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i 

65–463 2011

[H.A.S.C. No. 112–15] 

ARMY MODERNIZATION PROGRAMS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TACTICAL 

AIR AND LAND FORCES 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

MARCH 9, 2011 
(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TACTICAL AIR AND LAND FORCES 

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland, Chairman 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

JOHN C. FLEMING, M.D., Louisiana 

TOM ROONEY, Florida 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri 

JON RUNYAN, New Jersey 

MARTHA ROBY, Alabama 

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

SILVESTRE REYES, Texas 

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona 

NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts 

LARRY KISSELL, North Carolina 

MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico 

BILL OWENS, New York 

JOHN R. GARAMENDI, California 

MARK S. CRITZ, Pennsylvania 

KATHY CASTOR, Florida 

JOHN WASON, Professional Staff Member 

DOUG BUSH, Professional Staff Member 

SCOTT BOUSUM, Staff Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2011 

Page 

HEARING: 

Wednesday, March 9, 2011, Army Modernization Programs ............................... 1 

APPENDIX: 

Wednesday, March 9, 2011 ..................................................................................... 41 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9, 2011 

ARMY MODERNIZATION PROGRAMS 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Bartlett, Hon. Roscoe G., a Representative from Maryland, Chairman, Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces ...................................................... 1 

Reyes, Hon. Silvestre, a Representative from Texas, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces ...................................................... 3 

WITNESSES 

Chiarelli, GEN Peter W., USA, Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Army; LTG Robert 

P. Lennox, USA, Deputy Chief of Staff, G–8, U.S. Army; and LTG William 

N. Phillips, USA, Military Deputy to the Assistant Secretary of the Army 

(Acquisitions, Logistics and Technology), U.S. Army ........................................ 5 

Gilmore, J. Michael, Operational Test and Evaluation, Office of the Secretary 

of Defense ............................................................................................................. 22 

Sullivan, Michael J., Director of Acquisition and Sourcing Management, U.S. 

Government Accountability Office; and William Graveline, Assistant Director, Acquisition and Sourcing Management Team, U.S. Government Accountability Office ................................................................................................ 24 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Bartlett, Hon. Roscoe G. .................................................................................. 45 

Chiarelli, GEN Peter W., joint with LTG Robert P. Lennox and LTG 

William N. Phillips ....................................................................................... 54 

Gilmore, J. Michael .......................................................................................... 76 

Sullivan, Michael J., joint with William Graveline ....................................... 86 

Reyes, Hon. Silvestre ....................................................................................... 48 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

Mr. Bartlett ....................................................................................................... 111 

Mr. Platts .......................................................................................................... 111 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Akin ............................................................................................................ 119 

Mr. Bartlett ....................................................................................................... 115 
Page

IV 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING—Continued 

Mr. LoBiondo .................................................................................................... 119 

Mr. Rooney ........................................................................................................ 119 

Mr. Turner ........................................................................................................ 120 
(1) 

ARMY MODERNIZATION PROGRAMS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON TACTICAL AIR AND LAND FORCES, Washington, DC, Wednesday, March 9, 2011. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:32 p.m., in room 

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Roscoe G. Bartlett 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MARYLAND, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON TACTICAL AIR AND LAND FORCES 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you for joining us as we consider the fiscal 

year 2012 budget request for the Department of the Army equipment modernization programs. Today we have two panels. 

Panel 1 witnesses include General Pete Chiarelli, vice chief of 

staff; Lieutenant General Robert Lennox, deputy chief of staff of 

the Army for requirements; and Lieutenant General William Phillips, military department—military deputy to the assistant secretary of the Army, acquisition, logistics, and technology. 

Panel 2 witnesses include Dr. Michael Gilmore, director of operational test and evaluation, Office of the Secretary of Defense; and 

Mr. Michael Sullivan, Government Accountability Office, director of 

acquisition and sourcing; and William Graveline, Government Accountability Office. 

Gentlemen, thank you for being here and thank you for your 

service to our country. I just returned from having led a delegation 

of members on a visit to Afghanistan, where we met with personnel 

from all of our services at several different locations. While I have 

always had misgivings about our involvement of Afghanistan, I 

want to note how I was again so highly impressed with the extraordinary courage, dedication, and sacrifice, and ability demonstrated 

every hour, every day by our service personnel. They are really 

quite remarkable. 

We have always done our best to make sure our personnel have 

what they need to execute their missions. I have been reenergized 

by this most recent experience to make sure we do all we can to 

support the absolutely outstanding men and women serving our 

Nation. 

