critics call the meeting to order we just finished up a series of votes so i'm sure there may be other members trickling in but want to be respectful of our witnesses time and take advantage of it as much as we can and we are fortunate in the sense that we have a now linky debate on the house floor so we will not have the votes for quite awhile and should be able to get a hearing and without the normal interruptions so pleased about that and we will go ahead and get started subcommittee needs today to receive testimony on the army's acquisition and modernization budget request for fiscal year two thousand and eleven and we welcome our witnesses for today we have lieutenant general robert r when excuse the deputy chief of staff g eight we have lieutenant general william phillips the military deputy to the assistant business card or sign a big so much as wink the lots of words on it that would be our first panel we will have a second panel as well dr j michael gilmore who is the director operational testing evaluation for the office of the secretary of defense and mr michael sullivan from the general accounting ability office director of acquisition sources so will have two panels of witnesses today in addition to these witnesses the subcommittee specifically requested that the army bring subject matter experts on all the major programs in the budget so members should not hesitate to ask a detailed questions and i will leave it to your gentleman's judgment as to who is best to answer those all we ask is if we do have people come up they be sure and speak clearly into the microphone and identify themselves before they answer questions the army's fiscal year two thousand and eleven base budget includes ten point three billion dollars in research development test and evaluation and twenty one point three billion in procurement the army is requesting an additional one hundred fifty one million for r and d and eight point nine billion in procurement and the overseas contention overseas contingency operations formally known as the supplemental so we have a new name for it but it's the same issue and we will hopefully have that up sometime soon as well overall this totally quest for forty two point nine billion dollars appears to be a solid request that will provide the army with most of what it needs for today's wars and investments in future capabilities and i think that's the major challenge of this committee we have many obligations and obviously national security is of utmost importance at all times but particularly important when we have our troops at war in two separate places in iraq and afghanistan at the same time even with those critical needs we live in a world of finite resources finite resources that seem to be getting more finite all the time so i respect the difficult job that you have you gentlemen have to balance those needs make sure we're providing for the warfighter and at the same time doing it  way that we can afford it's a big challenge and that's what this committee is going to be very focused on with regard to specific programs this hearing will highlight several new initiatives in changes to ongoing programs first the subcommittee expects to hear an update on the army's new ground combat vehicle program this program began and in the wake of determination in the future combat systems manned vehicle seeks to field a new infantry carrier by twenty seventeen and as we go forward with this the committee's main concern  that frankly we get a better result than we get out of future combat systems and we understand the challenges it is our view that a big big part of the challenge was that we set a very very aggressive set of specific specifics capabilities that we were looking for out of these programs that were perhaps a little bit unrealistic in terms of what they were going to be able to achieve at the same time we then set it on a very aggressive schedule which put us in a position of having to authorize the chairman of pieces of equipment that had not yet tested out it was a bad combination and we hope we've all learned from that experience as we go forward with the ground combat vehicle as well as our other programs to make sure that we're realistic about the capabilities that we can accomplish and then set a timeline that makes sense because we want to make sure that we're not preparing stuff that has not yet been proven to work to do that i think we need to be very diligent on those issues as we go forward the ground combat vehicle will be essential central piece of that system program which is now done erland early infantry brigade combat team again a lot of the pieces of that were very ambitious and we did not quite measure up and as we're going forward with the terminations and what to buy out of those remaining pieces we want to make sure that it has tested out we have some very concerning test results recently on a number of the programs within the tea and we want to make sure that those are fixed before we go forward and buy more  have a concern that the future combat system program even though it's been officially terminated it's basic contract with the lead systems integrators boeing and s a i c lives on so we have sort of main contractors for a program that has now been changed as a result of this thoughts on that with regard to the striper vehicle program i'm aware that the army is considering a new double hall upgrade for some strikers in order to improve their protection against i look forward to hearing an update on the status of that plan today we obviously consider this to be a very important issue since it is force protection focused at the same time we want to make sure that we can do it in a way that doesn't take away the advantages that the striker gives us we have a number the stryker brigade actually out of my district out of fort lewis i've had the opportunity to talk to a number of soldiers from within those they love the stryker they love the stryker mainly because of how mobile it is it gives them the at least a little bit of the ability to control their own destiny in a firefighter and counter an i e d so we want to make sure we strike that balance at the same time if we can make it safe or do it responsible way and get this program done we'd love be able to get that done so we want to hear from you about how we can go about doing that another issue facing the army this year is the future of the m for him for car being the army has fielded hundreds of thousands of these weapons in recent years and is now looking at both an upgrade program and a potentially new weapon development effort as well and basically what we're going to be looking at on that is balancing the reports and there were a lot of troubling reports about the performance of the m four with a lot of the tasks that are frankly shown it to be performing quite well and if it is performing quite well and if in fact this is just anecdotal stories about problems with the gun not a systemic problem th the most cost effective way to deal with it we also want to hear more about how you plan to balance the looking a new gun at the same time looking at ways to update the one that you have how are you planning on balancing that out to meet the needs and do so  in a cost effective way finally today's hearing also covers areas that don't get that much attention in the media but which represent very large annual investments by the army communications equipment and trucks this is a critical year for the joint tactical radio system which recently transition to the army for program management the success or failure of elements of this program will have long lasting implications for army communications and network equipment in the area of trucks the army continues to spend billions a year on a wide range of vehicles of not year is the shift of production for army medium trucks from be a to oshkosh we're also interested we understand both be a cost with different vehicles we have a fair number of vehicles that have been completed but have not yet been distributed and we're curious about the reason for that delay and how big a problem you think that delay is and what what we're doing to deal with it if in fact it is a problem in addition the army's future plans for home b production appear to have changed significantly with funding for new u s army humvees being her and eleven budget submission and would be curious to hear more about your thinking behind that decision in the future that that how it impacts the future of our tactical vehicles with that i will turn it over to my to the ranking member on bartlett for his opening statement and i will also ask unanimous consent to submit i have additional comments on my statement that i did not read to submit those for the record mr bartlett thank you mr chairman first i'd like to take opportunity to welcome my friend from washington to the air and land forces subcommittee and congratulate him on his selection as chairman of the subcommittee has a long record of working together in order to properly equip our army and air force i'm looking forward to working with you  our witnesses for both panels thank you for being here we're very fortunate to have you serving our country and to have you here today i'd also like to congratulate general phillips on his recent promotion have just a couple of issues i'd like to quickly highlight verses in regards to electromagnetic pulse e m p essentially all of our new weapon systems have been built with a waiver for e m p hardening i won't get into the details here although i believe it is an extremely porton issue i briefly discussed this last week so i know the army plans on following up with me in the near future to discuss my concerns in addition i continue to be can start about the continued decline in research and development funding from one hundred eighty through today our investment basic defense research as a percentage of g d p has declined by fifty percent as a farmer i will tell you that this is no different or less dangerous than a farmer eating their seed corn it's politically easy to cut research because we can't see the innovation however as a scientist and engineer i can guarantee you that unless we reverse a decline in basic applied and advanced research funding we will cripple america's ability to maintain a technological world leadership in future decades this not only impacts potential future capabilities for war fighters but also has an end does your base impact with our technical workforce aging where in danger of losing our intellectual capital we need to develop the next generation of engineers and scientists that will ensure the world's greatest innovators reside here in this country so i hope to learn more from the army in regards to how they are doing in this area thank you for being here and i look forward to your testimony thank you mr chairman thank you very much mr marlin thank you for the welcome to the committee it's a privilege to be on the chair of this committee have served on it for many years and pre shared mr bartlett's leadership and very much appreciate what former chairman mr abercrombie mr murtha did i in working in a bipartisan way there are certainly disagreements on this committee the great thing about it is frequently the not partisan and they are always handled in a very professional way and i hope i can live up to the standard that mr abercrombie and mr bartlett have set in that regard and with that we'll turn it over to our witnesses for the testimony my understanding is the general linux is going to go first general you may proceed well good afternoon chairman smith ranking member bartlett distinguished members of the subcommittee on air and land forces we thank you for this opportunity discuss the army acquisition in monitors ation programs and specifically those that involve the fiscal year two thousand and eleven budget request we're pleased to represent the army leadership members of the army acquisition workforce and the more than one million courageous men and women in uniform deployed to combat over the last eight years and of relied on us to provide them with world class weapons systems and equipment for mission success as chairman smith mentioned my name is bob lennox on the deputy chief of staff of the army the g eight and my prioritization analysis in the army two three five seven i will start the comments are about by talking about army modernization and what's different this year from last in our primary three lines of effort that we're going to be following first is our plan our first line of effort is buying new buying new equipment to fill capability gaps secretary defenses talk recently about winning today's wars and then having the capability to hedge against an uncertain future and that's the aim of our procurement and i think you'll see it our main focus in our modernization program is a brigade combat team modernization strategy if you'll permit me i'll come back and talk about that a little bit later but we've also invested in a number of capabilities designed to win today's wars so for example the extended range multipurpose we've been lasted an f y eleven about five hundred million