and align
acquisition with the National Defense Strategy. We also want to
know what will be different this time, and we have had this
conversation so many times we have gone through this and
somehow expecting that we change. Many are describing that this
feels different, and certainly we want to make sure that, A, it
is sustainable and it is working the way that it is designed.
What new processes or internal oversight will ensure that
the Army gets its money's worth in this wide-reaching
modernization endeavor? We are interested in the distribution
of responsibility, the authority, as well as the relationship
of Dr. Jette's organization, ASA(ALT) [Assistant Secretary of
the Army (Acquisition, Logistics and Technology)] and the
Army's Future Command and the Army staff, how will these three
organizations work together and prioritize and come out with
one correct decision.
Given congressional and DOD [Department of Defense]
interest in improved acquisition, the Army has enthusiastically
embraced rapid prototyping authorities granted by Congress to
speed innovation and shorten development cycles for those key
technologies.
While the subcommittee supports the use of the so-called
transfer authorities and other transaction authority, we also
want to be sure that these rapid prototyping approaches are
used in the spirit of good acquisition processes and practices
that yield real measurable results.
Buying too many of the same design prototype while in the
test and evaluation phase might not be the best use of
taxpayers' money. The committee will conduct oversight in these
areas to assure that prototype-related funding is programmed
and spent in a reasonable manner.
And of course GAO has extensive knowledge of the Army
acquisition, past and present, and understands those
challenges.
The subcommittee is interested in the GAO assessment of the
Army Futures Command which is in your packet. And it is all
driving the innovation and the relationship to the rest of the
Army acquisition community.
We look forward to your testimony to discuss these topics.
Before we begin I would like to turn to the ranking member,
the distinguished lady from Missouri who we had a chance to be
in her district a couple of weeks ago and looking forward to
your comments.
Mrs. Hartzler.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Norcross can be found in the
Appendix on page 41.]
STATEMENT OF HON. VICKY HARTZLER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
MISSOURI, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON TACTICAL AIR AND LAND
FORCES
Mrs. Hartzler. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and we look forward
to you coming back, so we can go to Fort Leonard Wood as well
and see that very important Army installation.
But thank you so much all for being here and to provide us
testimony in the Army modernization efforts in the fiscal year
2020 budget request.
The National Defense Strategy directs our military to
prepare for the return of the great power competition with
strategic near-peer, and I would say equal-peer almost,
competitors like Russia and China.
The Secretary of the Army has noted that this budget
request represents an inflection point for the Army. And in
order to meet these National Defense Strategy objectives the
Army needs to rapidly modernize now.
Overall, it appears that the Army's modernization request
continues to build on the progress made in the previous two
budgets in rebuilding readiness and modernization. This is
important because Army modernization funding declined by well
over 50 percent from 2008 through 2016 as a result of the
drawdown from two wars and the imposition of the budget caps by
the Budget Control Act.
Most of this impact was seen in the later stages of the R&D
[research and development] accounts such as prototyping and
system development stages, which are the precursors to fielding
new capabilities. So I am pleased that this budget request
continues to request needed growth in modernization.
The Army's modernization request includes $12.2 billion in
research, development, test, and evaluation funding, and $21.8
billion in procurement which will begin to address the Army's
identified top six modernization priorities which the chairman
listed.
In building this year's budget request, I understand senior
Army leadership reviewed and scrutinized every program to
determine which ones supported the National Defense Strategy,
and which programs could be reduced or cancelled so that
savings could be reinvested into the Army's ``big six,'' quote,
priorities.
Obviously, tough choices had to be made and while we might
not agree with every decision the Army made, we can commend the
Army for making these tough decisions in order to prioritize
limited investment funding for the future fight and effectively
begin to operationalize the National Defense Strategy.
I would like our witnesses today to provide additional
details on this process and help us understand how you are
managing strategic risk as a result of these decisions, to
include operationally as well as impacts to the industrial
base.
Since we met last year to review the Army's modernization
request, the Army's Future Command has reached initial
operational capability, congratulations, and is well underway
in developing modernization requirements to meet these future
threats.
We expect witnesses today to provide an update on how the
Futures Command has begun to improve the acquisition and
modernization process.
To support this effort, I understand the Army has also
established eight cross-functional teams [CFTs] that align with
the Army's modernization priorities. These CFTs are pursuing 31
separate lines of effort with over $8.8 billion total requested
for these efforts in the budget. I expect our witnesses today
to provide updates on these efforts.
Given this focus on next-generation capabilities, I would
like our witnesses today to discuss how the Army is balancing
investments and capabilities for the future fight while at the
same time upgrading legacy platforms for current threats.
Finally, I want to stress the importance of having a
defense top line that represents real growth. We cannot afford
to go backwards. And the level of funding in this budget
request is the minimum required to continue repairing our
military.
So I thank the chairman for organizing this important
hearing, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Norcross. Thank you, Mrs. Hartzler.
I understand each of the witnesses will provide both the
[off mic], starting with Dr. Jette, followed by General Murray
and ended with Lieutenant General Pasquarette. And then Mr.
Ludwigson will provide a perspective from the GAO that
everybody is looking forward to.
And without objection each of the witness prepared
statements will be included in the record. Hearing none, so
ordered.
So Dr. Jette, you can lead off and share with us something
we have been looking forward to, how the midnight scrub
reallocated much of what we do. And on our platter there are
300 requests from fellow members to make those adjustments a
little bit different. So we have before us quite a challenge
and we want to make sure we hear the rationale, the risk, and
where we are going.
STATEMENT OF HON. BRUCE D. JETTE, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE
ARMY FOR ACQUISITION, LOGISTICS AND TECHNOLOGY, DEPARTMENT OF
THE ARMY
Secretary Jette. Chairman Norcross, Ranking Member
Hartzler, and distinguished members of the Subcommittee on
Tactical Air and Land Forces, good afternoon.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to
discuss the Army's modernization priorities and the resources
we have requested for the fiscal year 2020 President's budget.
Before I begin, on behalf of the Army family I would like
to extend our deepest sympathies on the passing of
Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher. She had a very distinguished
career as a public servant and was a true friend and supporter
of the Army. We share the sadness of your loss.
For nearly two decades, the Army has deferred high-
intensity combat capability modernization in order to support
continuous low- to medium-intensity operations while the global
security environment has grown more competitive and volatile.
Army senior leaders identified our budget, organization,
acquisition, and talent management as central to ensuring
unquestionable superiority. In all of these, one primary
objective guided us: Make soldiers and units more capable and
lethal to deter conflict or win decisively if necessary.
The fiscal year 2020 budget request before you is the first
budget in decades to fully fund the modernization priorities.
Through a series of introspective assessments of existing
programs as they contribute to our primary objective, we
eliminated, reduced, or consolidated nearly 200 programs,
reallocating the funding to more essential modernization
priorities rather than asking Congress for additional funding.
The Army leadership recognized the need for fundamental
change to better employ those resources, a revitalized future
force modernization enterprise was necessary.
Last year, the Army made its most significant organization
restructuring in over 40 years by establishing the Army Futures
Command. As a result, one commander is driving support for the
NDS [National Defense Strategy] through concept development,
experimentation, modeling, simulation, organizational design,
requirements determination, and material solution validation.
Through the cross-functional teams, AFC [Army Futures
Command] remains laser-focused on the six modernization
priorities. The Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army
for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology retains management
and control over all aspects of material development and
procurement.
However, the establishment of AFC affords an opportunity to
create a more collaborative working environment between the
CFTs and the program executive offices [PEOs]. Each CFT has a
PEO. The 30 signature systems of the CFT each have a program
manager.
Of greatest value is the collaboration. AFC and the CFT
participate in deliberation over acquisition strategies.
Equally the acquisition community contributes to the
operational requirements through a development process. Yet
each retain their responsibilities.
While retaining management control of funding at the
ASA(ALT) level, Army Science and Technology Funding 6.1 through
6.3 is managed for execution by AFC, to which the Army Organic
Technology Base is assigned, Army Research Office, Army
Research Laboratory, Combat Capabilities and Development
Directorate Command.
As the Army Chief Scientist, I am personally involved in
the technology strategies and planning. Advanced Component
Development and Prototyping 6.4 dollars remain managed by the
PEOs and PMs [project managers], but with the objective of
fulfilling AFC experimentation, modeling and simulation, and
prototyping, in order to facilitate a more seamless transition
to programs of record.
The Army continues to responsibly implement acquisition
initiatives that Congress authorized such as Section 804 Middle
Tier Acquisition and other transaction authorities.
We established an intellectual property policy that
protects the equities of both the government and private
industry to encourage inventive and innovative companies to
work with the Army. We have a draft transition to sustainment
policy with execution plan, currently under test, to better
manage resources and are working on a transition to divestiture
for obsolete equipment.
Our advanced manufacturing policy will help reduce part
stockages and time to repair and we believe the size of the
sustainment tail in general. And with the complexities of the
emerging battlefield, ASA(ALT) has drafted a revised talent
management program for acquisition professionals that,
particularly in the case of officers, stretches back to ROTC
[Reserve Officers' Training Corps] and West Point.
Thank you again for this opportunity to discuss the Army's
modernization priorities and for your strong support of the
Army's programs. I look forward to your questions.
[The joint prepared statement of Secretary Jette, General
Murray, and General Pasquarette can be found in the Appendix on
page 44.]
Mr. Norcross. Thank you.
General Murray.
STATEMENT OF GEN JOHN M. MURRAY, USA, COMMANDER, ARMY FUTURES
COMMAND, DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
General Murray. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Norcross, Ranking Member Hartzler, distinguished
members of the Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee, thank
you for the opportunity to appear before you today and thank
you for your long-time, steadfast support and demonstrated
commitment to our soldiers, our civilians, and their families.
And Ranking Member Hartzler, the United States Army is
indeed at a strategic inflection point. Both Russia and China
have begun a very aggressive modernization program for their
armies.
Up until this point and really the last couple of years the
United States Army has not and we are in danger of falling
behind.
The Army established Army Futures Command to provide unity
of effort and to make sure that the Army becomes a continually
modernizing organization. The key is unified and integrated
approach to develop and deliver operational concepts, future
force designs, and material solutions to support those
concepts.
The Army Futures Command has postured the Army for the
future by setting strategic direction, integrating the Future
Force Modernization Enterprise, aligning resources to Army
priorities, and maintaining accountability. In doing so, Army
Futures Command works hand in hand with the Assistant Secretary
of the Army (Acquisition, Logistics and Technology) Dr. Jette
and the Army G-8 led by Lieutenant General Jim Pasquarette.
The Army's new concept, Multi-Domain Operations 2028, is
the foundation for the Army's modernization plan. This concept
articulates how the Army as part of the joint force and with
our allies will compete with and if necessary defeat near-peer
adversaries as directed in the National Defense Strategy.
The Army's next modernization strategy will be published
this summer. It will describe how the Army will continually
modernize, become a multi-domain capable force by 2028 and a
multi-domain ready force by 2035.
As mentioned, Army Futures Command has eight cross-
functional teams that are powerful tools for modernization.
These teams directly align with the Army's modernization
priorities, and initiatives that they oversee are the critical
first steps of the Army modernization.
Each team is led by a general officer or senior executive
and directly partnered with both the program manager and the
program executive officer, and this team brings together all
the relevant communities to work together from the earliest
stages of the process, from requirements to science and
technology, testing and evaluation, costing, resourcing,
contracting and logistics, so we have the opportunity to get it
right from the beginning.
We are already seeing results of these efforts; the new
enhanced night-vision goggle binocular with a requirements
document about 12 months ago will be fielded to Army formation
this fall and deployed to the Republic of Korea.
Additionally, mobile short-range air defense requirements
document about 2 years ago is on track for initial fielding in
fiscal year 2020.
I am absolutely confident that our Army will have the
concepts, capabilities, and organizational structures that it
needs to fulfill our mission on the nation's behalf.
Thank you again for this opportunity and I look forward to
your questions. Thank you.
Mr. Norcross. Thank you.
General Pasquarette.
STATEMENT OF LTG JAMES F. PASQUARETTE, USA, DEPUTY CHIEF OF
STAFF, ARMY (PROGRAMS), DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
General Pasquarette. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Norcross, Ranking Member Hartzler, distinguished
members of this subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to
speak about the fiscal year 2020 Army modernization budget.
You will find no daylight between the National Defense
Strategy and the areas we are investing in to ensure the U.S.
Army maintains land force dominance in the future versus near-
peer competitors.
This year's budget request is driven by the Army strategy
and if fully funded will enable the Army to meet its
modernization priority objectives by 2028 in support of the
NDS.
In building the fiscal year 2020 budget the Secretary of
the Army and Chief of Staff recognize that future defense
budgets would likely remain relatively flat or potentially
decline, so rather than asking for additional resources, they
chose to reprioritize resources from within the Army's
projected top-line to pay for near-term readiness and next-
generation modernization.
As mentioned, the Army leadership personally reviewed over
500 programs. Those that did not directly contribute to
lethality or assessed as ineffective against near-peer threats
in the envisioned future operational environment became a
funding source.