In terms of this year’s budget request, the Army’s top two modernization priorities are the tactical network and the Ground Combat Vehicle Government programs. However, I would like to maintain that the number one modernization priority remains soldier 

equipment. 
2 

In saying that, I don’t mean to imply that properly equipped the 

soldier hasn’t always—properly equipping the soldier hasn’t always 

been a priority, especially for the witnesses in front of us today, 

but—whom I know share that concern. There is no doubt that the 

equipment and body armor that our soldiers have today is saving 

lives. However, individual riflemen commonly carry in excess of 

100 pounds of gear on an all—on all dismounted missions; some 

more, some less than that. 

Equipment weight is a constant complaint we hear about when 

we talk to our deployed soldiers. Not surprising, we also see an 

alarming number of muscular-skeletal non-combat injuries in our 

military hospitals. 

While we certainly support enhancing the individual soldier’s capability and protection, the price we often pay is more weight. I 

have often wondered if we would have taken just 5 percent of what 

we spend on the now terminated Future Combat Systems program 

and applied it to lessening the weight of what are soldiers carry, 

where would we be today? 

I know Ranking Member Reyes shares my concern, which is why 

we have scheduled a specific hearing on this issue next week. 

Somehow we must figure out how to incentivize industry and academia to lessen the weight for our soldiers without lessening the 

protection that that weight provides them. 

In terms of the tactical network, I have always felt that one of 

the many mistakes that were made with the FCS [Future Combat 

Systems] program was that the Army should have first and foremost focused on getting the network right instead of trying to do 

all of the vehicles and unmanned vehicle components of the program simultaneously. We understand the importance of what the 

Army is trying to do with the tactical network. If we are going to 

send a soldier into harm’s way he or she should never have to open 

a communications device and have it say ‘‘service not available’’ or 

‘‘can you hear me now?’’ 

The committee has been very critical of the lack of network strategy over the last couple of years. It is my understanding that the 

Army has made a lot of progress this last year in laying out a 

nested network strategy. 

However, I am reminded of the old adage that a vision without 

resources is a hallucination. We need assurances that the network 

is based on an open architecture, isn’t dependent on proprietary designs, and that it is pursued using full and open competition. 

Finally, the committee has and continues to support the Army’s 

goal of pursuing a modernized combat vehicle. However, the committee needs to understand the rationale as to why the ground 

combat vehicle should proceed as scheduled or if it should move to 

the right in time. 

How do we know that the GCV [Ground Combat Vehicle] is the 

full spectrum vehicle the Army needs? Why did the Army not complete an analysis of alternatives before it issued the original requests for proposals, as this committee had encouraged? 

Can the Army afford to launch another program that could cost 

up to $30 billion to procure a vehicle that carries a squad of nine 

instead of the current six? Why not consider as an alternative option continuing to upgrade Abrams, Bradleys, and Strykers, focus 
3 

on the network, and take part of the funds and apply it to lightening the load of the soldier? 

Ten years ago we were told that the Paladin howitzer couldn’t be 

upgraded and that Crusader and then Non-Line of Sight-Cannon, 

N–LOS–C, was the only solution. And now that those programs 

have been terminated we are pursuing an upgraded Paladin howitzer, which we were told we couldn’t do earlier on, albeit with 

technologies from Crusader and network—and N–LOS–C. They 

weren’t a total loss. 

To be clear, I am not saying that I don’t support the GCV program. And to be fair, I believe the Army requirements will become 

clearer to the committee once the results of the analysis of conservatives are submitted. 

However, as was the case with the FCS program, it is this committee’s responsibility to ask the hard questions now so that we 

don’t learn in 5 years that the Army can’t afford the GCV or that 

it is based on exquisite requirements. 

I now yield to my good friend and ranking member, Mr. Reyes, 

for any remarks that he cares to make. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bartlett can be found in the Appendix on page 45.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. SILVESTRE REYES, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM TEXAS, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON TACTICAL AIR AND LAND FORCES 

Mr. REYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I would also like to add my welcome. Thank you, gentlemen, 

for being here today, and thank you for your service. 

Today’s hearing on Army modernization again comes at a critical 

time for our Army. The Army has been at war for almost 10 

years—the longest continual period of combat for the U.S. Army 

since the war in Vietnam and the longest war ever for an all-volunteer Army. 

Like all wars, these wars have changed the Army in profound 

ways, and sometimes in ways that weren’t predicted. The Army of 

today features soldiers operating from widely dispersed fixed locations and in relatively small elements, usually a company or below, 

instead of the constantly moving large formations that the Army 

practiced to fight for decades. The Army of today integrates unmanned systems, intelligence networks, biometrics, and communications networks in a very—in a way that was unforeseen before 

September 11th of 2001, when the term IED [Improvised Explosive 

Device] was not even in the Army’s lexicon. 