dollars in that eye asar capability designed to help win today's fight in fact there's a quick reaction capability in afghanistan performing today we're buying aviation capabilities we're forming a twelfth combat aviation brigade and in f y eleven we begin the purchase of the thirteenth combat aviation brigade will be about six point six billion dollars invested in the thirteen combat aviation brigade and we're buying to equip our reserve component in fact the army national guard from september two thousand and eight to september two thousand and ten will experience eleven percent increase in their equipment on hand and a twelve percent increase in our modernization rates so that's the first line of effort buying new capabilities to fill the capability gaps that we need for for today in the future the second one is sustaining existing systems through the insertion of upgraded capabilities recapitalization and then in fact divesting capabilities that we no longer need trying to keep our forces relevant and capable for the future for example we're talking about the always fifty eight delta kyle warrior having to sustain the kiowa warrior through twenty twenty five and we're investing in upgrades not only to the safety of the airframe but enhancing the cockpit and sensors as well this includes very efforts to lighten the soldier's load and i was fortunate up to talk to the committee about thirteen months ago about force protection i understand there's a committee hearing on this next week we're comfortable talking about those issues today improvements on things like the improved our tactical vest fielding plate carriers are about six pounds lighter than the io t to help our soldiers lighten the load and what they carry and then divesting our oldest equipment d u h one born in india at nine the last one went out of the inventory in december of two thousand and nine and the last m thirty five and a half truck that you've heard about over all these many years will be out of the inventory by the end of f y eleven that's our second priority area continue to sustain and upgrade the fleet that we've got and divesting capabilities are no longer useful the third area is fielding according to our new priorities and in october two thousand and nine we published the army equipping strategy and in there we talked about going away from a tiered readiness approach to one that feels soldiers with the equipment they need to be successful in combat so every soldier go into combat regardless of compo regardless of being the active force a national guard or reserve component is fielded with the very finest equipment that we can field and this includes priority national guard units doing homeland security missions disaster relief and support to civil authorities and you'll find that the in the national guard for example our investment from two thousand and one to the end of our program in two thousand and fifteen will mount to on average about three point four billion dollars a year to enhance their readiness for those missions our brigade combat team modernization strategy and spend a few moments on what we think is our our hallmark effort and this is the main change or monitor zation strategy from last year this year when we had a future combat system focus dismounted soldiers is one of the critical aspects of our incremental modernization strategy neary of networks giving them the capability to to receive digital information to know where they are where the enemy is and empower them on the ground to make the most knowledgeable decisions in an era where the individual soldier is so much more important than even ever before the second aspect of that is to being able to accomplish battle command on the move today we fielded the winter permit one program war fighter information network increment one and that is about fielded and that starts to provide broadband capability down to our lowest units increment to which field starting in f y twelve starts to deliver a capability ba our formations the third tenet is accelerating and fielding the capability packages these are the f c s spin outs that we think are technologically ready that include things like small robots unmanned initial round of testing they were found to be oversized in some cases overweight in other cases and in some cases the mean time between failure did not measure up to the standards we want there are two more testing opportunities there's one this august and there's one next summer we think we're on a path to demonstrate those capabilities that they that we can accomplish those capabilities but i want to share this committee that if the capabilities do not measure up we will not go forward with those capabilities and we will not put them in the hands of our soldiers and i think you'll find if you look at the history of some the capability spinouts that we've made those kinds of decisions on systems that have not measured up in the past and finally last part of our brigade combat team honors ation strategy is a ground combat vehicle we think this is critically important it's designed to provide for a versatile range of capabilities that include force protection off road mobility urban operational mobility and contain the size w power to carry carry the network and expanded capabilities that we need today and into the future in closing in support of army modernization the army submitted a research to develop an acquisition budget request of about thirty two billion dollars for f y eleven we believe that this budget appropriately allocates resources between bridging advanced technologies for our soldiers currently in the fight and developing new technologies bring the required capabilities to soldiers in the future as such we meet meet our leadership's intent  preparing our soldiers for success today and transforming to meet the demands of twenty first century mr chairman mr bartlett members of the committee on behalf of the soldiers and their families we greatly appreciate the tremendous support we receive from this congress and the american people in order to successfully implement the plans we share with you today we urge your continued support providing all the america's sons and daughters who serve in our army with the most capable equipment for the battles they're fighting today and are likely to face in the future are the members of this subcommittee i too am grateful for this opportunity to discuss the fiscal year two thousand and eleven president's budget and army acquisition of modernization programs with this budget request we are investing in the future force capabilities  capabilities of our soldiers in a current fight i am pleased to appear before you today with gentle antics and dr markowitz we're very grateful to the members of this subcommittee what you have done to provide our army and our soldiers the equipment that we have today that are in combat if i could just reflect upon my most recent assignment which was eleven months lower eleven months in iraq and afghanistan serving beside our soldiers they were amazing on the field of battle and they were amazing for a number of reasons number one the american people have entrusted us with their son and daughters are most precious recess r s s asset secondly this committee and the congress and the american people have provided us the resources which which we can build in develop programs and put them in the hands of our soldiers for those two things that particular i have watched them operate on the field of battle and i've been so impressed with how they operate they truly are amazing so thank you and the american people for entrusting us with those resources to be able to be successful and we constantly strive in support of the american people to be good stewards of those resources sir today is a great day for the army and a great day for the army acquisition corps this morning at ten thirty hours the undersecretary the army swore in dr malcolm o'neill formally lieutenant general malcolm o'neil as the army acquisition executive and the assistant secretary the army for acquisition logistics and technology he takes over from mr dean pops who has served army civil before so well over the last eight years so sir it was an honor to welcome dr o'neill to our team mr chairman the army has a comprehensive modernization plan as articulated by general lennox with lessons learned from more than eight years of persistent conflict focus on future challenges and promising technology advancements we are pursuing a capabilities based incremental modernization strategy number one develop and incorporate new capabilities and technology modernize and capitalize existing equipment and reset and invest those that are no longer necessary for our formations and over three we will field and distribute capabilities in accordance with the army's resource priorities and also the army's fourth generation i understand mr chairman that there are several programs of interest to modernisation plan is clued modernizing the network over time rapidly developing and fielding a new ground combat vehicle and incrementally feeling capability package that best meet the needs of soldiers and units as they train and then get ready increment one of the early brigade early after a big a combat team systems including the network integration kit class one unmanned aerial system the small unmanned ground vehicles an urban and tactical unattentive ground sensors have been approved by the defense acquisition executive for low rate and initial production the army released a request for a proposal for the technology development phase of the ground combat vehicle in late february it will be out it will be our first combat vehicle designed from the ground up to operate in an i e d environment with regard to the existing vehicles upgrades the army's combat platform on ization program is focused on standardizing the thirty one heavy brigade combat teams sets with two variants of our dominate combat platforms that's the m one a one and a two a abrams and the m two bradley fighting vehicles the stryker program or c full rate production  on eight of ten variants this versatile and lethal vehicle can be deployed in trouble spots worldwide and all spectrum of operations the paladin integrated management program or paladin pym is the army fire support modernization effort for the paladin howitzer to enhance the delivery of accurate and timely fires where and when needed it is an important cornerstone of our modernization strategy modernization of our tactical wheeled vehicles is providing our soldiers with the best possible protection payload and performance at the heart of our plans is a joint like will be able with the marines to replace the hobby starting in about twenty fifteen we will continue to procure and field a family of medium medium tactical vehicles to replace vehicles in the medium fleet that are over thirty years old recapitalization of our family of heavy tactical vehicle fleet will focus on variants of the aging heavy expanded mobile tactical truck are known as the hammett as well as incorporate much of them wrap into our force future for says they are released from current operations on another matter of great importance the army is committed to continuing to prove our small arms capabilities are fielding a new semiautomatic sniper rifle the m one ten a new forty millimeter grenade launcher and developing a light fifty millimeter machine gun we are also taken to do approach regarding the m four to improve the current weapons system ship the m eight hundred five a one cartridge designed for the m sixteen m four family of weapons and the m two forty nine squad automatic weapons meet made both of these goals as a green program while providing consistent shot to shot performance against all targets it will be available for fielding and june information is key to success on the battlefield and our new radios will provide enhanced communication capabilities to our forces the joint tactical radio system will provide a mobile tactical radio communications network the ground mobile radio will provide multichannel operations with an integrated global positioning system capability and a handheld manned pack and small form fit program which will provide among several capabilities a small form fit radio for various ground sensors on attended vehicles and and aerial vehicles our aviation platforms continue to meet tremendous challenges of today's combat environment continue modernization of our helicopter fleet blackhawks chinooks apaches is absolutely vital to operations in afghanistan and iraq and having flown in iraq and afghanistan and practically every aircraft that the army is flying with today have performed magnificently to date about three point seven million combat hours across both iraq and afghanistan as general linux stated we remain committed to the requirement for a manned armed aerial scout helicopter a continues to meet all cost schedule and performance targets and has been filled with the national guard across thirteen states to conduct disaster relief counter drug operations and institutional training missions as well as testing and training centers