In the end this process and the implementation of
aggressive reforms and efficiencies resulted in the
reprioritization of over $30 billion across the fiscal year
2020 FYDP [Future Years Defense Program] in favor of
modernization priorities.
These decisions while not easy were necessary to put the
Army on an azimuth to maintain land dominance, given the
acknowledged return of great power competition with Russia and
China.
Let me close by saying that the realization of our
modernization objectives is highly dependent on what is in the
fiscal year 2020 budget request by the Army. The investments in
this budget request complement and reinforce what was jump-
started in the fiscal year 2018 and 2019 budgets of which we
thank Congress for their great support.
Finally, with continued predictable, adequate, timely, and
sustained funding, the U.S. Army will continue to be the best
equipped land force the world has ever known.
I sincerely appreciate your time today and I look forward
to your questions. Thank you.
Mr. Norcross. Thank you.
Mr. Ludwigson.
STATEMENT OF JON R. LUDWIGSON, ACTING DIRECTOR, CONTRACTING AND
NATIONAL SECURITY ACQUISITIONS, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY
OFFICE
Mr. Ludwigson. Chairman Norcross, Ranking Member Hartzler,
and members of this subcommittee, I am pleased to be here today
to discuss the Army's modernization.
I will summarize my written statement which draws upon
three prior modernization-related reports. My statement today
will provide observations on three broad topics.
First, the organizational changes occurring with
modernization; second, some positive aspects of modernization
we have seen; and third, some steps the Army should take while
modernizing.
Regarding the organizational change. As a part of
modernization, the Army is substantially restructuring,
including the creation of the new four-star Army Futures
Command which seeks to integrate and connect the forward-
looking components of Army. This restructuring also aims to
improve how requirements are developed, something GAO and
others have identified as part of the problem with past failed
modernization efforts.
Despite these steps, Army modernization remains very much
in process. While Futures Command has begun operating, it is
not expected to be fully operational until this summer, and
efforts aimed at modernizing the Army's capabilities are
considerable and could take a decade or longer to be realized.
While modernization is just starting, I would like to
highlight three positive aspects. First, we have seen a strong
organizational commitment to modernization across senior levels
of Army and Futures Command. And the Army has begun to follow
relevant leading practices for organizational change we have
identified.
Also, we see the establishment of cross-functional teams as
offering the promise of improving modernization efforts. These
teams are intended to guide progress towards the Army's six
modernization priorities while pulling in new ideas from
industry and academia, identifying opportunities to experiment
and prototype, and identifying opportunities to improve the
acquisition process.
These teams bring together stakeholders with diverse
expertise including requirements, contracting, cost analysis,
and the potential users of these weapon systems. These teams
bring together stakeholders earlier than the traditional
process where stakeholders provided their input sequentially
and later. These teams have also generally followed relevant
leading practices we had identified.
Finally, we see Army taking steps to realign research and
development investments with its modernization priorities.
Identifying and maturing technologies to address capability
needs takes time, and ensuring that these efforts are directed
at modernization efforts early is important.
I would like to mention four changes the Army should
consider as it modernizes. First, the Army and Futures Command
could do more to broaden the organizational commitment to
restructuring by more clearly seeking to leverage the strengths
and experiences of existing organizations, and formalizing
coordination with organizations who do not directly report to
Futures Command but are instrumental to the success of the
modernization enterprise.
For example, Futures Command had not yet recently--until
recently finalized details of how it will work with the
civilian acquisition authority and I think it is still working
through some of those issues.
Second, the Army should improve the transparency of its
near-term modernization efforts as we recommended in 2018 by
establishing a plan for evaluating how near-term modernization
investments contribute to its modernization goal, and
finalizing its estimate of near-term investments and providing
all of those estimates to Congress.
Third, the Army should ensure that it has enough key
personnel to support the work of modernization, as we
recommended in 2017. At that time, we reported the Army had
declining levels of acquisition personnel who helped develop
requirements. With the expected increased pace of
modernization, the Army should evaluate whether they have
enough of these key personnel.
Finally, the Army should commit to using mature
technologies in new weapons systems as we recommended earlier
this year. Past failed modernization efforts have left the Army
with equipment in need of an update. Developing new weapons
systems using mature technologies would lower the risks
associated with updating its capabilities compared with its
past practice of developing these integrated weapon systems
while maturing the underlying technologies.
In conclusion, the Army has taken promising early steps to
address some of the reasons it has struggled with past
modernization efforts, but it could do more. GAO stands ready
to help Congress as they oversee these important efforts.
Chairman Norcross, Ranking Member Hartzler, this concludes
my statement. I would be happy to answer any questions the
subcommittee members may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ludwigson can be found in
the Appendix on page 56.]
Mr. Norcross. Thank you. And certainly for the report which
went to each of the offices dated January 2019, so there are
some very positive things in there, but there are certainly
some challenges, still very new and you pointed that out.
So I am going to start out, I will just go with two general
questions, the first one more aspirational on how the design
and the way it was supposed to work, and the way we think it is
working now.
Hard scrub over the course of last year, what fits into our
new priorities?
So first question is when the programs were reviewed, you
were measuring against the six priorities that we set forth.
Risk is assessed across the board. Are you using the same risk
assessment for each of the programs, or does that risk change
based on the program as you move forward?
So General Murray, let us start with you and then Dr.
Jette.
General Murray. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would
actually start the process a little bit earlier. So that the
risk has to start to be assessed against what the Army has been
told to do in the National Defense Strategy and that the
concept that we have come up with to allow the Army to fight
and win on the future battlefield.
So that is, when we looked at, and both Dr. Jette and I
were part of the process a year ago, or a year and a half ago,
the process that you are talking about.
The senior leaders--and you have heard this number before--
for up to 60-plus hours over the course of probably 2 months,
so it wasn't for 60 straight hours obviously. And probably--and
I was the G-8 at that time and most of the staff was mine. But
between the 6- to 800 hours of analysis that went in to prepare
for those 60 hours, each system was looked at with a common
lens, is does this contribute to how the Army will fight in
2028 to 2035. And if the answer was no, it will not contribute,
that was kind of an easy place to look for resources.
Mr. Norcross. But that is only one-half of the equation.
The other ask is what risk are we assuming?
General Murray. I am getting there, sir. So obviously there
is risk to the industrial base. And I am going to allow Dr.
Jette to talk about that. My role was primarily to look at it
from an operational risk, and there is risk; if, you know, are
you going to be able to maintain that piece of equipment
because it is not like you just divested something and
automatically produce something out of the air to replace it.
So how much risk are you assuming with a legacy piece of
equipment while we get new equipment in place.
That was looked at and the 31, I think you said, efforts
that the cross-functional teams are looking at, those were the
key capabilities to allow us to fight and win on a future
battlefield fiscal year 2028 along with the organizational
structure. And so when you look at it with that lens, what is
most important for the United States Army to protect this
nation, that was the operational lens we looked at it from.
Secretary Jette. Mr. Chairman, as General Murray said, the
acquisition side was considered at the same time that the
operational side was considered. So the first place that was
confirmed was the value to the operational forces. Once that
was made, then we took a look at the impact to programmatics
and the impact to the industrial base.
So for example, if a technology currently existed and we
looked at it from a programmatic basis, could we end the
contract, could we reduce the contract? What were the impact of
doing either of those steps have on the contract value, so that
we were honest and upfront about what type of harvesting might
be made in the budget out-years.
So we didn't want to go into this and assume that something
may be $10 million, we are going to cancel it and we are going
to get $10 million back when in fact we had obligations that
maybe $8 million of it, so you are only going to harvest two.
And that may be worth the risk and it may not and those type of
things were considered.
A second piece of consideration that was done in each of
these was to take a look at the risk of terminating or
curtailing a program to the continued sustainment of the
existing program. So as you know, in many cases, we have large
quantities of equipment. If I terminate a continuing upgrade to
a particular set of equipment, now I have to change from an
upgrade strategy being able to compensate for my sustainment
aging, I now have to be able to adjust to just a sustainment
mode.
And we took a look at that, again, in the same light, what
is affordability and what is the industrial base going to be
able to sustain. And then we did take a look at the industrial
base and the risks there on both sides. So the first side would
be were we losing an industrial base, would we have a risk that
we may be putting out, vendors may not be able to survive after
a period of time, what would we do for those parts. Conversely,
did we believe that the industrial base would be able to grow
in the new venture, whatever that might be that we are
producing.
Mr. Norcross. So who put together the impact to the
industrial base, those procurement definitions of minimum
sustaining rate, who actually puts that together in what
timeframe?
Secretary Jette. So there are two questions there and I
just want to make sure that I answer them correctly, sir. In
the case of taking a look at the industrial base, the
acquisition community, I have a large staff, we put together
our assessments of where we thought things were. I have a
Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army that does----
Mr. Norcross. Is that in conjunction with industry or
outside of it?
Secretary Jette. The initial assessment is always done
internally so that we have a pretty flat view of what we think
is out there. That way, we don't necessarily run into
industry's interest in a particular direction. We want to make
sure that we know what we think is right.
Then we will talk to industry and we do. I meet with the
Secretary as a continuing program every Monday evening, most
every Monday evening we will meet with an industry CEO [chief
executive officer] and president. We discuss these things with
them and then my door is always open, I have a lot of people
who come through it.
Mr. Norcross. Probably an understatement on going through.
So we have literally spent tens of billions on modernizing the
Army, critical to both Army and DOD that are we getting the
return on our investment and that can be measured in several
ways. So the question, is the Army assessing its return on
modernizations? It is very new, is it working as you originally
designed it and expected, and to layer on top of that, the
relationships between general and the doctor is different now,
is that working? Is that relationship, do we need to define it
any better? So those are two questions.
General Murray. Yes, sir. So as you mentioned, and I would
like to describe Army Futures Command as a startup trying to
manage a merger right now, so it is very new. And I would say
that it is working, because we are showing some early success
with what the cross-functional teams are working on. I
mentioned some of that just from my opening statements.
Another example would be historically, if you look back
over time, it was taking the Army 3-5 years just to get a
requirement approved in the first place before it even went
over to acquisition. We are averaging 3-5 months and that is a
significant reduction in the time it is taking to get
requirements approved.
Mr. McCarthy and General McConville started a lot of this
for us and we are carrying on that process to make sure that we
are moving at the speed of relevance to get capability to our
soldiers. Dr. Jette and I had a good relationship before the G-
8 and the ASA(ALT), the Acquisition, Logistics and Technology
Assistant Secretary, have a relationship. I used to spend at
least one day a week in his office and we could compare notes.
And I would just say and I think he would agree that the
relationship is only getting better and will continue to get
better in terms of how we approach this.
And I think the key thing there is we both have the common
end state, of making sure--and it is not today's soldiers, that
future soldiers have what they need to fight and win on a
future battlefield.
Secretary Jette. If I may, sir.
Mr. Norcross. Is it defined as well as you would like to
see it?
Secretary Jette. Sir, I think I mentioned in our visit up
at Picatinny, when you have such a change, you have storming,
forming, and norming, and I think a reasonable description of
where we are, we are past the storming, there are no hurricanes
anymore, we still have a tornado roll by every so often. We
discover some conflict between the two organizations and how we
do business and General Murray and I then get together and try
to resolve that. And so far, we have been very successful.
As we do that, we are beginning to codify those
relationships and different methodologies. For example, the PMs
and PEOs that are linked together weren't sure of exactly how
that was going to work, and it is taking a bit of a cultural
difference.
In the past, as I mentioned, there was--you did
requirements, you did the acquisition, and that is how we met,
but now literally they come together to work through those
things, and so the acquisition people have the authority to sit
there and say, Listen, that is great, but that is not
achievable on that timeframe. Or you could achieve this if you
just asked for it.
Conversely, the requirements side of things can say, Well,
why can't we do this and how come you are holding up the
acquisition process that way when couldn't we try something
else? So we are trying to find even more aggressive methods of
working more closely together as opposed to against each other.
Mr. Norcross. I know my colleagues want to ask some
questions, I just before I turn it over, so I want to look at
the Block 2, the Chinook as an example. I got into it a little
bit more and we are going to get into the weeds when we start
making those assessments of risk.
So it is as proposed indefinitely put off for that. So we
were out in Phoenix 2 weeks ago and learned that the decision
to cancel this, the upgrades, was made without input from the
contractor which is what you explained to me that you do. Is
that phase one, it is your staff that comes up with that, but
then you would go after that to industry.
So on the CH-47F, the assessment was made and the minimum
requirements to keep a line going is something that your office
put out first. If there is a difference, significant, between
what your assessment is and what industry who is on the floor,
how is that rectified or addressed?
Secretary Jette. So let me make sure I just clarify one
detail, sir. The quantities, actually quantities that we want
for a given year are not defined by the acquisition community
but the requirements, so General Murray would bring that in.
Mr. Norcross. But this is an order to keep.
Secretary Jette. Yes, sir.
Mr. Norcross. Whatever the program is, the minimum
sustaining rate which is what you publish.
Secretary Jette. Yes, sir. So the minimum sustaining rate
is arrived at by discussing that with the contractor. It is an
open discussion. We don't always agree on what we believe the
number should be, and I am not sure we are done with fully
understanding that in the case of the Chinook. At the same
time, we are looking at--so when we say we are not doing the F
model, it is not that we are not doing any Block 2, we are
doing Block 2 for the G model which is basically an F model
converted to the special ops community.