At the same time, today’s Army leadership faces the same dilemma faced by their predecessors, namely answering two critical 

questions: First, what kind of missions must the Army prepare for 

to perform? And second, how to equip the Army of today while preparing for the Army of tomorrow. 

Today’s hearing will center on finding that critical balance and 

focus on the point for these two very important and pivotal questions. The fiscal year 2012 Army budget requested for modernization from my viewpoint is commendable in many different ways. 

For the first time in many years the Army has a single modernization strategy that is integrated and resourced and that cov-
4 

ers the five key aspects of equipping the force. Our chairman mentioned most of them, but they are: Soldier equipment and weapons, 

and I certainly share the same concerns that the chairman does in 

terms of the weight and finding ways to address that challenge; 

second, communications, intelligence, and network equipment; 

third, aviation and UAVs [Unmanned Aerial Vehicles]; fourth, armored combat vehicles; and fifth, wheeled combat vehicles. 

A great deal of the credit for this clear and integrated approach 

lies with the vice chief of staff, General Chiarelli, who we are fortunate is here to testify at this hearing. While he has not yet fixed 

every single problem in Army modernization, his efforts and hard 

work have put the Army in a much stronger position to justify and 

protect its modernization efforts, both in the Pentagon and certainly here in Congress. 

When Secretary Gates testified before our committee in February 

he said that because the future is so uncertain procurement funds 

must be focused on those areas that are useful in many possible 

operations, not in any narrow range. In my view, the Army’s 2012 

budget request does that in most areas. 

It invests heavily in modernizing and expanding the Army’s aviation capability and network communications. Both are areas essential to today’s fight in Afghanistan and that the Army will be able 

to use in the future, no matter what kind of operations it conducts. 

Second, significant funds are also requested for upgrades, so for 

soldier personal equipment that is intended to improve lethality 

and protection while, again, reducing the critical weight factor, another area where the Army will benefit regardless of what the future holds and what future missions develop. In this request, the 

Army also continues to aggressively modernize its fleet of wheeled 

vehicles, from MRAPs [Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles], to trucks, to Humvees. 

And finally, in terms of armored vehicles the request makes what 

were probably the most difficult judgment calls. The request clearly 

focuses on the future, with heavy investment in the ground combat 

vehicle program. In order to achieve this focus on the future, however, the request does show a significant drop across the board in 

ongoing upgrades for current vehicles. 

In three major cases—the Abrams tanks, the Bradley fighting vehicles, and Stryker vehicles—the Army has chosen to accept the 

risk of production shutdowns in the 2013 to 2016 timeframe as the 

Army waits to produce upgraded versions of these vehicles at the 

end of this decade. These shutdowns will present significant challenges to the Army and the defense industrial base, so I look forward to hearing more today about how the Army will mitigate the 

risk involved with this plan. 

However, despite this and other challenges, the Army modernization budget request for 2012 represents a solid plan for the future 

that seeks to balance the needs of today with the potential needs 

of tomorrow. While the subcommittee will carefully review this 

plan, I think the Army is starting from a position of strength, in 

large part due to the hard work over the past year from the three 

gentlemen that are sitting at our witness table. 
5 

So today, Mr. Chairman, I look forward, as you do, to hear more 

about the details that will significantly impact the Army in 2012 

and beyond. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Reyes can be found in the Appendix on page 48.] 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you, Mr. Reyes. 

Without objection, all witness statements will be made a part of 

the hearing record. 

General Chiarelli, we do not normally have the benefit of hearing 

from the vice chief of staff at our yearly subcommittee modernization hearing, so we really appreciate you taking the time to help 

us understand the Army’s modernization priorities. Clearly, among 

your many responsibilities Army equipment modernization is an 

issue of great importance to you and the Army or you wouldn’t be 

here today, sir. Thank you very much. 

I understand, General, that you have the oral testimony representing all three of you. Is that correct? 

General CHIARELLI. I do, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Okay. Thank you. Please proceed with your opening remarks. 

STATEMENT OF GEN PETER W. CHIARELLI, USA, VICE CHIEF 

OF STAFF, U.S. ARMY 

General CHIARELLI. Chairman Bartlett, Ranking Member Reyes, 

distinguished members of the subcommittee, I thank you for the 

opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the fiscal year 

2012 budget request as it pertains to Army acquisition and modernization. I am joined by my colleagues, Lieutenant General Bob 

Lennox, deputy chief of staff of the Army, G8; and Lieutenant General Bill Phillips, principal military deputy to the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics, and technology. We 

look forward to answering your questions at the conclusion of these 

opening remarks. 