for the army army unmanned aircraft systems are a vital capability for our deployed forces intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities are significantly enhanced by platforms such as the raven shadow cost and persistent threat detection s as well as the enhanced medium range reconnaissance and surveillance systems which evolved from the aerial common sense or program of a few years ago additionally the extended range multi purpose  system is also on the verge of providing us or tremendous capability in the field of battle on another important issue mr chairman we appreciate the support by the members of this subcommittee and members of congress as we work to rebuild the acquisition and contracting workforce to handle the increased workload in managing our acquisition programs as well as a number of contracted actions and contracted dollars which in the last fifteen years has increased by about five hundred percent  along with a subsequent reduction in the number of people along with the additional work force personnel we thank you for authorizing five additional general officers for four acquisition we have promoted three colonels to general officer as of this date and most recently served as the commanding general of joint contracting command iraq in afghanistan and currently in iraq and afghanistan today we have brigadier general camille nichols another army general sir with your help and the help of the office of the secretary defense we are working aggressively to reverse the years of decline in authorized strength levels and restore the skill level of our acquisition of contracting workforce to deal with the growing complexities of our business environment at the same time the weapon systems acquisition reform act of two thousand and nine is helping us to ensure that our programs are healthy and that all problems are genocide and program adjustments made to them to keep them healthy by building more disciplined oversight and transparency into the process w better able to provide services deliver mature technologies and rapidly for cure the equipment that our war fighters require and deserve mr chairman and distinguished members of the subcommittee of their land forces your deep and abiding commitment to our men and full uniform is widely recognized throughout our ranks we thank you for your continued support of the outstanding men and women of the united states army and their families mr chairman i look forward to your questions thank you very much  chairman smith ranking member bartlett distinguished members of the subcommittee thank you for the opportunity to appear before you to discuss the army's modernization program and requirements processes my name is margaret and i'm the director of capabilities integration within the army g three the directorate is responsible for the review validation and approval of material requirements additionally we recommend overall program priorities as attorney general thurman as you question your letter i'll briefly highlight important aspects the requirements process for both current operational needs and long term programs let me start first with operational need statements or on his on to support the chief of staff of the army vision to build a versatile mix of tillable and network organizations and on his request from the commander in the field the headquarters department the army by their existing equipment or new capabilities to meet unexpected mission demands in two thousand and nine the department the army received was processing approximately two thousand five hundred on his request from commanders in the field asking for more than six thousand separate types of equipment the vast majority of these requests were for existing army equip existing army items joint urgent operational need statements or jumanji or similar to on his except their request goes to a joint channels they approved by the joint staff and assigned to a service agency by the office sector a defense there are far fewer joins is but there are almost entirely for new capability development the department the army is currently working on roughly ten jaunts is to ensure the army is providing the right capability the right time we have regular weekly meetings with theater that review validate and source theater needs over the past two years we've created a proposition process to ensure that our limited resources are used in the most urgent demands the process is timely by collapsing the requirements resourcing acquisition activities a condensed synchronized effort based on a lessons learned the army's updated army regulations said to one dash nine this past december to codified these changes the army is also taking steps to assess the material that we rapidly feel to support the war the army set up the incorporate into a program of record sustain only for the war effort or terminate to date the army's reviewed four hundred fifty two new material capabilities with ten percent recommended for transition to an acquisition program twenty five percent determination and the remainder to sustain for the war valuation agency on analysis alternatives guidance and implementation we are also working with the acquisition community to ensure the requirements for major defense acquisition programs are reassessed annually to see if certain capabilities are causing large cost growth additionally under the questions thanks very much gentlemen we will in the questions try to keep to the five minute rule even for me and the ranking members i want to give all members a chance will go through multiple rounds of questioning if necessary to make sure we get all members questions but do want to keep it moving as quickly as possible and so gentleman as you're answering your question if you see the five minute light is up if you try to i mean don't just stop in mid sentence or anything but if you could try to wrap it up as quickly as possible that would be appreciated i'm going to start asking about the program and the question we have and i know the statement that you're not going to field anything that isn't ready to go and yet we don't at the moment have the tests that show that most of this is ready to go first question is why not just delay it for a year why is there budget requests for pure math on the stuff in there that kind of puts us back into the betting on the come problem that we had with future combat systems why did you make that decision in this specific instance sir great question what we have learned from the f c s program through all its years of development what we wanted to do in coordination with at the direction of o s d actually to be able to field a capability as soon as possible so we develop the capability packages but we know that within those packages itself each item may not be as mature at this as the other items and in general it exciting is opening comment we are not going to field anything that is not suitable effective on the field of battle so gers cutting through that i think you're saying some of it's ready some of it's not you're going to buy what's ready but is that actually the case or i mean what are the pieces of it that have tested with the o t d o t n a and geo we know that we have challenges that we face like for instance weight on some of these small unmanned ground sensors some of them are about almost twice the weight that they should be we know we have reliability challenges with some of those systems but what those tests have allowed us to do is understand what those challenges are and for us we have to design our developed fixes and to those systems we know ninety four percent of the fixes associated with the limited user test last september and right now we are in the process and flamini of those fixes so when we go through the next fix and then the next session would be a test and august of another limited user test we will hope to have ninety four percent of those issues fixed but just so you know the committee is going to keep a careful eye and it's obviously we're very early in the process be a while before we pass a final bill but ou and our inclusion of these items is going to depend on our confidence as well as yours about what's going to be fielded and what's what's not going to be fielded but the other question about sort of these components the new components is some of them are very expensive much more expensive than what they're replacing and you know we have to sort of measure the capabilities versus the cost are we really getting that much more capability in the one example it's been brought to my attention is the unmanned aerial system for the well cost three hundred sixty thousand dollars each from the army's current similar system the raven cost seventeen thousand dollars basic question first of all  accept those numbers as being roughly at accurate and if so basically what you're saying is this new thing is going to be twenty one times better than the old thing to use a technical term is that really the case so i would answer part of this and then the legend on lennox i take it from from there but you have to look at the maturity of the program as well when you when you compare one to the other and the capability that it provides ravan is a very mature system i think we fielded well over eight hundred of those in theat already flying today and the class when you avi is still in development as a part of the tea so when your early in development some of those systems are going to be expensive but as you go forward into more toward full rate production the cost of those systems are going to certainly be reduced and then it's a measure you hit it right on the head the capability that it provides worse versus the cost of that top alex that you have to about what's the increased capability here with this u a b versus the old one so the current class when  avi weighs about seventeen pounds it provides you a hover stare capability it it is not a fixed wing like the raven so you can hover over a certain location and you can just get stared and capability with  it's relatively relatively easy to fly with soldiers it's been tested in test environment at fort benning at yuma and many instances soldiers like this system it provides them great sar capability great situational awar ss of what's happening on the battlefield to fly over a building and to hover and give that stare down capability great situational awareness or but there are issues with that system one is the noise it's a noisy system thank you my first question is a follow up to my opening statement for either general philips or general lennox could you comment on the army's research and relevant funding in the near term and sceptically could you give us an idea of how the army is leveraging capabilities from its science and technology budget i would also like to ask you to provide the committee with an assessment of how the army might use additional funds for research and development if they were made available sir thanks for a question the the army has kept over the last several years research development test and evaluation funding about our detainee funding about the same level so it's been consistent over the last couple years we think the amount that we're asking for an f y eleven is research command did there and in adding capabilities to help stop and stand the loss of blood very quickly there's been a number of systems and capabilities that we've taken to the battlefield that come out of our s n t program a lot of work on future armor capability so it's very important to us and we think we have about the right amounts or so i would just add a couple of things one is always the has been working with us very closely and they've designated the army in a couple areas to be able to focus on key things one is focal plane or a for i r high definition we have the best sensors on the battlefield today with this as an investment of about ninety three million which brings up to about one hundred sixty or so million this year and this kind of technology it will ensure that we have the edge for our soldiers that are using the next generation of i r sensors the other one that i would share with you sir would be a force protection our investment out of that one point nine billion that general lennox just mentioned the majority of that will go into force protection systems that always be as designated the army as the deployment force protection task force lead and we're going to invest about one hundred seventy dollars and that effort alone i have a second question for dr markowitz or general lennox during our air force posture hearing had an opportunity discuss a joint cargo aircraft program with general schwartz i still have some concerns about the ability to make the original validated  joint cargo aircraft requirement which i believe was for seventy eight planes and series of hearings no one has said that that requirement has gone away as you know they put general roles and missions review released last year clearly stated the option that provided most value to the joint forces was to assign the say twenty seven shades of the air force and the army jim i know the army uses this plane the air force