Mr. Norcross. Right.
Secretary Jette. And so we add those into the mix over a
period of time.
Mr. Norcross. That is eight a year I believe?
Secretary Jette. Six, sir.
Mr. Norcross. Six.
Secretary Jette. And then on top of that, we have been
supportive of FMS, foreign military sales, and there are a
number of them that fill those.
We are looking at other potential opportunities to bring
partners into the mix to help us with some of the quantities
right now. And I think the Secretary made it clear that in his
discussions that this is a halt, it is a halt to try and find
out where we need to go with respect to a true future
technology for heavy future vertical lift. That doesn't
necessarily exclude the 47, the 47 Block 2, or an alternative
variant along. It is just a statement to slow down, stop, let
us make reassessments and make sure that we are spending the
taxpayer's dollars appropriately to meet the vertical lead--
heavy lift needs.
Mr. Norcross. And the reason I am going into this is that
if you arrive at it separately or individual, but they are
close. On this one, they are saying you need 24 a year minimum
to keep the line open, so if that is part of your risk
assessment and it is radically different, that would
potentially change the outcome of that decision making. So I am
going to move on, but that is one of the areas that if you are
using that tool and we have that big of a discrepancy and this
just happens to be this one, what is the correction factor, how
do we go after it?
But we will talk about that later on.
Mrs. Hartzler.
Mrs. Hartzler. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I think it really is refreshing what you have done
already. I mean it is very impressive that Army leadership
personally reviewed over 500 programs, weighing the benefits
and looking into the future. I like what you said, General,
that it is a startup trying to manage a merger. I think that is
pretty good.
And the example of how you have already been able to reduce
from 3-5 years to 3-5 months some of the requirements, I mean
that is impressive. So this is a great example of probably what
we need to do all over government, is stop and look before we
move forward.
I did want to give you, first of all, General Murray and
Dr. Jette, an opportunity to address some of the concerns laid
out by Mr. Ludwigson, the GAO, and they did give you a lot of
positives of things they are seeing that they feel good about,
but there was four areas he mentioned.
So regarding to the amount of personnel, do you have enough
that you need, transparency on how you evaluate the
modernization efforts, I think maybe that was some of the
discussion we just had, and technologies, ways to reduce risk,
to ensure that they are fully mature. So anything you would
like to respond to those concerns that were laid out?
General Murray. Thank you, ma'am. And I obviously have seen
all of those GAO reports. And I was on the chopping line either
as a G-8 or the Army Futures Command. And the Army, I believe,
went back and concurred with every one of those
recommendations.
And I personally concur with every one of those
recommendations. I think the first one, that ongoing
relationship between the outside organization, ASA(ALT) is one
of them, there are other organizations within OSD [Office of
the Secretary of Defense] and within academia and within
commercial industry that those relationships are being built
and also within key universities throughout the country.
So for artificial intelligence, we have established a
presence at Carnegie Mellon University to begin to learn how to
incorporate artificial intelligence into the way forward.
Obviously some key universities in Texas, we have some presence
and some partnerships. And so those are ongoing. So I believe
that those things kind of take time, but we are in the process
of establishing some non-traditional relationships, if you
will, to include some innovation all around the country.
In the plan to determine the value of the investments
against the end state is where I kind of took that. I think you
have to look at the timing of the report. It was prior to this
budget and as Dr. Jette mentioned, this is the first budget we
have presented to the Hill that I think clearly lays out where
our priorities are in terms of modernization.
I know there is also a question about investments in legacy
programs and how they contribute and I think we continue to
work to define very analytically how our investments are
aligned against that end state that I talked about earlier.
The people, then I think--you know, the requirements
community is a pretty broad community and I think that is where
the comment mostly was on the requirements and its systems
engineers and operational research systems and analysis, our
ORSA population.
Just last Friday, I had all of my requirements people come
to Austin and we sat down and talked about their needs and
there is an element that is under strength throughout the
requirements community and has been probably since budgets were
pretty lean at the sequester year and during the 2016, 2017,
2018 timeframe. And so we are taking a holistic look at what is
required for the requirements community, trying to capitalize
on the lessons of the CFTs which is also highlighted.
And then on mature tech, I obviously am a huge fan of
mature tech before you move to the program of record, but I
think it can't be a one size fits all. I think you've got to
take it on a case-by-case basis. Going back to risk, you've got
to kind of look at the risk of letting that technology mature.
But we definitely do not want to go back to betting on some
very immature technologies and baking programs around those
immature technologies which has gotten us in trouble in the
past.
Mrs. Hartzler. Sure. And getting those stakeholders
including the users involved in developing the requirement is
really important.
I wanted to talk about a little bit the lessons learned and
best practices that Army Futures Command has been able to
identify to date and planning that incorporates as you march
toward full operational capability this year, that includes
examples of working with small business. Can you kind of talk
about that a little bit, what you are doing with small
businesses?
General Murray. Yes, ma'am. So a couple of instances. One
would be Army Applications Lab which is also located in Austin,
Texas. And if you are familiar with the Defense Innovation
Unit, it is not a carbon copy of it, but it is focused on
outreach to small businesses and innovation throughout the--one
of the things that I think is very promising that, just as an
example, that we discovered through Army Applications Lab is
the opportunity to inject virtual reality training into our
basic pilot training.
The Air Force has done this and they are a little bit ahead
of the Army, but we are going to stand up a pilot at Fort
Rucker this summer and we believe that we can significantly
reduce the amount of actual flight hours with no degradation in
the training. And when you reduce flight hours, you have the
potential to probably every class saving tens of millions of
dollars in terms of sustainment of aircraft, those hours you
are not actually flying.
Mrs. Hartzler. That is amazing. Dr. Jette and General
Pasquarette, the next-generation squad weapon program is
requiring a new caliber to be used in these weapons, a 6.8
millimeter round. I understand that the ammunition is going to
be produced at Lake City Army Ammunition Plant. Could you
update us on this effort, and do you require any additional
funding in fiscal year 2020 for additional tooling or
modernized equipment at Lake City, which is near my district.
Many of my constituents work there and we are very proud of the
mission there.
General Pasquarette. Well, I would talk, ma'am--thanks. I
would talk in a broad sense on any of our efforts that General
Murray is shepherding as the AFC commander to include next-gen
squad weapon, when the requirements have been identified and
validated, we have fully funded it in this program to include
in fiscal year 2020.
So there are near-term adjustments that are out there
with--that I believe as this--and I have to check on this, but
it might be with this system we are talking about here, but
those were new--that is new information since we submitted this
program and budget down to OSD, so that is why there might be
minor adjustments. But programmatically, it is fully funded
based on the requirements that we know today.
Mrs. Hartzler. Dr. Jette.
Secretary Jette. So you are right. The new round is going
to be a different size and shape. We haven't confirmed exactly
which, the shape, what the final shape will be because we still
have a competition for the weapon to move forward and we have a
common round between the two weapons, the automatic and the
rifle.
We then will have to go back in and review the development
of the hardware that is necessary to produce the rounds
specifically, but at this point I don't believe that we see any
additional funding that is necessary in the 2020 budget in
order to accommodate that for production.
Mrs. Hartzler. Great, thank you. Dr. Jette and General
Murray, if United States withdraws from the INF [Intermediate-
Range Nuclear Forces] Treaty in August in response to ongoing
Russian violations, does the Army intend to remove the
previously imposed range restriction for long-range precision
fires that complied with the treaty?
General Murray. And, ma'am, if I could just go back to your
last question? There was a 2019 mark against the rifle that
causes a quarter slip if it is not restored. I think that was
what the request was. And yes, ma'am, we are looking at that.
Obviously, the treaty is still in place until August when
the 6-month period runs out for, I guess, to change your mind.
But within specifically the Precision Strike Missile [PRSM]
which is the ATACM [Army Tactical Missile System] replacement,
ATACM 350, right now, we say PRSM is 499.9 [km maximum range]
to stay within the INF Treaty. We are already planning future
upgrades to get well beyond 500 if the treaty is not in place.
Mrs. Hartzler. Great, thank you. I have more, but I will
wait for the second round.
I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Norcross. Thank you.
Mr. Carbajal.
Mr. Carbajal. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to all of
you for being here today. General Pasquarette, the Army has
emphasized the necessity to invest sufficient funding into its
modernization priorities. In your written statement, you
mentioned that the Army has protected key legacy systems.
Just trying to get some insight as to how that process
ensued, how did the Army determine which programs to protect?
Two, what was the analysis that supported this election of
these systems?
And three, who were the Army leaders and program
representatives involved in those discussions and decisions?
General Pasquarette. Well, it was some of it we have talked
a little bit, sir, but I will recount a little bit of it and
then a little more detail. The analysis was conducted, it was
kicked off by our analytical agencies back when Russia
actually, the intervention in Crimea had us take a hard look at
what our requirements to deal with Russia, that was our first
wake-up call as we were trying to, still committed fairly
heavily in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But that was the leading analytical assessment by our
Center for Army Analysis and TRAC [U.S. Army Training and
Doctrine Command Analysis Center] and others. That informed
eventually what was produced in the NDS and identified our
capability requirements we need that General Murray is leading,
the six modernization priorities, but also looked at our near-
term gaps based on OP [operations] plans of our legacy systems
that we needed to invest in today also.
That produced the need to upgrade our armored brigade
combat teams as an example when we looked at requirements
versus Russia. And what we have ended up doing and as a result
of that is coming up with a strategy to modernize our armored
brigade combat teams at a rate of 1 to 1.5 a year, and this
program here is a result of that analysis.
So those are legacy systems that we have been on in one
form or fashion for several decades that we will upgrade them
incrementally to keep them as best, as good as they can be, in
some ways integrated to what Futures Command will bring online
over time and will replace. An example is the future ground
combat vehicle, eventually we will replace the Bradley as an
example.
So I think that is an example. Our Stryker fleet is another
one that we are--we will have Strykers in our formation until
at least 2035 and we are investing about $750 million a year
roughly in our Strykers across the FYDP to keep them as
incrementally as good as they can be out for the next 15 or 20
years.
General Murray. And sir, I will just add--and General
Pasquarette makes a great point. But the reality is, we have to
be ready to do both. We have to be able to be ready to fight
tomorrow and we have to be ready to fight in the future.
And that is an element of the risk that when you look at--I
mean do you upgrade a system or do you not upgrade a system,
because there is not an endless pot of money and the Army is
not asking for that.
We're going to have to make some financial decisions based
upon the concepts that I talked about earlier that have been
run through modeling and simulation to the point where we are
confident that with multi-domain operations, with certain
organizational structures, with the key things we are trying to
pursue in modern systems, we can get to a win on the future
battlefield.
And so it has been through extensive modeling and
simulation, experimentation if you will, to determine that. The
senior leaders, Dr. Jette was there.
I was there as the G-8; the Secretary of the Army was
there; the Chief of Staff of the Army was there; the Vice Chief
of Staff of the Army was there and the Under Secretary of the
Army was there; the FORSCOM [U.S. Army Forces Command] four-
star commander was there; the AMC, Army Materiel Command, four-
star commander was there; the Training and Doctrine Command
four-star commander was there; plus experts from Dr. Jette's
side and experts from the requirements side to make sure that
we stay grounded. But the decision making was really the
corporate, the board of directors if you will for the United
States Army.
Mr. Carbajal. Thank you very much.
Mr. Ludwigson, many Army leaders at various levels have
stated that the service will now pursue incremental
acquisitions that are ``good enough'' rather than exquisite
solutions that solve all problems.
Does GAO support this path to capabilities development?
Mr. Ludwigson. Thank you, sir. I think that we are very
positive as it relates to incremental acquisitions. I think
that one of the pivots that is helpful is to shift from
aspirational acquisitions to thinking agile. And the way to
meet our recommendation as it related to implementing with
mature technologies is to recognize that you build now what you
can and you invest for the future and you add what is available
when it is available rather than building that into program of
record and then if it doesn't work out, particularly if it is a
critical technology, ending up not being able to deliver on
time and on schedule.
Mr. Carbajal. Thank you.
Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Mr. Norcross. Thank you.
Mr. Cook.
Mr. Cook. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will apologize in
advance for my cynicism. General Murray, thank you for your
patience.
We talked about some of these--I am still trying to come to
grips with the CH-47 Block 2 and we will probably have this
conversation. I heard one of the comments about some of these
things might take decades and I can't think in terms of that,
not the way the Chinese and the Russians are modernizing,
particularly the Chinese. We don't have decades.
And so I am probably very, very impatient. I think what you
are doing I think is outstanding and I want to give you a
compliment. A number of years ago, I was one of those ones who
was beating the drum about the active protective, protection
systems, and this and that. I got a lot of pushback and of
course I used the Israeli scenario. And we got four brigades
that have them right now.
What is the prognosis for the rest? Are we still looking to
flesh that out or?