As you are all aware, our Nation’s military continues to face a 

broad array of complex challenges as we approach the start of the 

second decade of a long-term struggle against a global extremist 

network. Today’s uncertain and dynamic strategic and operational 

environments, coupled with current political and fiscal realities and 

the rapid pace of technological development have made our outdated, Cold War-era strategies no longer supportable. 

To be successful now and into the future we require a strategy 

that takes a more focused and affordable approach to equipping our 

force. Our evolved strategy, aligned with the Army Force Generation model, ARFORGEN, will allow us to incorporate lessons 

learned, improve or maintain core capabilities, incrementally modernize to deliver new and improved capabilities, and integrate portfolios to align our equipment modernization communities, thereby 

enabling us to develop and field a versatile and affordable mix of 

equipment, ensuring our soldiers and units have the resources and 

capabilities they need to be successful across the full range of military operations today and into the future. 

As part of the Army Modernization Plan 2012 we have 

prioritized our material programs to focus on capabilities which 

give our units and our soldiers a decisive edge in full-spectrum op-
6 

erations. While considering program cost and size, the emphasis is 

on capabilities critical to Army success and our ability to network 

the force, deter hybrid threats, and defeat hybrid threats, and protect and empower soldiers. 

I have talked about the importance of the network with members 

of the subcommittee on numerous occasions. I believe it represents 

the centerpiece of the Army’s modernization program, and today I 

am pleased to report we are making significant progress. 

The Army is past talking concepts. We are making the network 

happen, delivering needed capability downrange as we speak. Certainly there is much more work to be done, but I am confident we 

are headed in the right direction. 

Much of what we are trying to accomplish in terms of improving 

the pace of Army acquisition derived from what we learned about 

the network and about the nature of rapidly evolving technologies. 

However, the principles have application across the entire modernization program. 

I am prepared to discuss in greater detail the specifics of the 

Army’s critical fiscal year 2012 priority programs, as outlined in 

my statement, for the record and during questions and answers. 

The advanced technologies added capabilities we are pursuing 

are vital to the success of our force. That said, we recognize that 

modernizing the force is not solely about buying new or better 

equipment. It also has to do with spending money wisely and finding efficiencies wherever possible. 

I assure the members of this subcommittee, I and the Army’s 

other senior leaders remain diligent in our efforts to be good stewards of scarce taxpayer dollars. Over the past year our ongoing capability portfolio review process—we have identified a number of 

areas we are able to make changes and eliminate redundancies or 

outdated requirements. 

In fact, as part of the Department of Defense’s reform agenda the Army has proposed $29 billion in savings over the next 5 years, 

and we will not stop. We will continue to pursue further efficiencies 

in the days ahead. 

In the meantime, I respectfully request your support of the 

Army’s proposed research, development, and acquisition budget of 

$31.8 billion for fiscal year 2012. We believe this request allocates 

resources appropriately between fielding advanced technologies in 

support of soldiers currently in the fight and the development of 

technologies for the future. 

Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, I thank you again 

for your continued, generous support and demonstrated commitment to the outstanding men and women of the United States 

Army and their families. We—all three of us—look forward to your 

questions. 

[The joint prepared statement of General Chiarelli, General Phillips, and General Lennox can be found in the Appendix on page 

54.] 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much. And thank you for your— 

collectively—many years of service to our country. 

As is my custom, I will ask my questions last hoping that they 

will all have been asked so that I won’t need to ask any, and I now 

turn to my ranking member for his questions. 
7 

Mr. REYES. Chances are, probably not, Mr. Chairman. 

My first question deals with the Army’s number one priority vehicle, which is the ground combat vehicle. So far, the Army has justified the need for the GCV by pointing at the need for better protection, more onboard power, and the ability to carry additional soldiers. However, there are those that have argued that an upgraded 

Bradley vehicle would be adequate to meet the Army’s needs. 

So my questions are: What specific new threats, especially in 

terms of IEDs and anti-tank missiles, is the Army worried about 

in the 2020 timeframe, when the GCV would be available in large 

numbers? 

Second, what about an upgraded Bradley? Would that not be 

adequate to meet these future threats? 

And third, what about using lasers and other directed energy 

weapons in the future? How does a GCV compare in relation to upgrading Bradley vehicles in this very important regard? 

So, I will leave it open, General, for whoever wants to tackle 

those. 

General CHIARELLI. I will just make a few comments, sir. First 

of all, the Bradley is going to be around for a long time. The GCV 

is a fighting vehicle and it is a full-spectrum vehicle. 