has  plane we now are going to have only thirty eight planes there is a clearly validated use for that plane in this country by the guard for national security issues and my question is how are we going to meet the armies that originally validated needs of seventy eight planes plus the stateside need with only thirty eight  planes right the actual j rock approved number joint requirements oversight council approved numbers for seventy five joint cargo air aircraft there was a commitment for seventy eight the army had said they would buy fifty four and i believe the air force would buy the remainder and currently when that program transferred to the air force i think it currently stands at about thirty eight aircraft so i think you have all the facts correct we believe we new army believe we have a requirement for the direct support role of fixed wing aircraft we've had a recent pilot in iraq that's demonstrated that this has proved tremendously successful there are two c one thirty said the air force is dedicated indicate that the crime is in fact anything less than the original seventy five seventy eight planes correct not that i'm aware of search thank you very much mr chairman i may continue to say they need to seventy eight planes the program has been transferred to the air force who didn't want the program they now have only thirty eight planes and clearly the needs of the army cannot be met with this and this provides us with a continuing challenge thank you very  committed to nine brigade sets of that you wave in the average two hundred sixty thousand dollars costs for all nine that's pretty far out down to the right before we start to see that coming back down so i would be interested in member and welcome you to your new capacity with our committees our chairman looking forward to working with you in germany welcome to our committee and i have two or three questions and i really haven't figured out who's best to answer him so  when i ask the question whoever wants to jump in i would appreciate it we had a full committee hearing this morning we had commanders for a european command africa command in the joint forces command  of the three commanders cited as one of their big concerns is cybersecurity just wondering what are we doing in technology and procurement and development to leave these concerns i think we're looking at each other because we're we don't have very good answer for you sir but let me let me start the army is committed to the department defenses stand up of cyber command and we recently signed up for army cyber command so we will be standing up a three star headquarters dedicated to this effort i think i'll have to take for the record unless someone else has a better answer on the specific cyber kind of procurement things that we're doing to support that effort i would appreciate that very  much it was mentioned in and one of the opening remarks about the national guard i'm from north carolina and our general general agreement who's head of our north carolina guard was with me today expressing some concerns as we bring into these army aviation brigade is that where is the equipment going to come from to supply these additional demands he had heard rumors along the lines that it was easy taking the equipment from  in equipment going to the guard so what can a tail general in groom to so he won't have to worry about this first sir generally ingram has done a remarkable job with a north carolina guard near deployments and soldiers have done a fantastic job in com my compliments to to you and to your state's national guard team there are we're standing up to combat aviation brigade the twelfth combat aviation brigade is a collection of currently existing active component units that we're putting together and feeling to deliver a capability to alleviate the heavy demand in combat aviation requirements that's happening right away out of current assets the thirteen combat aviation brigade has been fully funded over the program to be fielded in f y seventeen the secretary of defense has asked us to come back to see if there's a way to expedite fielding that capability either through early procurement or through a combination of pooling assets from both the active and reserve component forces that can get that capability for the nation to deploy faster it's our commitment to every guard unit that will modernize their equipment and in the end if there is a secretary of defense approved borrowing action under twelve twenty five point six we will note that and they will be reimbursed with plan and program to aircraft so i can tell general ingram that it's going to be ok i believe so sir last question we have more of a classified nature of a vehicle that the army is looking for and an idea that would help our equipment engines last longer what about tell these people how should they proceed in getting these ideas listen to and for you to become aware of them so that you can be aware of these good ideas so i'll take it that's a great question and what i would ask is that  they engage with us on the acquisition in the acquisition community at various times for various systems we will send out requests for information and will run industry conferences and we have program executive offices that exist  throughout our army that manage programs well today we manage over seven hundred programs one of those is p e o soldier that you mentioned about body armor we are always looking for industry to talk to industry and have them interface with us and to provide us their feedback for g c v we help to industry conferences ground combat vehicle to industry conferences where we got about as i think about forty or so maybe more than that white papers back from industry we welcome industries and put into our processes sir and if you have someone in particular that you would like for us to talk to we would certainly be glad to chat with them we will follow up and thank you mr chairman  the issue that i have basically is a title ten limits companies are allowed to bed on critical small arms components for specified arms small arms of plutonium for you know this there's there's three companies right now that are allowed to b based on title ten one of those companies makes them adduced the other two can compete for small arms out of those two that are allowed to actually compete for small arms one of those is a foreign company a belgian company so there's only one american company that can compete with itself i guess being the one american company if you want an american manufacturer for either the upgrade to the upper receiver of the m four which we're thinking about doing if needed or for a brand new replacement for last year the national defense authorization act again required a report on the small arms industrial base while also giving the secretary of defense the authority to expand modify or change the company's in a small arms production and industrial base i understand that in december the army denied entry to one or more well known domestic small arms companies including the largest gun maker in the entire nation the largest gun maker in america was excluded as a small arms option for the for based on the changes made in the f y ten n d a to expand or modify the companies in a small arms production industrial base can you explain why the army is not embracing competition that's my first question to do more to follow here have you w secretary gates to modify or change the company's in the small arms production industrial base and lastly are you confident that by limiting competition if your answer is no to those first two are you confident that by limiting competition to these three companies based on a decade old study that our soldiers and marines are pretty much everybody in every service is we're all going to use the same thing pretty much are you confident that that they're getting the best bang for their buck in that the american taxpayers are getting the best bang for their buck to  congressman thank you for your question and thank you for your service a couple of points the m four is an extraordinary weapon today we have continued to improve it over four hundred thousand have been sealed and today it performs extraordinarily well prone position on the triple expert rifle pistol i like it too what i'm saying is if we have to upgrade if we have congress or or d o d or you deem that it's necessary then what that's those we are where my my questions go here sir got it and our dual purpose dual strategy really is to number one upgrade the m four as we know it today and we believe that we through a full and open competition process we've we will be able to upgrade the m four which will add to the already sixty two improvements that we've made over time to that weapon system the other piece of the dual strategy is to go out with full and open competition for what might be the follow on to to an m four  and the capability to vellum a document is being drafted now we think the the ammunition and our i'm sorry the small arms industrial base is very robust and that there will be addicts adequate competition there and we know that in the previous  national fans authorization acts that on the thirty fourth of march of this year that the secretary defense will have the authority to actually weigh some of those requirements so we can go forward with full and open competition have you urged him to waive those requirements to allow more than one competitor into the open competition sir we have not at this point this study that you mentioned earlier and one of your comments is being prepared now within the army the reason it took a little bit of time is because we had to go out to about fourteen different organizations that have a stake in the weapons systems that we're preparing it was an easy task just internal to the army we had to go out to get that information and we should have that back to a westie near term probably within the next thirty days s r thank you sir and you know basically what we're looking at here is if you only have one competitor it's a great company by the way it's a great rifle that we have now but it's not competition if you only have one company competing for i don't think we ought to we ought to allow a foreign company also to be making the the next car being if we choose to make it or to upgrade the one we have now i think it ought to be an american company and i think we will do everything in our power to work secretary gates in your power as well to let all all of these great american  small small arms manufacturers into this fight but thank you thank you mr chairman thank you mr marshall saying mr chairman i'm going to just make a few brief remarks and then i'm going to fixated on contractor base services and doesn't really have the interest or capability to do depo work on something like this air force can do that and i suppose air force could have the platform as long as it's providing armor with the services that army needs and in the way that army needs those services provided and the challenge that we had in vietnam and certainly history suggests it's not going to work real well that what we get now is what happened in vietnam and that's where lift is concerned at least the air force has a strategic view and where this kind of lift is concerned army has a very tactical view and those that clash did not serve us well with what it was at the grizzly i can't remember the platform in vietnam caribou served karega and and ultimately we concluded that army had to have a platform to what mr bartlett previously said about their requirements i would simply add that the latest study i'm aware of is analysis of different mixes of the lift given different kinds of challenges and if we believe that we are going to have these kind of long term simmering conflicts in the future idea concluded that we didn't just need seventy eight we needed ninety eight of these things to be most cost effective across the board so i hope army is thinking about more thirty eight in the future here even if air force happens to have the platform you know temporarily or permanently because it seems to me army's view is more than thirty eight based on all army thank you gentlemen very much for yielding i'd first like to identify myself with the concerns of mr hunter you can't have a full and open competition to do the excluded many of the potential players i have no idea  because we don't have enough of the joint cargo aircraft we're now using helicopters and commercial rented least aircraft to meet these needs is that correct so there's crack there's record uses of the c h forty seven in in afghanistan it's a it's a climate in a in an area that lends itself to helicopters but but there are record uses of the c h forty seven s putting quite a burden on the fleet and there is a contract aircraft being used to tune about eighty eight million dollars a month i believe but i will i will follow up specifics on the on the amounts i think it's up to the combatant commander to some extent so i don't want to necessarily say that this is the right solution  not the right solution the combatant commander gets a chance to say a request what