General Murray. The requirement is every combat vehicle has
active protective system eventually. So we are exploring--
Trophy is the system you are talking about, it is too heavy for
our Bradleys and Strykers so we are right now in the process of
proving out a different system. And then for the next-
generation combat vehicle, the Bradley replacement, one of the
threshold requirements is an integrated active protective
system.
Mr. Cook. You know, I know the Dutch had something for
their APCs [armored personnel carriers], I don't know whether
they did, but as long as you are looking at other systems like
that I'm very, very happy, and just the fact that, I guess,
Iron Dome where you have that cross-pollinization.
Are you also exploring some of those systems that I just
mentioned?
General Murray. Yes, Iron Dome specifically, the air
defense system, yes, sir. But I think it was the 2018 NDAA
[National Defense Authorization Act] directed the Army to field
two batteries by fiscal year 2020. There is an ATR [above
threshold reprogramming] associated with it. It is not above
threshold reprogramming, it is not additional dollars. We need
to turn some RDT [research, development, test] dollars into
procurement dollars; that is on the Hill right now. And if we
can get kind consideration in a relatively timely fashion, we
think we are on track to meet two batteries by 2020 and
additional two batteries by 2023.
Mr. Cook. I think that would be great. Vertical lift,
future vertical lift. These timelines on when do you fish or
cut bait or how we are going to do this, we are talking about a
lot of money and where we are going. Are we going to be fed in
on that a little bit so you can help us in terms of--because we
are going to make recommendations in the budget and everything
else and this is very, very important, so could you comment on
that a little bit?
General Murray. Absolutely, sir. And as you know that there
are two versions of future vertical lift we are working on
right now, some call it CAP SET 1 [Capability Set 1], we are
now calling it FARA, the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft;
and then FLRAA which is the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft.
Roughly speaking, the first one I talked about is a scout
which we divested our scout aircraft based upon----
Mr. Cook. A more Kiowa----
General Murray. Yes, sir. Which is a critical gap we are
seeing in the future fight, so that is our number one priority.
And then the second one is really a medium-lift helicopter that
would replace the Black Hawk which is very, very vulnerable.
Apaches will be in the fleet for a long time and then the
CH-47 when we went through the analysis, it is the youngest
fleet we have in terms of production and it met the operational
requirements we were looking at. And I understand your
position; my position is it meets the requirement we have in
the near future.
But the two future vertical lift aircraft are the Army's
priorities with the first one being FARA and the second one
being FLRAA and we would be happy, and we spent a lot of time
over here already both Dr. Jette's staff and mine, so the
staffers fully understand where we are trying to go with those
two aircraft.
Mr. Cook. Yes. And I appreciate that.
By the way, you didn't give me my gouge on acronyms. I
won't say a word. Next time, please, a list so I can understand
it, because it changes every committee. My time is running out.
The last thing, you know that I am going to keep banging
the drum on the MICLIC [Mine Clearing Line Charge] about mines
and everything else, and as I said over and over again, that
was used by me in Vietnam. And I tell you, I am not 39, this is
many, many years ago and we are still using that stuff and we
still don't have it straight. So that is my big item.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Norcross. Thank you.
Mr. Langevin.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank our panel witnesses for your testimony and
thank you for your service to the country.
Secretary Jette, I want to start with you if I could. The
Army's Future Years Defense Plan looks to shift more than $30
billion toward modernization, the bulk of which is under the
purview of Army Futures Command. As you know, our enemies and
adversaries have invested heavily in offsetting our advantages
in a number of areas, particularly in the electromagnetic
spectrum.
I want to know, how is the Army building EW [electronic
warfare] resiliency in the modernization efforts to ensure that
new platforms and systems will function in a contested
environment?
Secretary Jette. Thank you, sir, for the question, because
it is one of my areas that I just find very, very important.
I helped develop some of the critical systems for the
Army's electronic warfare when I was back in uniform. EW
remains essential to how we work on the battlefield. The bar
keeps getting raised, and I think that we are working
diligently and it is a very challenging area. But we are
working diligently to try and contend with that raising of the
bar.
How we can apply electronic energies to disrupting the
opponent's electronic systems and how they can disrupt ours, it
becomes more and more challenging as we go along. And so we
have to have an offsetting strategy. There is the offensive
capability and the defensive capability.
It used to be just simply a question of jamming and
spoofing, and now what we are having to do is also assess each
of these weapon systems for insertion; so it is a more
sophisticated variant of spoofing by actually inserting things
into the system and letting them run like a virus or to trick
the systems.
To do that, we literally start all the way down at the chip
level in some cases, we will actually buy chips for critical
systems, open them up, look at them, look at the second
vendor's chips, open them up, make sure there are two dies, we
know where the dies came from themselves and we have been
working our way right from the supplier level up.
We are doing reviews on our existing systems in that matter
to make sure that they are not vulnerable, and then we are also
all of those steps are being incorporated in our assessment of
the new systems.
Mr. Langevin. I just want to make sure this remains
obviously a high priority and remains dynamic, that it's not
just a one and done, but obviously ongoing review and point
counterpoint.
Next, I want to also, on that same area that on the
cybersecurity front, we have seen a number of vulnerabilities
identified in major systems, through the 1647 process. So I
want to know is the Army position to finish its 1647
assessments by the statutory deadline?
General Murray. I am not sure I have a good answer for you,
sir. I will have to come back to you.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 77.]
Mr. Langevin. Okay. I appreciate that. And then as a
follow-up to that, one of my concerns from the 1647 reviews is
that lessons learned need to be fed back into the requirements
development process, and so I also will ask how are resiliency
measures being baked into new acquisitions from the start?
And given the dearth of metrics in the cybersecurity space,
I also want to know what specific metrics you are using to
ensure that delivered systems meet the requirements for
resiliency. So if you need to get back to me on those, for the
record, we can do that. But that is a priority that I would
like to get an answer to.
General Murray. Yes, we will take that, sir.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 77.]
General Murray. But I would add--so it all starts with the
requirement. And so we talked about the four-stars as part of
the review process we had. So we still have a requirements
process in place. And one of the things that General Milley put
in place when he became the Chief of Staff of the Army was Army
Cyber Command is part of the requirements process.
So we look at what we need for cyber protection before a
requirement ever gets approved, to ever go over to Dr. Jette
and be produced.
Mr. Langevin. Okay. Thank you for that and I look forward
to the additional answers on the record.
In your joint statement, you referenced directed energy,
factors to address the air and missile defense mission. I am
specifically interested in the transition from initial mobile,
short-range air defense to directed energy systems and I wanted
to ask if you can discuss your progress on these efforts so
far, as well as how you are training soldiers to operate such
systems.
General Murray. So we have had several efforts with very
small low-power lasers that we call MFIX [Maneuver and Fires
Integrated Experiment] at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, against mostly
small unmanned aerial vehicles. And those are real soldiers
operating those. They get feedback from the soldiers in terms
of the interface with the firing mechanisms, the equipment, and
we are seeing some great success in terms of small-power
lasers. The laser I think you are talking about is a higher
power laser that right now we are planning to integrate into a
larger air defense platform in around fiscal year 2023.
And so right now we are focused on getting it out of S&T
[science and technology] and getting it into development. And
Dr. Jette has graciously assigned a program executive officer
[PEO] to help us do that, which never had a PEO in the past and
not only directed energy, but also hypersonics. And they are
working very, very closely with the air and missile defense CFT
and the long-range precision fire CFT.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you. I know my time has expired, and I
am glad to hear you are getting ready to do the transitions, so
once the technology matures, my message is get ready because it
is coming.
I follow directed energy very closely and it is getting out
of the labs and getting to a mature level; it is going to be an
effective capability for the warfighter.
So thank you.
Mr. Norcross. Thank you.
Mr. Mitchell.
Mr. Mitchell. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We will go from directed energy to simple ground combat.
How is that for yin and yang?
We had a brief, a secure brief, a classified brief quite a
bit ago, on their situation in Europe, ground combat vehicles,
tanks, their survivability and lethality, and upgrades that
were being done. You outlined--and the GAO report outlines, the
September 2018 report on page 5, the process of the investments
being made in Bradleys, in Strykers, and a variety of the
ground combat vehicles, how much money is going to the plan to
upgrade those additional armored brigades.
Is that adequate near term to keep us in a position we are
able to defend Eastern Europe at this point in time in your
opinion?
General Murray. It is, in my opinion, sir, and I think one
of the things we often overlook is we look at individual
systems. The Army fights in formations.
Mr. Mitchell. Yes.
General Murray. And when we looked at the Army brigade
combat team, the Abrams tank, we are doing an upgrade to the
Abrams. So, we will go to SEPv4 [System Enhancement Program
Version 4].
Mr. Mitchell. Yes.
General Murray. And that, in my opinion, that is still the
most capable tank in the world. It is too heavy, but it is
still the most capable tank in the world. And when we looked at
the Army brigade combat team, the most vulnerable combat
vehicle was the Bradley and that is why we chose to replace it
first.
Mr. Mitchell. Well, you are right. It is heavy. Is the
number of Abrams you are talking about for Eastern Europe in
these upgrades are they adequate number over the term that is
projected?
General Murray. Well, deterrence is in the mind of the
beholder.
Mr. Mitchell. Sure.
General Murray. So, one of the things we are looking at is
posture. I mean, do we need to have more posture? And it has
been talked about in hearings over the last 2-3 months. We can
accomplish that in one of two ways, either through forward
presence or rotational basis.
Right now, the Army is in a rotational basis. So, I think
that is appropriate. And I think here next calendar year, you
will see an increase in the number of rotations or possibly the
size of rotations and exercises we are doing to get after some
of that and then of course, we just deployed a brigade on no-
notice exercise from Fort Bliss, Texas, to draw the equipment
we have prepositioned and exercise in. So, we are working
various ways to get after, I think, the mass that you are
talking about.
Mr. Mitchell. It is just in my opinion necessary to keep
that while we are modernizing, because I don't believe it is
becoming any less dangerous a place in Eastern Europe.
General Murray. Yes, sir. You have to be ready to fight
tonight and you have to be ready to fight 20 years from now,
and that is the balance we are trying to achieve.
Mr. Mitchell. Let us talk a little bit about the next-
generation combat vehicle [NGCV]. The May 1st report talks
about some of the unfortunate outcomes in terms of the future
combat vehicle and a fair amount of money has been invested in
this over a couple of efforts that had been, in fact, ended
because they were premature at best.
Are we comfortable at this point in time where the next-
generation combat vehicle is going in terms of the, we are on
track to accomplish that in your opinion?
General Murray. We are and I am very comfortable. And so,
one of the--besides immature technologies, another problem we
have with Future Combat System, there was--when you step back
and look at it, there was no concept that it was supporting.
So, it was a pretty amazing capability if we got to it. But it
really doesn't fit the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.
So, NGCV, OMFV, if you will, the optionally manned fighting
vehicle, fits the MDO [multi-domain operations] concept. So, it
is critical to the concept. So, they are coming hand-in-hand
just like we did in the 1970s and 1980s with the Abrams and
AirLand Battle.
The other thing I would say is, in this case, it was
mentioned before, these are mostly non-developmental vehicles.
So, these vehicles exist today. Now, there are some going to be
some integration challenges and we are trying to make some
upgrades and we are watching that very, very closely to make
sure that the technology is mature enough. But for the most
part, these vehicles exist today.
Mr. Mitchell. One last question for you. You mentioned
optionally manned or autonomous combat vehicles which are
wonderful in concept. My concern is the ability of them to
communicate some form of control.
Given the active electronic warfare we saw exhibited in
Eastern Europe and Ukraine, you are well aware of the
capabilities, so much so we can't talk here.
I still have not gotten a compelling answer as to how we
are addressing that for these vehicles or for this technology.
Can you give us any general information, we can talk about it
later, because I am really concerned that we develop this
capability.
General Murray. Just very quickly and then I am going to
let Dr. Jette talk to the specifics, but one of the reasons
they are optionally manned as opposed to fully autonomous is
what you bring up. So, commander on the ground based upon a lot
of different factors.
And one of them would be the electromagnetic spectrum. Do
you choose to man the vehicle or do you choose to go tele-
operated really is what we are talking about.
Secretary Jette. Sir, I think that you bring up a great
point. When we talk about an unmanned system, getting to an
unmanned system, a fully autonomous vehicle, I do not believe
it is around the corner. That is going to be quite a bit of
work before we allow something to go off into the field with an
armed weapon system to be able to fire at will.
That leads you back to your question about how do I make
sure I remain in control of it. And so, that, too, has a lot
of, Well, I think this, but I haven't proven it yet.
So, we have a number of technology efforts ongoing. One of
them, we have got a turret development program that we are
working on right now which is essentially taking a 30-
millimeter turret and I flip the button on, it finds the
target. It classifies the target. It determines if it is a
threat or not. It then categorizes which one is the most
threatening. It does the fire solution and then it can fire.
And it can do that entire loop alone. That is the objective
of the experiment. The reason is to then figure out where we
put in the gates and where we can apply AI [artificial
intelligence] in the background to be able to manage that more
effectively. We have a number of communications technologies
that we are working on as well that are very nascent that will
enhance our ability to make sure we retain communications. But
I would rather discuss those in private.
