|
DoD Study May Pit C-17s, Fast Ships Vs. Fighters
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Defense News
June 21, 2004
Pg. 1
DoD Study May Pit C-17s, Fast Ships Vs. Fighters
By Jason Sherman
The Pentagon has launched a sweeping review of mobility needs that could shift billions of procurement dollars from fighter aircraft and other high-cost programs to pay for more C-17 Globemaster III airlifters, fast cargo ships and even development projects for futuristic airlift and sealift platforms.
Begun in May and slated for completion by March, the Mobility Capability Study will predict the military’s transportation needs in 2012, taking into account the many changes in Pentagon policy, operations and overseas U.S. military posture since the latest mobility-requirements study was completed in January 2001.
“There’s a lot of money riding on this study,” said one retired four-star officer familiar with the review.
Previous mobility studies in 1992, 1995, and 1998 prompted a $6 billion sealift ship program and a $9.7 billion deal to buy 60 C-17s. But this year’s study is even more ambitious — its timing is meant to affect next spring’s 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review and the Pentagon’s 2008-2013 spending plan.
“We’re trying to do twice as much in half the time,” said a Pentagon veteran who has participated in each of the previous mobility studies.
The study group is being led by Air Force Brig. Gen. Henry “Hank” Taylor, vice director of the Joint Staff logistics directorate, and Kathleen Conley, director of the projection forces division in the Pentagon’s office of Program Analysis and Evaluation. Other participants include representatives from the U.S. Transportation Command, all combatant commands, the services, and the offices of the under secretaries of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, as well as policy.
The new study was prompted by the evolution of the national military strategy, the establishment of U.S. Northern Command and the Department of Homeland Security, and a raft of other changes. The Pentagon launched the preceding study in 1998, when its goal was to fight and win two nearly simultaneous major theater wars.
“We’re looking at a different national military strategy than we have before,” said Margaret Leclair, deputy director for strategy and plans at Transportation Command, Scott Air Force Base, Ill.
Now the Defense Department aims to defend the homeland, deter aggression in four world regions, swiftly defeat adversaries in two other conflicts and conduct limited other small operations. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has set speed goals to give adversaries as little time as possible to prepare for a fight. These goals — to deploy to a distant theater in 10 days, defeat an enemy within 30 days, and be ready for a new fight within another 30 days — are not requirements, but will be used as a benchmark in the new study. The study also will look at proposed changes to the U.S. military’s presence around the world, as detailed in the ongoing and classified Global Posture Review.
‘Full Spectrum’ of Needs
The study began in earnest in May, according to a defense official involved in the effort. The 2004 Strategic Planning Guidance called for the study to “identify and quantify mobility capabilities required to meet the end-to-end, full-spectrum mobility needs for all aspects of the national military strategy,” according to Joint Staff briefing charts.
“Very little work other than that is concrete at this point,” said an official involved in the study.
Mobility studies use complex computer models to choreograph intricate movements around the world of personnel, combat gear and supplies. Previous ones have examined how people and gear get from one port or airport to another, but this study will look at moving personnel and equipment from home base all the way to the front line.
The study also will try to anticipate what will be needed in 2024.
“The intent is to try to identify some more futuristic platforms that the Department of Defense might want to invest in and bring online outside of the program window,” said Army Col. Phillip Gick, director of programs and analysis in Transportation Command’s plans and policy office.
The 2024 work will build on an Advanced Mobility Concepts Study started in 2003 at the request of the Office of the Secretary of Defense and completed in December by the Army with wide participation from other services, the Joint Staff and combatant commanders.
It urged the Defense Department to consider new, speedy and flexible ways to support early-entry operations, including shallow-draft, high-speed vessels, global-range transports and super-short takeoff and landing aircraft.
Transforming Transport
The new mobility study will take note of the services’ efforts to transform.
“All the services are reviewing new ways to do business — new force structures, and in some cases new platforms, that will be employed either now or in the future,” Gick said. “Those things have an impact on mobility.”
Gen. Peter Schoomaker, Army chief of staff, is working to restructure his service into more modular components — from a current 33 brigades into 43 to 38 more flexible brigade “units of action.”In its 2006-11 spending plan, the Army puts research and development money toward a high-speed Theater Support Vessel to quickly move troops and equipment within a theater. The service is also very keen to develop a high-speed, shallow-draft ship to improve its mobility across oceans.
The Navy’s year-old Fleet Response Plan allows the service to surge most of its strike groups and air wings. Navy and Marine Corps leaders want to create a sea base that would allow U.S. ground forces to strike inland directly from the sea.
This 20-year sea basing vision would need several of the proposed Maritime Prepositioning Force (Future)(Aviation) ships, intended to haul Marine Corps combat gear in holds beneath a large flight deck for strike aircraft and rotorcraft.
In 2006, naval officials plan to fund a prototype ship that would allow the Navy to fold part of its logistics operation closer to its combat fleet.
In addition, Navy officials say the sea services may look in this new mobility study at replacing some of the fast sealift and other ships that haul Army combat gear.
But the Air Force may see the biggest change in its spending plans.
“The Air Force wants more C-17s, they want new aerial refueling tankers and they also like the F-22 fighter and there’s a finite amount of money,” said the retired four-star officer.
In fact, the Air Force needs nearly 25 percent more C-17s, according to Air Force Gen. John Handy, Transportation Command chief.
“Requirements in our business have gone up dramatically,” Handy told a House Armed Services subcommittee in March. The last study’s assessment, especially of airplanes, “will pale in comparison to what the reality of the world is that we live in today.”
Handy said the Air Force needs at least 222 C-17s. The service has 120, with 60 more on order. Making up the gap would cost at least $7.4 billion, according to an industry source who tracks C-17 costs.
The study is also looking at aerial refueling tankers. Their ability to carry cargo, which was ignored in previous studies, may reduce the requirement for transport aircraft, according to officials involved in the study.
“In effect, what the Air Force is saying now is, ‘You buy me this tanker and it will also carry cargo and also an electronics package,’ “ said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Arlington, Va.-based Lexington Institute. “They’re taking a more integrated approach to how they buy their aircraft of the future, compared to in the past, when everybody stayed in their lanes in terms of mission.”
Congress has directed the General Accounting Office to keep an eye on the tanker analysis as controversy swirls around a proposed lease of Boeing 767 tankers. Rumsfeld has requested results of the tanker analysis in November, in time to inform the 2006 spending request.
The price tag for beefing up the military transportation fleet promises to be high.
“We expect difficult acquisition decisions,” Michael Wynne, acting undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, wrote in a Feb. 20 memo directing the Defense Science Board to convene a task force on mobility. “The department needs to understand how the strengths and weakness of current military transport relate to the general structure of future mobility.
|
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