kind of aircraft support they need based on what they see in their theater but when he runs out of joint cargo aircraft then he has to use something right now there's c one thirty s being used i don't think we've yet deployed our first joint cargo aircraft to afghanistan i think that won't happen until until next year and we're using a combination today of c one thirty s and small numbers and and the airstrip constraints that i do know that there is infrastructure constraints there in terms of how much room there is on the ground and i do think that affects how many c one thirty s you can bring in to into theater that's my understanding that in afghanistan the ground i'd like to ask some of your views in terms of modern modernization first one would be the helmet understand that our current kill our helmet does not protect against seven six two and  i'd like to not talk about the specifics of what the helmet can and cannot do and we are looking at a more capable version of the helmet in concert with the marine corps the initial effort i understand has run into some challenges in terms of meeting those requirements so it's been delayed a little bit but the army is after providing at the same weight so we we had way to the soldier load a more capable helmet where we're at right now in terms of reducing the is lower in weight than the earlier version the outer tactical vest by i think about three pounds the plate carriers that are designed specifically for soldiers to wear in high altitudes in eastern afghanistan for example dismounted soldiers will be climbing hills that's about six pounds lighter and we fielded those now and in substantial numbers in addition we've done things like improve the boots improve the best and improve some of the machine gun weights so we're trying everything we can to take some of that weight off the soldiers so the only thing i would add to that is that we're trying to give the commander options as well so depending on what kind of environment they ran obviously are in combat you want the maximum number of protection but if they're back on a forward operating bas well in terms of that we take casualties through snipers and providers of casualties i think in afghanistan through snipers and through i d s roadside bombs can you tell me in terms of modernization where we're talking about various i s i our platforms are is there anything on the rise and to provide that a force protection for folks on the ground for us soldiers and marines on the ground afghanistan which is very effective in iraq is now fielded in afghanistan a number of different diets are platforms are being fielded human terrain teams are out there trying to make a difference and around clearance vehicles have been taken from iraq where the instances are lower and move to afghanistan so there's a full court press in a number of different ways it's not solve the problem but i think we've made dramatic improvements would add to that that we feel that systems like the persistent threat detection system there six of those in afghanistan i have watched them personally operate in iraq inside the headquarters and that gives for a forward operating base a tremendous capability to protect against threats that exist within a few kilometers of the father's self you mentioned sniper as a part of our investment in s and t we're going after trying to see if we can defeat the sniper by special task force on counter i d activities but we're close with them and with theater there's a large list of new and improved abilities that working all the ranging from more persistent forms of stair to different types of explosive comment and that is that i think we've learned one thing and we cannot help armor cells out of this out of you know in terms of protecting our our soldiers and marines on the ground and so i think a really we obviously need to focus on iris our capability  your efforts in modernization and i appreciate so much the service of congressman coffman he served and so as he discusses the issues he's telling you from his experience in the combat theater  piece so much on the other hand i just went through training and that is at the national training center it was an extraordinary experience ten years ago and i tell you this is a complement all of the equipment i have is in a museum these to you as quickly as possible and in particular i've been very intreat initiatives brought to my office concerning fire suppression capability and that concerns me so much with  soldiers on each vehicle there's multiple ways of addressing it to tame that protecting soldiers first and foremost is a fielding the fire resistant uniform we've done that the old version has are about to produce another uniform fir resistant will be the very first thing to go into it we're experimenting with different kinds of hoods to protect the soldiers now so that they wouldn't wear the old so we're experimenting with lighter variants on each vehicle there's about three different ways to suppress fire versus the optical sensor that senses fire and automatically shuts off the fuel and reacts because of complaints comments lessons learned from theater we've added little fuel cut off valves that first responder at the scene can pull this if the fuel has not been cut off and cut the fuel well and then as we build our vehicles and especially our heavy trucks we've added things like blankets and and fire resistant coatings around the fuel tanks and those are all some of the things that we done i think we've done some extensive experimentation there have been people with with ideas i think we look at every idea that's come forward and we and we troops so a couple of ways and i'll go back to my earlier comments we have various program executive offices offices that may have responsibility for that aviation in huntsville for aviation systems a will vehicles up in more and we have a rapid being force that would welcome any industry who has any interest partner who has an idea that could bring that forward we welcome those ideas because the general in excess of what we do today is not enough we must do better tomorrow to protect our soldiers and give them the best equipment and that includes fire protection as an aviator for thirty years flying in helicopters you sort of grow up thinking about fire because helicopters if they crash they're probably going to burn we have the same kind of mentality now i believe in our tactical wheel systems and our other systems and we need to continue to grow the same kind of protection inside of them we welcome industry's ideas if we can help with seconds i also want to thank you all for promoting the unmanned aerial vehicles i'd say this is a parent i had two sons sort of in iraq and i always hoped that there was a u a b overhead and so the technology that's been promoted and presented by our troops we we as american citizens appreciate that and i only want more so for our troops thank you very much i yield my time industry in our district comes to us and say we've got a great new idea stay the yard if it's possible for the record back to the committee to share in your op says who would be the right person or person and so we all have that and then we can just direct that would runs forklift at harley davidson when he started there it was on the bottom line and already davidson not many people knew there were bombs being made in the same factory is as bikes but that's now moved on elsewhere that the specific question anticipate that we will get the r f p out for the upgrade to the m four car being the upgrade competition i think when we went out for an r file we got over twenty responses back from industry so we're pretty confident that we have the capability out there with a robust industrial base that we will be able to accomplish the upgrades that we want for the now transition to the actual competition for another the follow  n the next generation for say that critical or that capability development document is still going forward to the joint requirements and oversight council we would like to get it out this f y but i can't commit to you that we will be able to do that until we get requirements through the process to westy and vetted and then we will get the r f p on the street as soon as possible if i can also state we want full and open competition for this new system so that's what we will go forward open american jobs are created as we go forward with the new version and i understand correctly that the challenges been fourteen different entities it's not just the army but who you're partnering with in the other branches and u ses same weapons platform many many services socom special operations command marines others use our weapons and we lot of the systems that we buy are used by the other services another example away from small arms but any nation single manager for conventional ammunition is p e o ammunition at pick a tiny arsenal so our army program executive office by bombs and bullets and other ammunition systems for the other services so many of the requirements that we have today that we work with in our acquisition process are actually born joint before the requirement is ever approved i hope that answers your question sir thank you and just a final comment on them for it's not the seven six two but my thirteen year old's christmas present that he was just hoping for in the tree was a twenty two caliber version of them for that does shoot wonderfully we target shoot a the men and women out there in harm's way doing everything we can and my thanks if you can convey that to your staff civilian and uniform and the important work you're doing on that acquisition and research develop well why are we having a competition to go out and try to build a new rifle and understand it you are also looking at ways to update the current in four so more units has been sort of it was pushed a little bit politically because there were some stories about the in for not performing well and to your credit to the army to credit you did a thorough investigation of whether or not that was happening and the answer seemed to come back was that no it's not it's not happening that you know every weapon that we're going to put out there could potentially it won't perform perfectly there will be problems but relative to any comparable study of effectiveness the in for this as mr hunter has operated  pointed out it works and yet after all of that the result is we're going through what is going to be a somewhat costly study to try to look at alternative i agree with the comments of my colleagues about if we go through that process we do want to make it as open to competition as possible my question is why are we going through that process so i think that the secretary of the army decided about this time last year to commit to full and open competition as a result of some of the concerns that you mentioned the current system can compete against that so we think that the about that there's about five thousand medium tactical vehicles now plant in san antonio awaiting shipment most of those came about because as a as a truck was being developed we asked for an armored cab and we did our testing simultaneous with production so we discovered things in the testing that then had to go back and be modified in the truck before it can be accepted so rocks are actually they're not they're not ready they're not ready those  ready we have heavy trucks we have about fourteen heavy trucks that also have to undergo some modification minor modifications before they are accepted they all have distribution instructions so the minute they are ready and accepted by the p  just walk us a little bit through in more detail the stryker decision on upgrading them one of the you have to make them basically up armor them so they can survive blasts if they happen to come across one  specifically one of the questions that in talking to a number of people about this i have not had one hundred percent clarified is if we decide to go with this double the format personally as a proud university washing graduate i think i should have called it a w but you know nothing's perfect if they do in fact do that is it possible and they can speak to a gentleman i think you said it wasn't to put that newhall on the existing strikers or would it have to be simply ok we're going to change the striker going forward i mean that's one of the big questions i have about this proposal yes there you got it exactly right it require a completely new hall so it is a new production vehicle you could not put it on  more question and see if any more members have can you talk about the humvee we capitalize ation program a little bit what your plans are designed standard plan is not to build any new but there are looks you are looking at ways to update the ones that we have and you walk us through what your plans are on that yes or the army's medicine acquisition objective on humvees so we've actually accelerated stopping the buying of humvees a couple years early someone influenced by the fact that in theater commanders are reluctant to let recap program for humvees we have currently a recap program that's about to end at