Mr. Mitchell. Yes. And I would ask, Mr. Chair, if we could
do that at some point in time is schedule to have a
conversation, a briefing on communication technologies for not
only in this case, but these optionally manned or semi-
autonomous vehicles and how they communicate under various
threat scenarios because it is starting to concern me that
we've seen the ability to infiltrate those and damage that.
And without the ability to communicate, our people in the
field have a very difficult time responding, protecting
themselves, or never mind defending the area.
Thank you. And I yield back. Thank you, gentlemen.
Mr. Norcross. Mr. Golden.
Mr. Golden. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Gentlemen, I am new to the committee and I am perhaps a
little bit more at home in seapower, having served in the
Marines, and becoming familiar with the Army, and that is why I
came here today. It has been helpful to sit here and listen to
you all talk about this budget, about your modernization
efforts, and go back and forth.
So, really, I think being the last one to ask a question, I
will just put something out there for you or anything that you
have missed that you like to talk about in regards to this
modernization budget request and how it aligns with the NDS,
specifically its emphasis on peer competition with larger
forces like China or Russia and others.
The entire time I served, I was in Afghanistan and Iraq.
So, hearing your testimony talking about some of the ways,
perhaps where some capabilities have atrophied over time as you
focused on that mission, do you have any specific examples you
haven't had an opportunity to talk about today that you would
like to throw out there that will help us understand why you
are putting a priority on some of these new systems, what is it
that you are worried that you have not been focused on over the
last 18 years or so and when you think about competitors of the
future.
General Pasquarette. I will just start, but I think it is
appropriate General Murray probably follows up.
I think some of the questions we have got is why are we
having to do this now. I would say because the capabilities we
need for our soldiers in the future, they do not exist today in
large part. We have to start with the research and development
now and that is a lot of dollars we have to move internally to
do that to produce, that eventually shift to procurement to put
in soldiers' hands by the time when we need it in our strategy.
So, some of the questions we have gotten is 2028 seems like
a long way away, but what we are trying to produce and what is,
will be relevant in that potential future conflict against
Russia or China does not exist today and that is why we are
asking General Murray to lead the way on.
General Murray. So, to me, it always comes back to the
concept. So simply while you and I were involved in Iraq and
Afghanistan, both the Russians and the Chinese watched how we
fought back to Desert Storm and then the opening phases of
Iraqi Freedom, and they vowed never to face the United States
Marine Corps and the United States Army in close combat. And so
they have developed systems to establish standoff, much like a
boxer uses a jab to keep somebody with shorter arms away from
them.
And so that is fundamentally what we saw in the Ukraine and
with our next-generation warfare study. And what we are seeing
really in a lot of places like the South China Sea and along
the coast of China is this problem called standoff--a different
problem than we had during the Cold War, but a similar approach
to how do we solve this standoff problem. And it is not just
the Army; it is how do we enable the joint force to solve this
standoff problem. I think that is driving a lot of our
modernization strategy.
Secretary Jette. Sir, I think General Murray has it exactly
right. Requirements drive the acquisition process. I spent a
lot of time operationally. I spent a lot of time in Iraq and
Afghanistan as well. While I am an acquisition professional, I
understand that there is no purpose in me developing something
if it doesn't have operational value.
So to that end, the number one requirement is let us take a
look at what the potential adversaries are doing and how we can
counter their capabilities, and the standoff is a significant
one. If you take a look at Eastern Europe, you will see the
Russians doing exactly what he says. They do not want to get in
a face-on-face fight with an M1 tank. Therefore, they put a
large amount of rockets, artillery, and mortars, and they put
air defenses in place to try and protect those assets.
So we are adjusting our capability in long-range precision
fires to be able to get at those, take out the protection
measures that they have in place for air defense. And then we
have got defensive systems, particularly the directed energy we
are putting in place to be able to counter the inbound systems
as well.
Mr. Golden. Just a few seconds left here, but so I have a
greater understanding, you are telling me what they want to do.
Is it still our goal then to defeat their efforts to hold
us off so that you can close with them and get into that face-
to-face or are we changing the strategy and getting into more
of a long-range fight as well?
General Murray. So, both. So, we have changed the doctrine.
And part of it is competing below the threshold of war which is
also going on each and every day and you see it in the
newspaper each and every day.
So how do we get to a strategy where it is not black or
white? We are at war. We are at peace. And it is a conflict
almost every day--or not conflict, excuse me, competition. And
then, if it goes to conflict that we have the ability to defeat
that standoff that they are trying to achieve.
And like I said, it is really to enable the joint force
because right now, the standoff they have created does not hold
just the Army at bay. It holds really the joint force except
for some very expensive and exquisite capabilities.
So how do you enable the joint force? And then, really, how
do you do this in such a way that we never have to use it, that
we invest this money and we achieve deterrence. We never have
to prove that we can defeat that theory.
Mr. Norcross. Thank you.
Mr. Wittman.
Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, thanks so much for your service to our nation
and coming in to testify today.
General Murray, I want to begin with you. You had spoken in
your opening testimony about the air and missile defense
modernization priority and specifically, it was mentioned the
Army is pursuing acquiring Iron Dome and that as you pointed
out is an interim solution for indirect fire protection
capability specifically against unmanned aerial systems, cruise
missiles, other projectiles coming in.
Certainly understand that. I know the Marine Corps is
looking at the same sort of system as that indirect fire
protection capability. In looking at what Israel has done and
how effective Iron Dome is, they report that there is about a
90 percent effectiveness in taking down incoming targets
through this interceptor system. That is good news.
The challenging side is, is that it is about $100,000 per
shot. So the Israelis have looked at directed energy. They have
looked at the comparable system using a laser family of systems
called Iron Beam to be able to take out those threats at a
much, much more efficient and cost-effective cost per shot.
Can you give me your perspective on how the Army is looking
at directed energy in its effort concerning indirect fire
protection capability and how you see integrating that into
your future doctrine?
General Murray. Absolutely, sir. And so, I have not heard
of Iron Beam. I will definitely look into it. But in terms of
directed energy strategy, so right now we are on a path to
integrate directed energy onto our Stryker air defense vehicle
in I'd say roughly the 2023 timeframe because we are still
trying to pull it out of S&T and I do not want to make too much
of a bet too early that we'll be at 2023. But that is
absolutely the goal we are working towards.
Effective against rockets, mortars, artillery, small UASs
[unmanned aerial systems], that type of power of directed
energy laser, if you will. And then, there is also another S&T
program that is on a much bigger truck, a much higher energy
that we'd get after some larger targets that we are working on.
And once again, not only hypersonics, but Dr. Jette has been
gracious enough to stand up a PEO office that is working
getting that through S&T. And so, there is somebody there to
catch it. So, we are trying to cross that valley of death with
these S&T efforts to make sure we can get them into a program
of record.
Mr. Wittman. That is great. Thank you, General Murray.
Dr. Jette, I wanted to get you to maybe to elaborate on
this and looking at how the Army is going about modernization.
Can you comment a little bit more on how directed energy is
going to be integrated into that effort? So, it is not just
things like laser family of systems, but it is high-energy
microwaves where you can address swarms of these potential
adversarial platforms. Can you talk about that?
There is a lot of technology going on in the other service
branches as they are bringing this to bear. The other service
branches, too, have very specific elements in their program
decision making for rapid prototyping, rapid acquisition to
bring this technology using COTS, commercially off-the-shelf
available technology, trying to get that as quickly as we can
to the warfighter.
Can you speak a little bit about the Army's effort in that
realm?
Secretary Jette. Yes, sir. Just--so General Murray made the
point that we have established a Rapid Capability and Critical
Technology Office [RCCTO]. It is headed by my senior PEO. He is
a three-star general. His background is in space, missiles, air
defense, but he is very technically competent as well as
programmatically competent and it has been a real blessing to
get him on hand.
As we have set that organization up, I established some
specific efforts to frankly find all of the cats. Everybody is
out there working on something they call directed energy and I
am trying to figure out what that really means and what they
are really doing. And so, we have--we know where--we think we
know where most of the cats are, not all of them. We are also
beginning to herd them in.
We pass that off. RCCTO has just been stood up in
literally--I went down for the promotion ceremony for my three-
star a week and a half ago. So, he is taking that role on to
make it a formal program and clean that up. We do have ongoing
efforts to move from a 10-kilowatt on a Stryker to a 50-
kilowatt. The Navy, for example, has already a 100-kilowatt and
their nice 20-foot shipping container.
But what makes lasers difficult, it is not just being able
to put energy out the front end of it, it is keeping it cool so
it doesn't melt.
Mr. Wittman. Yes.
Secretary Jette. It is powering it. It is getting the
targeting data and all of those things. When you try to shrink
all that down and keep a continuous beam, it becomes very
difficult.
Mr. Wittman. Yes.
Secretary Jette. They have got a ship to stick it on the
front deck of and use all the other assets. We don't have that.
Mr. Wittman. Got you.
Secretary Jette. I will just--my last thing is I will say,
yes, sir, we are doing some work in the other--it is not just
lasers in directed energy and we are working in those areas as
well and they might be something better to talk about
separately.
Mr. Wittman. Very good. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Norcross. Ms. Sherrill.
Ms. Sherrill. Well, thank you, gentlemen, for being here
today. Thank you, Dr. Jette and General Murray, for visiting
Picatinny and seeing the wonderful work the men and women do
there. I know I heard some great things from the base about
your visit and I appreciate you taking the time to do that.
Dr. Jette, I believe that highly skilled acquisition
professionals are exactly what we need to ensure that we
modernize government-owned, contractor-operated ammunition
facilities correctly. But it does concern me that modernization
funding which was recently moved from the equipping line of
effort where the joint program executive office had visibility
and control to the sustaining line of effort creates a
situation in which modernization funding could be tapped into
for other priorities.
Additionally, it creates a situation in which funding is
not fully aligned with the responsibilities and authorities of
the lifecycle manager at Picatinny, and as a result, there is a
lack of accountability. Will acquisition professionals at
Picatinny who have the lifecycle responsibility for ammunition
from development to production, to maintaining, to disposal,
continue to receive the funding authority and responsibility to
continue to remain responsible and fully accountable and funded
for carrying out this important mission?
Secretary Jette. Thank you, ma'am, and thank you for the--
we had a great time at Picatinny and I appreciate the comments.
This is a great area of importance to me. One of my top--
when I was first coming into the job, I said I am going to do
top 10. What are my top 10? One of them is the development of
the right talent base and putting them in the right place. So
we have a significant program plan that develops the talent and
makes sure that we have the right people in the right place and
that they have proper training.
Congress has been very gracious to the acquisition
community in providing us methodologies by which we can send
people to school if necessary and all our constraints become
our problem with timelines in their career path. To that end,
the Secretary has stepped in and made a specific effort to find
ways to mitigate any of the timeline issues in a person's
career development. So, I can see a significant improvement
coming along.
With respect to the funding moving from the EE PEG
[Equipment Program Evaluation Group] to the SS PEG [Sustainment
Program Evaluation Group], there is a little bit of a cheat in
that because I am the co-chair of EE PEG and I am the co-chair
of the SS PEG. So, I am watching those funding lines
specifically. I recently went down to the ammo plants,
particularly I went to Holston and Radford. While the two
plants are very functional, they are clearly--we need to work
significantly on our tech base.
I recently have been working with my military deputy for
acquisition who works my uniform side and does most of my
program management oversight for me, and we tentatively, so I
am being a little wishy-washy on my commitment because I am
trying to finish the details of it. But I see this as being a
significant issue. These plants need more attention to a long-
term program that meets the operational needs as we see them in
the future, and the need to do that is not an incidental
capability that is kind of put on the PEO armaments and
ammunition.
But he retains control because he controls the ammo, but we
are looking at putting--creating a strategic PM specifically to
work on the GOCOs [government-owned, contractor-operated] and
make sure that those are properly planned and the proper
funding profiles get into the POM [program objective
memorandum] and that those programs actually modernize those
plants which are--as you--if you have been to them are not
terribly modern.
Ms. Sherrill. So my concern is simply that I think
Picatinny has a great relationship in the full life cycle of
the ammunition. And I think that has helped Picatinny in some
ways uniquely bring their research and development to the field
more quickly and more efficiently than what I have seen in many
areas of our military.
And so I guess with that as a model and as well as they are
doing at that, I am concerned about changes to what we might
see coming are the--I think there is a draft of transition to
sustainment. I am concerned about how that might affect the
great work that Picatinny is doing.
Secretary Jette. Yes. The transition to sustainment--so, in
the way that we deal with ammo, as soon as it is produced, it
fundamentally transitions to sustainment. We hand it over to
the command to store it and manage it until it gets to the
point of disposal. Then there is sort of a linkage between the
PEO for the ammunition and the AMC [Army Materiel Command]
entity that manages the storage and transportation of the ammo.
So it is treated very differently and it is not this
transition to sustainment where I have got a vehicle and we are
trying to determine whether or not to pass it off to AMC as a
completed vehicle with no further need for development. The--
Picatinny is essential. All the processes that we do with the
plants come from Picatinny. My concern is that I don't think
that the portion of the enterprise that does the actual
production has the foresight to be able to develop better
production plans for the capabilities Picatinny brings to the
table, and then that is the part I am trying to fix.