several of our depos so what army's wrestling with now is how to bridge the capability between the ending of that program this year maybe early next year and the eleven funding that we're requesting our plan is to recap some of the older son and make sure that that we bring them up to a capability where they're useful until we can bridge them into the jail to be the future so if i could add to that very quickly we are going to issues the really the last order for army this month to a in general and that's going to happen actually probably the next few days however on the horizon or emerging requirements from other services we have over one hundred fifty thousand humvees operating in the army today other services special operations command foreign military sales so what we know that are emerging requirements on the horizon will probably keep am general and producing new hobbies probably through the first couple of months of f y thirteen not through army orders but through s m s and other services i'd be really curious to pursue that i'm way over time here but find out you know if these are actually being used and you mention a couple of areas where they might be building more of them we capitalizing them i mean if we were doing that in a program that the military is reluctant to use i'd really want to look closely at the chance to ask further questions and then i'll just sort of ask him any of the other members everything for the good of the order they want to have this panel just have one comment mr chairman it was fairly obvious i think almost everybody for a number of years that future combat systems was in real trouble and you know we have to find some way to pull the plug earlier before we spread extra billions and billions of dollars i hope that somebody is looking at this is a model of how we can do better in the future thank you an outstanding point thank you any other members have anything further for this panel mr marshall first i apologize thank you for your service and secondly to just chime in with mr bartlett when we ought to know that a that the proposed weapon system is in trouble when we cannot explain it in a way that you know normal members of congress can understand and in the future combat system with this  that nobody ever really understood we just didn't even come forward with things that we can't present with some specifics of history that's really unfortunate because we did waste an awful lot of money trying to pursue that before it got killed thank you john chairman thank you any other members well thank you very much appreciate your service and your testimony and we look forward to working with you on all these very very important issues with baffle go to our next panel looks like we are about ready to give you gentlemen another extra minute there give folks a chance to take their seats evaluation office of the secretary of defense and mr michael j sullivan government accountability office or director of acquisition and sourcing and dr gilmore my understanding is that you are going to go first thank you thank you well as test planning results for selected components of the joint tactical radio system or did hear us program as well as results from testing of the army's extended range multi purpose unmanned aerial vehicle panel as well you have submitted statements for the record their statements will be read into the record and you don't have to read the whole thing will put it into the record you know summarizes you as best you see fit thank you ok and that is what i'm doing i'm not environment of the components of the system it was a force on force test consisting of an infantry company and a scout platoon equipped with all of the systems systems and only explain more what they were individually executing missions against an opposing threat of force and then also there's the non line of sight launch system which consists of rockets with the capability to attack moving and stationary targets mostly vehicles up to a range of forty kilometers and there was an actual live firing under operationally realistic conditions a test done of that system in january and february of this year and so based on the results of those tests as well as developmental testing that preceded those tests  assessment is that each of the systems requires further development prior to conducting initial operational test and evaluation which is going to under current schedules would take place in fiscal year eleven and all of the systems have notable  e deficiencies and the demo demonstrator liability for each of the systems falls below the army's requirements and in many instances well below the army's requirements now taking the individual systems the night lineup nonwhite a flight  system or and los ls requires further developmental operational top flight testing to demonstrate improve reliability and the required performance of the precision tac missiles infrared seeker during the recently can directed flight tests under operational realistic conditions to a six missiles fired targets hits and for missed their targets the reason for one of the failures has been identified fairly definitively there are the army has a pretty good idea of what led to the other failures  and then the the last failure the root cause is still under investigation but testing is demonstrated in all of us is making progress in some areas the missile warhead can kill armored vehicles when it hits vulnerable areas and missiles using what's called a laser designate mode with a laser shined on a target and the seeker in the missile tried to hit that spot on the target in that mode there's been demonstrated success where five of seven targets have been hit both operational developmental testing and in a limited user test that was conducted in two thousand and nine that was before this most recent flight testing where the operation of and low celestial simulated as far as the class one unmanned aerial system is concerned that's the air vehicle with an electro optical and infrared sensor that can be used to observe any movements  that system needs most of the army's requirements for equal flight and sensor performance and it was x used extensively during the recently conducted limited user test that was conducted last year however it suffers from poor reliability and it's also as general phillips noted noisy it can be heard from a fair number of kilometers away and also can be spotted rare for a number of partners away that's a double edged sword sometimes it's actually good in the in the testing it was observed actually scare some of the opposing force away and made them want to take cover but in general it's a problem because it was unreliable that u a s that unmanned aerial system was not employed as the backpack level company and platoon level asset that was the it demonstrated a capability to remotely investigate potential threats however the range over which it can be operated which is supposed to be on the order of a kilometer in the test was demonstrated to be much shorter on the order of fifty to one hundred fifty to seventy five meters when there are a lot of buildings around on the order of a hundred hundred meters or so more open terrain that's a problem because it exposes the operators to hostile fire and and identification and in fact a number of the operators demonstrated little contribution unit situational awareness the images they collected were often blanker but wary and provided little actionable intelligence and very few of the images were sent forward to higher echelons of command beyond the tuna company level as far as the network integration kit is concerned it's composed of computers and in particular the ground mobile radio that's part of the j t r s system that is demonstrated a capability to receive sensor data and pass messages and still images are the army's colonel battle command network but it's falling well short of the army's reliability requirements and soldiers report that it's very difficult to use also its ability to pass information securely in reliably within a network composed of many nodes yet to be demonstrate in fact some of the testing that's been done demonstrates that it has problems forming a third of the network according to the army's test evaluation command the greatest reliability likely to be achieved without substantial redesign from the network integration ki the two sensors and the small and ground by on the ground vehicle as well as the class one u a s is below the require reliability for each system so if the maximum reliability that you can get by fixing without major redesign is below the required reliability that means that inexpensive resigned would be needed to achieve the required reliability finally the army was secured a second limited user test of all the systems during august three september of this year and this will be an opportunity to assess the fixes that the army is now identifying some of those some of the changes that are being made to the systems that were mentioned by general phillips i think before these tests these limited user tests were done the army's in the process of doing production qualification and other testing of the systems that presumably will surface additional improvements and changes that have to be made it's going to be challenge them to get all of those changes in so that we can test production representative equipment in radio or g m r and the handheld manned pack small form factor h s radios are concerned those programs are working a complete system development prior to testing in an operational environment scheduled for november of two thousand and ten this year but these tests are dependent upon the success of the developmental testing that's ongoing the development of supporting waveforms how the radios actually transmit information and network it meant tools that is how the radios are formed into a network and how that network is managed and the completion of other requirements including radio network architectures that means which units will have radios and which units will communicate with one another and then plans from it managing the network so there's a lot of work that needs to be done for those tests to be executed correctly the riflemen radio which is part of the h m s programme conducted a limited user testing april two thousand and nine that highlighted deficiencies in reliability battery life range and also what we call an immature concept of operations the soldiers basically had a hard time figuring out how to use the radios to maximum advantage that radio those those the rifleman radio reliability battery life and transmission range were well below  requirements by factors of two to four there's a new version of that upgraded version of that radio in development which is supposed to address many of those problems but we haven't tested the program open talked a series of tests from april through june of this year to verify correction development testing is being conducted leading to a limited user testing november of twenty two thousand and ten so the testing for a number of these radios supposed to come together late this year but completion of the planning for that test again awaits use requirements including network management plans the ground mobile radio or g m r is experiencing now an eight month delay in developmental testing due to late delivery of hardware and software and what that's resulted in is basically a compression of the schedule for doing the testing so they still want to do the operation a realistic testing on the same schedule that means there's going to be less time available to test find problems and fix them leading up to that operationally realistic test execution of that task that limited use your test depends upon not just fixing problems that are discovered in that now shortened developmental test program but also delivery of a functional wideband networking waveform that's very important that has to be incorporated in the ground mobile radio in order for it to transmit large amounts of information like for example images from the sensors i just described among other things developmental versions of that w n w wideband that where can wave form perform pool poorly in tests that user test the g m r's a critical component of the network integration kit and if it's delayed then presumably there could also be an effect perhaps a delay on fielding the systems now the overall schedule leading to all of these did to break in here just to do all this prompts a question that i just can't wait to ask and that is it does not seem like these things are going to be ready anytime soon within the configuration that we would need them to be  this point it doesn't make sense to have any procurement money going in at this point for these programs all of which if i am hearing you correctly are not just a little tweak here a little tweak there off from from meeting the capabilities that they were asking them for i know i don't know if it's your if you view it as part of your job to make this type of a judgment as to whether or not we should be preparing these things but i'm curious in light of that you know explanation of all those