Ms. Sherrill. Well, I really appreciate you talking to me
today. I would love to talk more about this and get a better
understanding of how we can engage, because I do think that you
see how important Picatinny has been to the modernization of
our Army and I just want to make sure we don't lose any of
those critical capabilities, but thank you so much.
Mr. Norcross. We are going into round two if you want to
stick around. Because as we went through and had our first set
of questions, there was probably 2 months ago when there was a
question of trying to move some funds around that we had within
the Department of Defense for another item, the wall.
And military construction leaked out, who was going to do
it, and we got all the phone calls in the world. And I said
that is just a practice round for what we are doing today. And
to try to explain that, as far as I know there has never been
this level of change in the history in terms of review, plus-
up, plus-down, or eliminate. So when we are questioning
particularly it may get into some of the deep-rooted questions
of how the assessment is made, it is because I have 300
requests to change what you just handed us in this request.
I know you understand that, but we just brought the example
up on the industrial base. Once we dismantle--and it happens
all the time--that industrial base wherever it might be,
because we are anticipating that next generation coming on in 5
years. And then, in 5 years, it gets delayed, and we know how
that goes, 4 years. You do not reassemble that industrial base,
and that is much of our concern in addition to all the risk
assessments for the six priorities.
And times that all 300 programs because it is somebody's
district, is why we are digging in. We better understand it--I
get much better response when you dig deeper into these issues
and that is where I want to go now is the relationship that you
are standing up. Something as massive as this not having more
problems, it means good basic design.
So, Mr. Ludwigson, when we start looking at--and this is,
Mikie had a great question, you'd like to have one size fits
all so there is uniformity, but the uniqueness of each of the
programs that we have doesn't lend itself to that. When you are
looking at the relationship that is going on now from the
acquisition side to the general's piece, is it working?
We are early--is there anything you would recommend in
terms of tweaking, changing, getting feedback that you do each
and every day that we can look at now or potential for running
into an issue later on?
Mr. Ludwigson. So, obviously, when we did this work it was
early on and we had great access across senior levels of the
Army as well as at Futures Command in its nascent form looking
at--in fact, talking to the CFT pilots and understanding what
they were doing and understanding how they were transitioning
across to Futures Command. I do think that there are important
transitions that are happening as they are moving to programs.
That is part of the reason that we are emphasizing the idea
that using mature technologies is important to end this idea of
shifting from aspirational acquisitions toward more of an agile
approach makes some sense from our standpoint. We didn't look
at the specifics of the plus-ups or reductions or eliminations
funding-wise. What we are doing is going forward in response to
requests from this committee is we are going to look at ground
combat vehicle; we have a slate of a couple of different
programs that we are going to look at.
So we will look at ground combat vehicle as a portfolio,
not just the optionally manned vehicle, but the slate. And then
we will burrow in to look at some of these other programs as it
is appropriate and timely for the committee to look at, because
I think there are a couple of layers that the committee can pay
attention to. It is sort of the organizational element as well
as the sort of the program-specific side.
Mr. Norcross. I think there is good news in there. The main
priority that I am seeing and hearing from particularly with
those who are calling us up to say, Is this a system that has
been set up that is fundamentally fair to industry, and this is
my question to you, Generals, why is this time different. And
we talked about that because of the speed, the agility that you
bring to this, bringing industry with us is critical.
There are those who will say, Well, we will just wait this
one out and come in under a new one, which is the worst thing
we could do. What are we doing to bring industry with us,
particularly given the fact that you did such a massive change
and some people have hurt feelings for a variety of reasons?
General Murray. And I think one of the things that is
fundamentally different this time is--and Dr. Jette mentioned
this--is the dialogue that is going on and has been going on
with industry for a while. So, Dr. Jette mentioned the
Secretary's Monday evening dinners which he is pretty religious
about and normally the Chief or the Vice would be there.
And there was an attempt to without--we can't communicate
exactly what is in the budget before it is released, but there
was an attempt, I know, by the Secretary and the Chief to
communicate where we were going and why this was very, very
important that the Army is going to have to pivot sometime and
every day you wait is one day later before you make the pivot.
And what we were talking about, we have been very clear about
communicating what our priorities are to include specific
programs.
And really what we are asking industry to do, and I have
been in constant dialogue with industry, is meet us in the
future. So we tend to look at this in terms of near-term
losses, but there is tremendous opportunity as we begin to
invest in the future and that has been pretty much a consistent
message to industry, is come along with us.
Mr. Norcross. Dr. Jette, do you see essentially the same
way particularly when you start going at just one measurement,
the minimum sustained rate? Do you independent of industry
create the number first and then later on you go to industry,
get their feedback, and adjust? I might have confused those
two.
Secretary Jette. Yes, sir. Generally, what we do is we make
our assessment and come up with a number.
Mr. Norcross. Okay.
Secretary Jette. And then, we go to industry because we may
not know everything and of course, particularly when you are
talking about things like cost-plus contracts or cost-based
contracts, we have access to their pricing data and their labor
rates, their material buys, those types of things.
Mr. Norcross. Leaking that out for their stock prices alone
can create havoc.
Secretary Jette. Yes, sir. Well, we are very good. We make
sure that our people are very careful about not leaking out
anything on those things. But then they go back and they make
their own assessments to try and determine what the right
number should be.
We then have discussions. I have several calls a week with
CEOs of major corporations and just work through these types of
things. If I think that they are missing something, if they
think that I am missing something, I am always open to it and
try to come to an agreement. It doesn't always occur that we
agree, but at least we always know where our disagreement is.
Mr. Norcross. Ms. Hartzler.
Mrs. Hartzler. Thank you very much.
I wanted to ask a question for one of my colleagues, of our
subcommittee members, Representative Bacon who had to leave and
he wanted to know how are you incorporating the ISR into your
plans.
General Murray. Yes, ma'am. So, ISR--intel, surveillance,
reconnaissance--it is a critical requirement today and it is a
critical requirement for the future. It is only going to get
more difficult because right now, most of our ISR platforms
would not survive on a modern lethal battlefield.
So, one of the things that we have done here recently and
it's really over the last about a 6-month effort is start to
link from a systems engineering standpoint the requirements for
not only ISR but the networks, communications, et cetera, and
we are beginning to look here pretty--within the last couple of
months pretty hard at various ways of attaining the ISR that we
need from various altitudes on various platforms in various
ways, and then getting that data where it needs to get to.
And I am kind of talking around it. I think probably at
another session in a different setting would probably be
appropriate, we can lay out specifically what we are talking
about.
Mrs. Hartzler. Great. That would be appreciated because it
is very, very important.
And along that lines, Dr. Jette, what is the Army's plan to
modernize the on-the-move network capability in the combat
vehicles in your armored brigade combat teams?
Secretary Jette. So I know these may be words which
sometimes cause people stress, but we had WIN-T1 [Warfighter
Information Network-Tactical Increment 1] which was essentially
a capability to get wideband communications on, in a stationary
mode. And it was oriented primarily on the--primarily because
that is the way we were fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq; we
needed widebands and we were in fixed locations. The upgrade to
that, so WIN-T1 is done, fielded, over, we are not doing
anything. And then we moved to WIN-T2 which we have finished--I
think we are pretty much finished up with it this year the
fielding of all aspects of it, and that gives us an ability to
have the same type of wideband communications links while on
the move at the brigade level. But we are not stopping there.
So, again, I go back, when you find a good horse, ride it a
lot. So, I have four strategic areas that have been assigned to
my new senior PEO. One is the directed energy. One is
hypersonics. One is space. And one is AI--and then, the other
one is AI. In the space area, that includes communications
architecture. So, we are working extensively to look at
multiple options on how we can bring communications that are
becoming available in the space realm to the battlefield and
make it pervasively available.
And again, sometimes, when we get into the communication
things, I would rather talk about them in a closed forum than
an open forum.
Mrs. Hartzler. That sounds good. So, we have had some
discussions about the optionally manned fighting vehicle
already and I know we--you intend to bring that out with the
middle acquisition authority to replace the Bradley fighting
vehicle.
I guess my question hasn't been asked about is how many
vendors do you expect to compete for this contract and what
will the Army do if only one original equipment manufacturer
submits a proposal?
Secretary Jette. So I did require the PEO when they drew up
the document that it said up to and not one or two vendors. And
I did that particularly to leave the Army room in case we ended
up with just one reply to the solicitation, because I didn't
want us cornered into a position where we had to take a vendor
and that was the only vendor that made an offer.
So, if we get no vendors that give an offer, of course, we
will retry. If we get one, we can retry and what we will do is
we will look at the offer and make a determination as to
whether or not it is sufficient to go ahead with. We don't
expect that to be the case at this point. We know from the
questions that we have gotten back at the different industry
PEO sessions, we think we are probably going to have three or
four submissions.
Mrs. Hartzler. That would be interesting to see how that
comes out.
So I recently visited the Aviation Classification Repair
Activity Depot, AVCRAD, in Springfield, Missouri, and this
depot was very interesting. It was converting the UH-60A Alpha
models to the UH-60L Lima models. These are Black Hawk
helicopters and which is an upgrade over the old Alpha models
and will improve the Army National Guard capability.
However, as you know, the Lima models are still operating
on analog gauges and they lack digitized capability. So, I
understand that the Army's UH-60V Victor program will upgrade
the Lima models with an advanced digital cockpit among other
upgrades effectively making these helicopters comparable to the
UH-60M Mike model which is the most advanced Black Hawk
helicopter.
So, Dr. Jette, what is the status of the Army's UH-60V
program and is this program still a priority for the Army
across the Future Years Defense Program?
Secretary Jette. Thank you. Okay. I have 841 programs and
512 research projects. So I am not sure I am going to give you
the exact answer you want and I will be happy to come back with
a more detailed one. Perhaps General Murray can close.
Mrs. Hartzler. Sure.
Secretary Jette. But Victor is important. And particularly
just for your feeling comfortable with respect to the National
Guard, if you talk about aviation assets and the Vice Chief of
Staff of the Army is in the room, you better not do anything
that negates the capability of the National Guard with respect
to their aviation assets.
Mrs. Hartzler. So, I will just interject before General
Murray. I do have an Army Guard Black Hawk unit at Whiteman in
my district. It is my understanding that only the Victor models
and the Mike models can be deployed, and is that--it is not
correct?
General Murray. I am sorry. It was on before. I turned it
off.
So, you mentioned Alphas, Victors, Limas, Mikes, and you
did well keeping those straight. The Alpha model is the oldest
model aircraft that we have in terms of the Black Hawk; it will
be out of the National Guard I think in 2022 or 2023 and out of
the Active Component in 2025. So we will actually divest the
Alpha model; there is no Alpha to Victor conversion or Alpha to
Lima.
I am very familiar with the Lima, my son-in-law flies one.
The Lima to Victor conversion, we were looking at options on
that. The Secretary has said publicly and obviously since he
has set this mark on the wall, we are fully committed to
converting all the Limas to Victor in both the Active
Component, the Regular Army, the National Guard, and the U.S.
Army Reserve, and then continuing with the Mike model
procurement.
And so we would have a pure fleet of Mike and Victor at
some point in the future. And you are absolutely correct, it
turns an analog aircraft at least from the cockpit perspective
into a digital aircraft. And we would--right now probably
because the Victors and the Mikes are our newest model
aircrafts, that is probably why they are deploying. I don't
think there is a restriction on a Lima aircraft deploying
especially in terms like MEDEVAC [medical evacuation] aircraft.
General Pasquarette. I would just say just from the cost of
the aircraft, Mike models are just under $20 million a copy and
we can get a Victor which is essentially just about the same as
a Mike for about $12 million. So, from a budget perspective, it
is very helpful.
Mrs. Hartzler. When I came back from that visit I became a
fan of the Victor model. So I concur with that. And one last
question I have, General Murray and Dr. Jette, I am concerned
about the proliferation of advanced threats to Army rotorcraft
platforms.
How are you staying ahead of these threats and what actions
are you currently taking to ensure all rotorcraft programs have
the most advanced aircraft survivability equipment?
General Murray. I will start off from the requirements if I
could, ma'am. So absolutely in many cases the threat is
proliferating as you mentioned a lot faster than we had
anticipated, you know, 5, 10 years ago. And so there is
constant advances in terms of threats to rotorcraft.
From a today perspective, we are continuing to upgrade what
we have and prioritizing units that are deploying, so where it
is most needed is where it is going. There are several programs
that Dr. Jette and I talked about a couple of days ago that
would have to be done in a different session, different setting
as we start looking into threats in the future.
Secretary Jette. The one that most, I can discuss here most
is our CIRCM [Common Infrared Countermeasure] which is a----
Mrs. Hartzler. I am sorry, did you say what?
Secretary Jette. CIRCM.
Mrs. Hartzler. CIRCM.
Secretary Jette. The CIRCM system is an advanced threat
detection and defense system that the helicopters will have
deployed on them; exactly how it works I would rather reserve
for a separate discussion.
But we have a solid program. When I came in there were some
technical challenges, we put a team against it, solved them,
and now the system is fully online to go forward. As General
Murray has stated, the two of us have done a review of all our
special access programs in detail and their applicability, just
the same thing as we did with all the open programs. And there
are a number of things there that address some of the issues
here.