deficiencies and all those programs is it for by the end of this year they will have those things fixed to a level that makes sense to buy them doesn't seem to me i mean a layman's view but i'd really rather did your on saying whether i think it makes sense to try and proceed with production and the reason is that i'm supposed to be the objective evaluator let me ask the question different but let me let me say this let me say this which i think will respond to your question it will be a challenge a major challenge to correct all the deficiencies that we've consulted the reliability shortfalls that were demonstrated in this test normally would imply that you would need on the order of perhaps two years to do redesign efforts in order to be ready and the reliability requirements that the army currently says it wants to meet now later this year and fact throughout the year but later this year i think in the november timeframe the army is going to need to review progress  improving reliability of the systems and also review whether all of those requirements actually make sense because there is a history of requiring more liability that's needed we want systems that are reliable but sometimes we try to press too far and  doesn't seem like you know we're looking for a big leap ahead in ability and gosh you know we're only getting about halfway there but we're still even had i'm struggling with a lot of these things to see how they're any better than what we have right now now granted i'm sure there is there's an answer to that and i will try to get that but that i think is the big question is there progress here at all in terms of the capability over what we're buying now for a lot less money in some instances well we  deployed now conducting the same missions and being evaluated in the same way that i've been telling equipped with these systems and when you say i'm sorry when i said that's next year that's next fiscal year that initial operational test is going to be conduct so we will have information at that time on how well the systems are improving the capability of the units relative to what we are buying and we need a battalion worth of equipment in order to do that t asar intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance work for operations in both afghanistan and iraq and as part of that surge the r and p quick reaction capability there is one unit that's already been deployed and there's a second queue r c that will be deployed later later this year and in the year and we have something that we developed for all these major systems called a test evaluation master plan which describes how they should be tested in that so called town calls for a series of operational tests conducted in conjunction trying to incorporate the training and other things that need to be done to get the units out there early as part of our testing plan and so far that's been quite successful the initial operational test evaluation of the full system is scheduled to be conducted in september two thousand and eleven with a full rate production decision in april two thousand and twelve and as i said there will be at least two of these quick reaction units that are that have been deployed prior to that testing the army conducted what they call a customer test in april last year and my office provided what we call an early fielding report which is required under law in that circumstance to the defense committees in september two thousand and nine assessing the ability of that first quick reaction capability that unit to accomplish its work time mission and what we found was that and that testing was conducted in flights over edwards air force base what we found was that that unit did effectively employ the  existed at that time although the m b e are empty the aircraft was limited in its capability at that time it didn't have a synthetic aperture radar it was not able to employ hellfire missiles it did not have secure line of sight communications and it didn't have satellite communications capability that time the development just hadn't proceeded far enough for all those capabilities to be ready but since that customer test in april two thousand and nine actually all of those systems all of those additional capabilities have been incorporated in the aircraft and they are being used  in iraq right now and they will be available for the next few r c one of the boys later this year the army plans to conduct another limited user test at the national training center this time with the quick reaction capability to unite so that unit will be involved in testing and at the same time it will be to do training for its deployment later this year and as part of that testing and training it will also be operating with other units with which it will be operating when they all go to the theater later this year a full production representative testing will occur in an initial operational test in fiscal year two thousand and eleven free are empty and then there will be a follow on operational test in two thousand and twelve because they're going to be additional capabilities in particular a new synthetic aperture radar for brayden aircraft that we need to test later on and all of those tests will be conducted in conjunction with the units deployment the national training center so there will be testing and training that will be combining in th series and so my assessment of assessment of what's happened with the not notwithstanding the fact that we are deploying this capability before we've done full operational testing the testing that's been done has been robust and it's been very useful because it's been combining the training and we do need to get these capabilities out as quickly as we can and i think this is a good example of how we've been able to do that and also test thank you thank you s chairman ranking member bartlett other members of the committee before i start i'd just like to introduce bill grab one here to my left he's been the assistant director on the future combat system program for g a o for longer than probably he wanted to be probably eight to ten years well since two thousand and three so he's got all of our corporate knowledge and i'm kind of no two and i have him and in case your questions get too tough it's my pleasure to be here with you today to discuss the current status of the army's modernization efforts since the secretary's decision to restructure the future combat systems program back in april my testimony will focus on current challenges and opportunities for the army as it moves forward with its modernization plans including its current contracting activities our views on the status of the brigade combat team initial increments and our views on the ground combat development effort as well for the time being the army is using the modified future combat system development contract to continue incremental development of the brigade team the brigade combat team equipment and its supporting network it has also warded a contract to procure long lead items for the initial brigade combat team equipment and has issued a modification to that contract recently to begin low rate in addition that you want to add ok what i would probably do is just summarize our view is how the testing went and where they are today in the acquisition strategy in light of the issues  that we've discussed here today and the problems that they've had in the past and focusing mostly on the reliability problems that they had we are concerned at this point that the army's production decision that was approved by the department is too risky at this point the army is proceeding with procurement despite having acknowledged that the systems are immature unreliable and can't perform as required the decision to move into production with this risk is also at variance with d o d s own acquisition policies some of the new policies and some of the best practices that emphasize knowledge based in incremental product development as a result soon to be released report which is out for comment right now and with the committee i believe it's still in draft form but we are intending to recommend that the army correct all of the maturity and reliability issues with the initial increment that testing has or will identify before the department approves any additional production lots moving forward and before any of the systems are field so that's kind of where we are increment one and fall on increments our views on the ground combat vehicle development effort are perhaps a little more optimistic at this point made a material development decision this february and over the next several months it will be conducting an analysis of alternatives which has recently been kicked off one c n alice's of alternatives is done i believe in early fall this year it's planning to follow that with a milestone a decision on whether to award multiple contracts to begin technology development in order to mature technologies prior to going to milestone b in addition it is currently proposing the use of competitive prototyping with multiple contractors during technology development which will emphasize mature technologies and it's planning a preliminary design review to validate contractor readiness  to go to systems integration prior to milestone in fiscal year two thousand and thirteen these are all pretty much according to a lot of the new policies that have been laid and a lot of the acquisition reforms that we heard about last year and tend to follow best practices although they're still very much in their infancy and can change current plans are to deliver the initial vehicle in fiscal year two thousand and seventeen about seven years from milestone first delivery so mr chairman as you can see the current post future combat system modernization environment is mixed with what's going on today and it's still taking form it's important to note that when we add up all of the funding available in a fit up today for ongoing development procurement funding for brigade combat team increments and development funding for the ground combat vehicle this represents about twenty four billion dollars of investment in the army's plan budget from two thousand and eleven through two thousand and fifteen with that amount of money on the line it's critical to get these things right this time we think that is why we will also be recommending that the army report to the congress by the end of the fiscal year the details of its new modernization acquisition strategy including plans for program management and contracting strategies mr chairman  completes my statement not happy happy to take questions thank you very much on the ground combat vehicle it seems that the army's they've issued their request for proposal for that same time they're doing an analysis of alternatives  as i understand it does that fit with the acquisition policies when you do the analysis of alternatives first and then make the request how are those two things mash that's a that's a good question and i think there's probably a nuanced answer to this because first of all i think the analysis of alternatives they're doing is not you know there are different types of analysis of alternatives if you're trying to come up with a material solution for a new capability to defeat a new threat or something like that you might start and they all way much more broadly and consider first whether you need an airplane a tank or a ship and then kind of get down to what the material solution would be in this case i think pretty clear that they are replacing ground combat vehicles so they start out i think with less broad scope that way that's less risky in my opinion  what we've done is we've looked at it and asked why they would need to be is there a reason to be concurrently is there an urgent need for these the ground combat vehicle right now that they have to process it into an acquisition program and start spending a lot of money today and if there isn't why not take the time do an analysis of alternatives which should be informing proposals anyway probably exactly is the increase in capabilities as i said i mean it's pretty clear that the programs not not where they wanted to be and that it's going to take a bit of a pull to get it there now that has all kinds of implications in terms of budgetary decisions in the short term but i'm also curious that if we're going to make that type of investment i think it's going to need to be a little bit clearer least to me why what's the improvement and then actually one question about that so we're to field of the tally and basically of the new equipment and test it out as opposed to a battalion of the old equipment can you walk me through and this is my ignorance to a certain extent that the timing on that why that's happened it's happening next year as i understand it in the meantime we're procuring and moving forward with a lot of this equipment and testing it i guess i don't understand how that sort of plays out you would like to have that test performed first before you can buy all the stuff and figure out whether or not it's going to help you this is something they've done historically a lot of other