Mrs. Hartzler. Well, great. I am very encouraged by that
and appreciate all of your being here today and all of your
work, and I am done with my questions. I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Norcross. Let me try to wrap this up. We had a
conversation at Picatinny, EMP [electromagnetic pulse]
hardening, as the new systems develop, you spoke cyber and
reviewing it every step of the way. Do you see a need to create
a little bit more strict view of the EMP hardening of assets
new versus retro? Where do you see this going, particularly now
with Russia and China?
General Murray. So, once again, it all comes back to
requirements and then I will let Dr. Jette talk about it. So
there actually is in the joint process a requirement to look at
survivability of nuclear effects, EMP is what you are talking
about. I think that is what you are talking about.
Mr. Norcross. Yes. But also the physical end of the EMP
isn't the kinetic piece, just the parts that they----
General Murray. Oh, yes, sir.
Mr. Norcross. And there are some other things as you know
that----
General Murray. No. I understand exactly what you are
talking about. And sometimes though--and we have this debate
often during our requirements process, for like let's say a
rifle. Does a rifle really need to be EMP hardened?
Maybe, maybe not. So we have those types of debates. But
when you are talking about architectures that depend heavily
upon electronics, yes, it is part of the--before it ever
becomes a formal requirement, and we have those discussions
about how much it requires and how to spec.
Mr. Norcross. And----
General Murray. Yes, sir.
Mr. Norcross [continuing]. I want to thank you. There are a
couple of things I want to follow up on. It was actually a lot
easier than I expected. You guys are still cranking this up, as
long as we have these risks to our country, we will be happy to
continue on like this.
With that, unless there is anything, we are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:29 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
May 1, 2019
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PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
May 1, 2019
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[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING
THE HEARING
May 1, 2019
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RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. LANGEVIN
General Murray. The Army will meet the Congressional reporting
timeline for FY16 NDAA Section 1647. The service is on track to have
all reports complete and provided to the Secretary of Defense by 31
December 2019 in accordance with FY16 NDAA Section 1647 guidance.
[See page 21.]
General Murray. The Army follows the Cyber Survivability
Endorsement Implementation Guide developed by the Joint Staff J6. The
Guide describes ten cyber security attributes (CSAs) that must be
considered during a system's development phase, and provides criteria
to identify Cyber Survivability Risk Category (CSRC). Requirements to
mitigate this risk are ``Baked in'' to our requirements documents. The
Army established metrics to quantify and qualify resiliency for both
individual systems and the network as a whole. Specific metrics for new
systems are developed based upon the specific capability being
delivered. For example, metrics to assess resiliency of the integrated
tactical network will include:
--Ability of the network to maintain connectivity during an
electronic warfare attack. This includes: the percent of the network
that remains connected during an electronic warfare attack, the number
of disconnected fragments the network may break into, any critical
nodes disconnected from the main network fragment, and, for how long;
and to what degree can mitigation techniques improve performance.
--Ability of the network to maintain information services/message
dissemination services to host applications during the presence of a
threat. This includes maintaining adequate message completion rates and
message delivery times, both for individual messages and for mission
threads. The Army tailors metrics to assess cyber resiliency of a
system, across the Prevent, Mitigate, Recover (PMR) analysis process.
Prevent: controls system access, reduces the system
cyber detectability, secures transmissions and communications, protects
the system information from exploitation, partitions and ensures
critical function performance levels, and hardens attack surfaces.
Mitigate: baselines and monitors system to detect
anomalies and manage system performance if degraded by cyber events.
Recovery: measures the system's ability to recover from
cyber-attack.
[See page 21.]
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
May 1, 2019
=======================================================================
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. NORCROSS
Mr. Norcross. The GAO reports that the Army has come to rely on the
use of Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funding to pay for
upgrades to its weapon systems and platforms. However, such funds are
not typically included in the 5-year spending plans that accompany the
congressional budget submission, making it difficult to project the
total funding requirements for efforts that span fiscal years. GAO
recommended that the Army report to Congress plans, if any, to continue
this practice.
How much of the Army's OCO submission for fiscal year 2020 is being
used to support modernization goals?
What are the Army's cost projections in its 5-year spending plans
for modernization efforts being funded through OCO?
What systems are particularly dependent on OCO appropriations in
fiscal year 2020?
Secretary Jette and General Murray. None. The Army uses Overseas
Contingency Operations (OCO) funding to meet immediate or near term
theater requirements and base dollars for its six Modernization
Priorities for future multi-domain operations battlefields in Fiscal
Year 2028 (FY28) and beyond. In FY20, the Army requested $3.7 billion
in OCO to fill Joint Urgent Operational Needs Statements (JUONS) and
Operational Needs Statements; replace munitions expended in combat;
build-up Army Prepositioned Stocks (APS) in Europe; and other theater
based requirements through the European Deterrence Initiative (EDI).
The Army does not develop externally releasable five-year estimates on
OCO. In FY20, the systems particularly dependent on OCO appropriations
include: Multiple Launch Rocket System Modifications (EDI APS 2)--$348
million (M); Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS)Rockets
(combat replenishment)--$281.6M; Hellfire missiles (combat
replenishment)--$236.3M; Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicles (EDI APS 2)--
$221.65M; Mobile Short Range Air Defense System (EDI)--$158.3M; GMLRS
Rockets (EDI)--$150M; Army Tactical Missile System Block IA (EDI)--
$130.7M, and the Common Missile Warning System(JUONS)--$207.6M.
Mr. Norcross. GAO's work has shown that demonstrating that
technologies work as intended in an operational environment, or
Technology Readiness Level 7, as opposed to a laboratory environment or
a strictly controlled test site, is a best practice. Some DOD
leadership has stated that maturing technologies to this level may be
required to overcome the ``valley of death'' that prevents good ideas
from becoming reality in the hands of the warfighter.
Will Army Futures Command pursue a goal of TRL 7 for its
technologies or settle for a lesser level of maturity? If not then,
please explain why.
General Murray. AFC agrees with GAO and will do everything in its
power to get capabilities in the hands of Soldiers as quickly as we
can. Technologies differ, so it is difficult to give a one size fits
all answer. We are committed to working with the Army Acquisition
Executive (AAE) to bridge the ``valley of death'' between the science &
technology and acquisition communities. Of note, we believe more
effective use of prototypes will significantly assist us in this
effort. We will examine both the Technology Readiness and the
manufacturing levels of relevant efforts. Each will be assessed
individually to determine how to deliver optimal solutions into the
hands of our Warfighters as quickly as possible.
Mr. Norcross. The Army has emphasized the necessity to invest
sufficient funding into its modernization priorities. In your written
statement you mention that the Army has protected key legacy systems.
How did the Army determine which programs to protect?
What was the analysis that supported the selection of these
systems?
Who were the Army leaders and program representatives involved in
those discussions and decisions?
General Pasquarette. During what has become known as ``Night
Court'' the Secretary and Chief of Staff of the Army personally
evaluated over 500 programs to identify those programs that: 1) did not
directly contribute to increased lethality in a high intensity conflict
with Russia or China; 2) were designed primarily for counter-insurgency
operations; or 3) had quantities above and beyond what is needed to
support our most stressing war plans. Those programs were delayed,
reduced, or divested to fund the six Army Modernization Priorities.
Through this process, the Army leadership also determined which legacy
systems were most relevant in a near-peer fight and required continued
funding.
The analysis supporting the selection of legacy systems began about
five years ago. We had a ``wake-up call'' when Russia intervened in
Crimea, and North Korea escalated threats of retaliation against the
U.S. for holding military exercises on the Korean Peninsula. We took a
hard look at our requirements and capabilities. The Army studied how it
must fight and win in complex, contested environments against near-peer
threats. Our analytical communities conducted rigorous threat
assessments which identified significant capability gaps, both today
and in the future. These modelling and simulation exercises also
ascertained which legacy systems would be needed, in one form or
fashion, for years to come. In 2018, the National Defense Strategy
(NDS) shifted the Army's focus to Great Power competition and directed
us to re-focus on high-intensity conflict to deter or defeat Russia or
China. Against the back-drop of the NDS and informed by analyses, the
Army leadership prioritized filling our greatest capability gaps for
the future fight in the form of the six Army Modernization Priorities.
We also determined which key legacy systems we must upgrade and sustain
to win now and in the future.
The Secretary and Chief of Staff were supported by a group of the
Army's most senior leaders, who brought careers' worth of expertise to
the ``Night Court'' deliberations. This included the Under Secretary of
the Army; the Vice Chief of Staff; the Commanding Generals of Forces
Command, Army Materiel Command and Training and Doctrine Command; the
Assistant Secretary of the Army (ASA) for Acquisition, Logistics and
Technology and his Military Deputy; the Deputy Chiefs of Staff for G-8,
G-2 and G-3/5/7; and the Military Deputy to the ASA (Financial
Management and Comptroller). Other subject matter experts provided
additional information to assist in assessing impacts of and finalizing
these decisions, as needed.
Mr. Norcross. Since the retirement of the OH-58 Kiowa scout
helicopter, the Army has used a manned-unmanned teaming combination of
the Apache and the Shadow UAV to perform the scout reconnaissance
mission. Please assess the effectiveness of the Apache-UAV teaming in
this scout role.
Has manned-unmanned teaming been demonstrated in an operational
environment? Is this a sustainable long-term solution for this mission?
General Pasquarette. Yes, Apache-Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)
teaming has been demonstrated in an operational environment in support
of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan where enemy threats to aviation
have been relatively limited and not on the scale of threats we will
face from a great-power competitor. As a result, Apache-UAV teaming is
not the long-term solution for this mission. While it has enjoyed
success in Counter-insurgency operations, it does not provide
sufficient capability in a Multi-Domain environment against a near-peer
threat. To address this capability in the future, the Army is
developing the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA). FARA is
the number one priority in our Future Vertical Lift program, and it is
central to the lethality of the Army Aviation ecosystem and its ability
to be effective on the future multi-domain battlefield. The FARA will
address threats across domains to ensure the ability to compete,
penetrate, dis-integrate and exploit in the adversary's anti-access
area-denial environments. The Army is also developing Air Launched
Effects (ALE), which is a crucial piece of the advanced team concept to
synergistically enhance survivability, threat identification, targeting
and lethality for FARA, Advanced Unmanned Aircraft Systems and ground
force commanders. The program aims to develop a family of small
Unmanned Aircraft Systems that would team with other manned and
unmanned platforms to penetrate denied airspace and attack integrated
air defense systems. ALE payload and mission flexibility will provide
Army aviation forces windows of opportunity to enable ground and air
freedom of maneuver.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MRS. HARTZLER
Mrs. Hartzler. Recent successful APS demonstration on the Stryker
platform (TROPHY system) presents a new opportunity for the Army to
begin full testing and fielding of an APS on that vehicle. The Army has
contracted four brigades for Abrams, and recent APS tests on Stryker
were successful. However, no funding was requested in the FY20 budget
or in the FYDP for expedited non-developmental APS efforts. What is the
funding profile the Army could use in FY20, that Congress could
authorize in FY20, in order to complete testing and procurement on
Stryker to meet directed requirements?
General Pasquarette. In March 2019, the Army concluded vendor
demonstrations of two Active Protective Systems (APS) at Redstone
Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. The goal of these demonstrations was to
determine whether to proceed with a non-developmental (NDI) hard kill
APS for the Stryker platform. Based on the results of the
demonstrations it was determined that there are no NDI APS solutions
immediately suitable and rapid deployment of an NDI APS solution would
not be feasible for Stryker. Therefore, there is no requirement for
funding in Fiscal Year 2020 (FY20) for additional testing. Both of the
systems have shown some promise. They will continue to be tested in a
platform agnostic set of procedures to determine suitability for other
future platforms such as the Armored Multipurpose Vehicle and the Next
Generation Combat Vehicle-Optionally Manned Fighting vehicle. Funding
for this effort was included in the FY20 President's Budget Request.
Mrs. Hartzler. The Army has robust funding for Abrams SEPv3
procurement in the FYDP, but without APS included on that variant. What
is the Army's plan to insert APS into Abrams SEPv3 in time to support
its fielding schedule?
General Pasquarette. The Army will field its first set of Trophy
later this year to our pre-positioned stock of Abrams SEPv2 in Europe
as well as units designated by the Army to be equipped in Fiscal Year
2020 (FY20). Efforts are underway now to enable Abrams SEPv3 to
integrate the Trophy system beginning in FY22. Abrams SEPv3 will
require additional modifications to software and hardware to facilitate
that integration. Abrams SEPv3s currently in production are having many
of the hardware modifications made to them at the factory to facilitate
their ability to accept APS systems as future operational requirements
dictate. The initial four sets of Trophy for Abrams SEPv2 were a non-
developmental solution that filled an immediate survivability gap while
the Army determined the best approach to provide protection to its
vehicles and crews across the entire fleet.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. COOK
Mr. Cook. After reviewing the Army budget request, I have concerns
about the steep cuts in funding for systems required for current
readiness like tactical wheeled vehicles. While I know that successful
modernization will require difficult choices, I am concerned that the
FY20 budget request assumes too much risk by embracing a lopsided bet
on future systems at the expense of platforms needed today and for the
foreseeable future. As we've seen before with failed modernization
programs like Crusader, Comanche, and Future Combat Systems, fielding
new systems is difficult. I believe a proper balance must be achieved
or we risk decimating our current platforms before we've proven a
modernization strategy will work.
When considering the modernization priorities and establishing
Cross Functional Teams, what efforts were made to ensure existing
systems' capabilities were considered for new and innovative uses in a
near-peer threat environment? For example, I have heard tactical
wheeled vehicles described as bill payers from an era of counter-
insurgency operations, but I'd like to know if the Army did any
analysis regarding their use in the current National Defense Strategy?
Second, do you believe every modernization priority is adequately
de-risked to assume such deep cuts in current platforms? I'm concerned
we're cutting too deep, too quickly, and before we know if each
modernization platform will become a reality.
Secretary Jette. The Army did consider existing systems'
capabilities and their potential for use in a near-peer threat
environment. The Secretary and Chief of Staff of the Army personally
evaluated over 500 programs to determine whether the systems could be
utilized in support the National Defense Strategy. Those that would not
directly contribute to lethality or were assessed as unable to
effectively operate in a Multi-Domain environment against near-peer
threats were considered as potential funding sources for Modernization
Priorities.
The Army also recognizes we cannot walk away from modernizing the
current force. We are continuing to invest in key systems that are
required to maintain the Army's advantage, and to deter or defeat
current and near term threats. We will continue to modernize our
Armored Brigade Combat Teams by incrementally upgrading systems such as
Stryker, Abrams, Blackhawk, and Communications Security and by
procuring systems such as the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) and
the Armored Multi-purpose Vehicle. Soldiers will be operating these
systems--and many others we have in the Army today well into the
future.
In regard to Tactical Wheeled Vehicles (TWVs) specifically, the
Army will continue to require Light, Medium and Heavy TWVs in support
of the National Defense Strategy and Multi-Domain Operations. TWVs are
essential to move Soldiers, equipment and supplies throughout the
battlefield. We did make modest reductions to TWV funding due to their
relatively low fleet ages. In the future, we will continue to review
Army requirements to ensure we have those vehicles that we need because
we cannot afford to have more trucks than necessary. However, in Fiscal
Year 2020 alone, the Army requested $1 billion for JLTV procurement. We
have also started a recapitalization program to modernize the aging
High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle fleet and are developing the
Family of Medium Tactical Wheeled Vehicles A2 model to improve
survivability and maneuverability.
Mr. Cook. After reviewing the Army budget request, I have concerns
about the steep cuts in funding for systems required for current
readiness like tactical wheeled vehicles. While I know that successful
modernization will require difficult choices, I am concerned that the
FY20 budget request assumes too much risk by embracing a lopsided bet
on future systems at the expense of platforms needed today and for the
foreseeable future. As we've seen before with failed modernization
programs like Crusader, Comanche, and Future Combat Systems, fielding
new systems is difficult. I believe a proper balance must be achieved
or we risk decimating our current platforms before we've proven a
modernization strategy will work.
When considering the modernization priorities and establishing
Cross Functional Teams, what efforts were made to ensure existing
systems' capabilities were considered for new and innovative uses in a
near-peer threat environment? For example, I have heard tactical
wheeled vehicles described as bill payers from an era of counter-
insurgency operations, but I'd like to know if the Army did any
analysis regarding their use in the current National Defense Strategy?
Second, do you believe every modernization priority is adequately
de-risked to assume such deep cuts in current platforms? I'm concerned
we're cutting too deep, too quickly, and before we know if each
modernization platform will become a reality.
General Murray. The Army did consider existing systems'
capabilities and their potential for use in a near-peer threat
environment. The Secretary and Chief of Staff of the Army personally
evaluated over 500 programs to determine whether the systems could be
utilized in support the National Defense Strategy. Those that would not
directly contribute to lethality or were assessed as unable to
effectively operate in a Multi-Domain environment against near-peer
threats were considered as potential funding sources for Modernization
Priorities.
The Army also recognizes we cannot walk away from modernizing the
current force. We are continuing to invest in key systems that are
required to maintain the Army's advantage, and to deter or defeat
current and near term threats. We will continue to modernize our
Armored Brigade Combat Teams by incrementally upgrading systems such as
Stryker, Abrams, Blackhawk, and Communications Security and by
procuring systems such as the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) and
the Armored Multi-purpose Vehicle. Soldiers will be operating these
systems--and many others we have in the Army today well into the
future.
In regard to Tactical Wheeled Vehicles (TWVs) specifically, the
Army will continue to require Light, Medium and Heavy TWVs in support
of the National Defense Strategy and Multi-Domain Operations. TWVs are
essential to move Soldiers, equipment and supplies throughout the
battlefield. We did make modest reductions to TWV funding due to their
relatively low fleet ages. In the future, we will continue to review
Army requirements to ensure we have those vehicles that we need because
we cannot afford to have more trucks than necessary. However, in Fiscal
Year 2020 alone, the Army requested $1 billion for JLTV procurement. We
have also started a recapitalization program to modernize the aging
High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle fleet and are developing the
Family of Medium Tactical Wheeled Vehicles A2 model to improve
survivability and maneuverability.
The 31 CFT efforts are essential to modernizing the Army to fight
and win on future battlefields. As an Army, we are doing all we can to
reduce risk to these efforts. As part of our analysis we conducted
multiple Senior Leader led sessions to assess both the value of, and
the risks of not having, various capabilities. We assess this approach
provided the best method to identify reasonable divestitures to fund
the Army's modernization priorities. Additionally, we are leveraging
new and expanded acquisition authorities to include the Other
Transaction Authority and Middle Tier Acquisition (MTA) (Section 804).
Both enable us to streamline our contracting methodology and preserve
competition while driving down risk through competitive prototyping
vice a single source solution. We also conduct Army Senior Leader
updates to provide the status of each CFT effort and Soldier
touchpoints. These regular updates enable us to assess if we must alter
our plan, that we do so early in the process, rather than discover
problems late in the game which can be costly to fix.
Mr. Cook. General Murray, you mentioned the weight of Trophy being
an issue. We have heard that Army recently tested Trophy's lighter
version, Trophy VPS on a Stryker. Can you provide information back on
the testing of that system and whether it can provide a mature, ready
to field, APS solution within the Army's weight requirements for Abrams
and/or other systems, including the Stryker.
General Murray. The Army remains committed to providing increased
protection for our vehicles and their crews. To that end, the Army is
pursuing Non-Developmental Item-Active Protection Systems (NDI-APS) for
a limited portion of our ground combat fleet as we work towards an
integrated Program of Record solution for all of our combat vehicles.
The Army did conduct a limited demonstration of Trophy's lighter
version, called the Trophy Medium Variant, to assess this potential NDI
APS solution for Stryker. The system demonstrated the ability to
intercept the threats tested, however, the Army determined due to
vehicle concerns it is not suitable for Stryker. The Army intends to
further evaluate the Trophy Medium Variant to better understand the
system's functionality with respect to application on other platforms.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. GALLEGO
Mr. Gallego. The Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP) recently
saw a contract award. Were engine power, engine power growth, fuel
consumption, reliability, and maintenance key elements for this ITEP
decision? Were these elements prioritized?
Secretary Jette. Reliability and engine growth are Key System
Attributes (KSAs) for ITEP. Engine power, specific fuel consumption,
and maintenance were derived from the capability based Key Performance
Parameters (KPPs) and KSAs identified in ITEP's Capability Development
Document (CDD). The KPPs and KSAs were not prioritized in the CDD
supporting ITEP. These technical requirements were included in the
System Requirements Document (SRD) which was attached to the ITEP
Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) Request for Proposal
(RFP) and thoroughly evaluated by the Army.
Mr. Gallego. The Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP) recently
saw a contract award. Were engine power, engine power growth, fuel
consumption, reliability, and maintenance key elements for this ITEP
decision? Were these elements prioritized?
Mr. Ludwigson. GAO is unable to answer this question as we have not
reviewed the extent to which the Army considered or prioritized the
elements of engine power, engine power growth, fuel consumption,
reliability, and maintenance as part of its Improved Turbine Engine
Program (ITEP) award decision. In a recent GAO bid protest decision,
Advanced Turbine Engine Company, B-417324; B-417324.2 (May 30, 2019),
we concluded that the Army's evaluation of proposals was reasonable,
consistent with the terms of the agency's solicitation, and in
compliance with procurement law and regulation. However, GAO did not
review whether the aforementioned elements were key in the award
decision. Instead, GAO reviewed whether the Army evaluated the factors
set forth in the solicitation prior to the submission of proposals, and
provided to the companies as the criteria the Army would use for its
review. GAO's decision is available on the GAO website.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. TURNER
Mr. Turner. The GAO report from September 2018 [title: Actions
Needed to Measure Progress and to Fully Identify Near-Term Costs; Tab 7
of binder] stated that the Army has come to rely on the use of Overseas
Contingency Operations (OCO) funding to pay for upgrades to its weapon
systems and platforms. However, such funds are not typically included
in the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) that accompany the
congressional budget submission, making it difficult to project the
total funding requirements for efforts that span fiscal years. GAO
recommended that the Army report to Congress plans, if any, to continue
this practice.
How much of the Army's OCO submission for fiscal year 2020 is being
used to support modernization goals?
What are the Army's cost projections in its 5-year spending plans
for modernization efforts being funded through OCO?
What systems are particularly dependent on OCO appropriations in
fiscal year 2020?
Secretary Jette. None. The Army uses Overseas Contingency
Operations (OCO) funding to meet immediate or near term theater
requirements and base dollars for its six Modernization Priorities for
future multi-domain operations battlefields in Fiscal Year 2028 (FY28)
and beyond. In FY20, the Army requested $3.7 billion in OCO to fill
Joint Urgent Operational Needs Statements (JUONS) and Operational Needs
Statements; replace munitions expended in combat; build-up Army
Prepositioned Stocks (APS) in Europe; and other theater based
requirements through the European Deterrence Initiative (EDI). The Army
does not develop externally releasable five-year estimates on OCO. In
FY20, the systems particularly dependent on OCO appropriations include:
Multiple Launch Rocket System Modifications (EDI APS 2)--$348 million
(M); Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) Rockets (combat
replenishment)--$281.6M; Hellfire missiles (combat replenishment)--
$236.3M; Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicles (EDI APS 2)--$221.65M; Mobile
Short Range Air Defense System (EDI)--$158.3M; GMLRS Rockets (EDI)--
$150M; Army Tactical Missile System Block IA (EDI)--$130.7M, and the
Common Missile Warning System (JUONS)--$207.6M.
Mr. Turner. I understand one of the Network Cross Functional Team's
(CFT) focus areas is ensuring joint interoperability. As we move
through the development process, what specific steps are you taking to
maintain connectivity with other branches of service in order to
conduct Multi-Domain Operations in 2028 and beyond?
General Murray. The Army is supporting Joint efforts to strengthen
the networking of our forces to improve readiness in the near term
while meeting the challenges of Multi-Domain Operations in the future.
The emerging Mission Partner Environment (MPE) will connect Joint and
Multinational partners for large-scale combat operations. The MPE is an
example of these efforts and is being pursued in both Joint Warfighting
Assessments (JWA) 2019 and 2020. Each JWA has been connected to Joint
and Service exercises. In addition, the Network CFT will test and
advance our capabilities to work with our Joint and Multinational
partners in challenging and realistic scenarios in Europe and the
Pacific. These exercises will be the largest test of our deployment
capabilities since the end of the Cold War and will help shape our
Joint and Multinational interoperability efforts across a range of
warfighting functions.
Mr. Turner. The Army recently awarded a contract for the Improved
Turbine Engine Program (ITEP) and is deeply involved in the Future
Vertical Lift (FVL) CAPSET 1 and 3. Will these overlapping efforts
impede the timeline of any of the programs or can you assure the
committee that all three programs are on track?
General Murray. Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP), Future
Vertical Lift (FVL) CAPSET 1 and 3 are currently on track. We have been
able to leverage new and expanded acquisition authorities, such as
Other Transaction Authority and Middle Tier Acquisition (MTA) Section
804. These authorities will better enable us to field two aircraft
nearly simultaneously by streamlining the contracting methodology and
preserving competition while driving down risk through a competitive
prototype ``fly-off'' vice a single source solution. We are committed
to staying on schedule with disciplined requirements development based
on known, proven technologies learned from the Joint Multi-Role
Technology Demonstrator program.
Mr. Turner. As AFC's 31 lines of effort across 6 priorities are
developed and fielded, how are they being divided among all three
components of the Army? Will it be a phased approach with Active Duty
receiving the bulk of the programs first and then to the Guard and
Reserve?
General Murray. Analysis of equipping the Army's three components
is ongoing. While we can reasonably assume there will be changes in
both equipping and organizing the force, there is a great deal of
analysis needed. Given the complexity of assessing multiple
combinations of technologies, operational employment options, and
organizational impacts--an endless number of combinations exists. We
have started that analysis, and it continues.
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