programs and why actually with regard to conducting initial test operational test and evaluation the low rate initial production units are used to do that typically we start to produce but we'd like to make sure that we have production represent we have to make sure that we have production representative of them in the old elric low rate initial production units  those are what we buy in order to do random testing now course we oftentimes also buy more of these l rip units that are actually needed that are actually needed for testing for other reasons but the short answer question is yes that's this is what we typically do is there is there an initial threshold in terms of because obviously you don't want to put your a bunch of stuff that you know isn't going to work just to run this test so i imagine there's an initial threshold ok let's get it to this point and then we procure for the tests that we're talking about is that the way it plays out are our major concern i mean the exact threshold that's associated with approving milestone c it's not it's not been my experience there is an exact such hold there's a lot of judgment involved other than judgment on the part of the department's leadership particularly undersecretary for acquisition and dr carter in his acquisition decision memorandum which i assume you've read  our soldiers in the field as quickly as possible we will proceed but he has that's a fight a number of constraints on funding there are also a number of reviews that he's going to conduct throughout the year including reviews of the results of this production fall to cation testing and other testing on the systems are going to be at least two of those reviews this year to review those results so yes we do use these elric units it's a matter of judgment as to when a milestone  is granted and whether it should be granted given progress in the program when it comes to that initial operational test their valuation which will be in the fourth quarter two thousand and eleven i think you are pressing me for a little bit more specificity on what it would be if it's currently scheduled for the first fourth quarter of tw eleven we would insist upon fully practicing representative equipment and there are other so called operational test readiness criteria that are specified in this test evaluation masterplan capabilities in terms of reliability and performance with the should have demonstrated at that point basically needs to be fully production represented make sense and evaluation of comparative test equipment as with units equipped as currently deployed for operations given the reliability maturity concerns that have already been discussed this is obviously going to be a very important test can you give us an idea of how the planning is going if you have any issues or concerns going forward with this comparative test as was directed in the in the a d m you you mentioned i was asked to work with the army to develop an initial plan which i had done which was also supposed to contain detailed information on the measures affecting us measures formants that we would use to compare the ability of both of these units equipped with the systems and not to accomplish wartime missions and that's all been done the planning will continue over the next many months we have to decide on what kinds of scenarios that we're going to use  interested in making sure that we have stressing scenarios you know missions that will be hard to accomplish that involve surprise so that we can discern the benefits and situational awareness that the sensors in  the system are supposed to provide are supposed to provide an answer to a tional awareness and in the end the seles is supposed to provide a somewhat unique capability to hit moving targets and so we want to make sure the scenarios are constructed to highlight those those features as well or show that we haven't achieved an increase in capability in that regard so i guess i would say in summary that we have started well we we have detailed measures of fact we'll continue to look at involved and we've embarked on a process to find the scenarios and do the other planning that's necessary and that's going well i'm the one thing i am concerned about and i'm concerned about this with regard to the second limited user test that's you know a company and other company level test of supposed to be done later this year is that we not repeat the problems that we had in the limited user test that was done this past year where we had a good test plan but we did not execute it we did not collect as much  could we think that a number of the failures that occurred actually weren't reported so probably these estimates of reliability that are in my detailed testimony are actually optimistic even though they're not very good we want to make sure that we don't commit those same mistakes again and we are working hard with the army with the army test and evaluation command to make sure that we have enough observers and enough gatherers of data and interpreters of data and analyze data so that we don't  create those problems that really caused a lot of lost information in the in the last test and given my conversations with the leadership of the army test evaluation command and the interactions my staff is continuing to have with them  i'm fairly confident we won't recreate those problems thank you mr sullivan this is more of an acquisition policy lessons learned trying to question i'd like you to compare and contrast two things number one  good good question i think what went wrong with the increment one is basically if you look at the new policies and the things that have come out of some of the legislation that was passed last year and if you look at best practices the g a o has looked at a lot from some world class companies who developed some pretty complicated products what you find is a new policy calls for reliability growth curve coming out of a critical design review that's based on production representative prototypes and that before you have a milestone typically you want to have reliability growth curve  basically mean time between failure rates and things like that that you plotted on a curve and you've established a trend towards improvement that's what you need to have established in order to reduce the risk enough to go to low rate procurement and we don't believe they did we think that they were alive they have not established a trend yet and so that the decision to begin to lower a production and commit procurement dollars to that incremental one is too early and too risky that's what we mean when we say it's variance with the new policies and with best practices what we see in ground combat vehicle  program a plan that has been laid out there really pretty much you can see that they have taken the reform legislation the changes to the acquisition policies that have been put into the five thousand series and looked at a lot of best practices and are trying to do things much more incrementally much more knowledge based they have a plan now to go with only mature technologies they're going to do a lot of competition are late there's a lot of systems engineering funding up front in order to get requirements right you know the one thing we would question why they're doing proposals out before they're done with n a o way but we still think the way will be done in time to inform the technology development part of this and so the program as it's laid out now reduces risks at the proper time it's trying to it's got plans in there to balance requirements to take care of the trade space before they make that milestone be decision which is where really the big money starts getting spent about an acquisition program the incremental one for the brigade combat teams as rus as recently been revised it's sitting in my office now incorporates detail reliability growth planning and reliability growth curves and testing so i think that's the discussion in just a follow a bit and being educated along the way here some of it i've seen some of it keeping track of all of that is complicated very important so i understand it we are already in twenty and we procured the money for the test italian basically and i haven't spent that yet but a very separate from that they don't have a product by yet so they've still got that money and then what they're asking us to do and what has been put into this budget is actually done and then even if you were willing to take that risk with this program because you do have to take some risks i do recognise that we want to get this stuff in the field so that our troops have what they need and you can't wait for everything to be perfect before you do that i understand that balance but within the acquisition area the sort of advanced procurement before testing is approved again as i understand it disposed to be somewhere in that ten percent of what you're buying range three out of nine rather comfortably above ten percent does not violate the acquisition we form approach that we've done and what what first of all   combat and long lead of no more than seventy million which is a down payment for the second brigade combat and every anything in addition to that is going to be handed upon the results of the testing and everything  else this year and outcome of the two in progress reviews that are going to be conducted that's my that's my understanding two instead of three well it's just sort of one plus instead of three it's one he approved the procurement for line of sight launch system is was limited to thirty five million complete pending completion of flight testing and that flight testing was just completed last month and that will be the subject of some of these reviews take place over the next few months  so i had that information to you that ok you're standing in what's going on and i think i've already commented upon as much as i can absolute on the rationale for the milestones the decision to proceed with  but i guess what we see is when you have if i could just for a minute in two thousand and three that in two thousand and three when future combat system started as another transaction by the  reminiscent of that you know you have policies for reasons so there's momentum i guess i guess my point is that their past milestones i believe don't quote me on this but i think somewhere around four hundred million dollars of procurement money is in the f y ten budget and another six hundred or so by next year if that budget holds i'll have a billion dollars of procurement money invested in incremental one and they don't know the reliability at all at this point so it is at variance now that that certainly seems to me to be at least for the ever raised eyebrow and further further inquiry and i think that's where we that's kind of in record time but where there is no driving need like that i'm having some trouble along with the chairman understanding why we rush so much with such huge expenditures of money what we've got is pretty good why can't we do it very deliberately with much less expenditure of money and much less risk i just think that's an excellent point and i'm ramp they made the trades early told the warfighter what they were going to get before they started and then delivered that and here are the requirements may go down before it's all done and that should have happened a milestone or before a milestone see anyway and i'll just conclude by saying that something would be taking a very very close look at the requirements and throughout this whole discussion i'm reminded of something that my predecessor mr abercrombie said about the future combat systems which was you know it seems like the army was tired of the navy air force having all these big ticket items going way crazy over budget and getting all the money and the army was little piece here a little piece there so they had to come up with their own massive program so they get a piece of that as well understanding that with technology with the improvements in innovation we want to try to get the best equipment out there as often as we can with a clear understanding of what that improvement is not just the general notion that you know the next thing we build is always going to be better than the last thing we build so we better start building something new which i realize is not what they've done but they've got to come up with much more specificity as to why this is getting better and how it's going to get better if we're going to proceed on this and we'll continue to work on that in the weeks and months ahead before we before we do our bill out of committee and then i imagine we will continue to work on this throughout the legislative process as you know many of these programs will have some ongoing testing certainly further analysis and we will want to see that on a regular updated basis and make adjustments accordingly in what is in our authorization bill so i thank you gentlemen for your work very technical very difficult and very very important to do our best to get it as right as we possibly can and we certainly could not do that without both of you and our previous panel as well so thank you very much your testimony