We believe we have revisited our first RFP [Request for Proposal], put out a second RFP, where we carefully went over every 

single one of the requirements, and we have worked very, very 

hard to ensure that it is a full-spectrum vehicle. This is a vehicle 

that can be used across the spectrum. 

And one of the things it does is offers capability packages. Those 

capability packages would give it an opportunity to work in environments such as Afghanistan, and in different parts of Afghanistan and Iraq where there are different threats. And with the addition of those capability packages, mostly in passive armor, the vehicle gets heavier or lighter when you take them off. 

In addition to that, we are going to finally get the entire squad, 

although the Bradley, as pointed out, takes less than the squad— 

finally in the GCV we will be able to put the entire infantry fighting squad. In addition to that, we will be able to provide an interpreter and a medic a place to be, which are critical on today’s battlefield. 

We are working very, very hard to get it out in a 7-year period 

because we believe we need the size, weight, and power to power 

the network in an infantry fighting vehicle. 

But I will let Bill and Bob make further comments, but I just 

want to say the Bradley is going to be around for a long time. 

Gentlemen. 

General PHILLIPS. Sir, I would just only add one thing. When you 

see the analysis of alternatives that will come forward, part of the 

Bradley—the second question that you had, the Bradley piece of 

that—will be considered as a part of the GCV program, so you will 

see that coming forward. 

The other piece that I would want to emphasize for GCV that 

General Chiarelli sort of alluded to is, we took the original RFP on 

the 25th of August of last year and we decided to pull it back. 

When we went through and recharacterized all the requirements— 

there were over 900—we determined that the big four that General 
8 

Chiarelli just described, we came up with about 130 that were critical to make sure that we met the big four capability inside the 

GCV, and the others were tradable in some kind of way. That is 

going to allow us to get this vehicle in 7 years at an affordable cost. 

The other point that I would emphasize is the incremental capability with the GCV itself. We will build a vehicle in 7 years and 

then we want to be able to upgrade that vehicle over time. 

General CHIARELLI. If I could just add one other thing: What is 

amazing if you look back at Army vehicle modernization is the 

story of the M1 tank. Now, we are not building a tank, but what 

we would like to do is have a program like the Abrams. 

Think about it. The Abrams, 1978 technology that has been upgraded from 105-mm gun to 120-mm gun, from a commander’s 

weapon station that—I remember we—not all of us had a rough 

time operating—to one today that makes each Abrams tank worth 

two Abrams tanks. That is because that vehicle was built with size, 

weight, and power built into it to allow it, over time, to have incremental builds. 

That is what we want to do with GCV. We want a vehicle that 

looks much different 10 years from now than 7 years from now, 

when it first comes out, because we are able, through incremental 

builds, to put new technologies on that vehicle as they become 

proven and capable. 

Mr. REYES. Thank you very much for that additional information, 

which brings me to a second concern, and that is that the budget 

proposal for 2012 shows production breaks for the Abrams tank, 

Bradley fighting vehicle, and Stryker vehicles, starting in 2013, 

that could last—projected from 3 to 5 years. The 5-year plan then 

shows production of upgrades starting back up in 2016 or later. 

So the questions that I have are: How will defense industry 

maintain these production lines during the period—the shutdown 

years? How can the Army be sure that those production lines will 

still be there after they have been mothballed for several years? 

And what is the economic impact going to be? What will the 

Army do to keep the workers employed at those companies? Because obviously a concern that I and other members have is that 

the skilled workforce would just move elsewhere and would not be 

available again when this—when these production lines are called 

upon. 

General LENNOX. Congressman Reyes, great question and great 

concern, and not one that we didn’t consider this year. As General 

Chiarelli led us through our portfolio review of the entire combat 

vehicle fleet—we took a very holistic review this year, and our fiscal year 2012 proposal calls for about $2.5 billion. It tries to balance transforming our combat vehicle fleet with investments in the 

ground combat vehicle, improving the Bradley and the Abrams for 

the future, and replacing the aging M113 [armored personnel carrier] fleet. 

So we are trying to accomplish all three of those things in a very, 

you know, fiscally informed approach in our strategy, and we have 

undertaken to do that. So there are going to be shutdowns. In the 

Abrams line, for example, we are going to finish and buy our acquisition limit of those vehicles. 
9 

We are buying the very finest M1s right now, the SEP [System 

Enhancement Program] version. We have got a very good strategy 

that addresses both the Active and the Reserve component. So we 

have taken a good, thoughtful approach to that, but there is some 

risk. 

In the area of the Bradley, we also have a two-vehicle type fleet 

approach. We have looked at both the Active and the Reserve component. They will both receive modernized, pure fleet versions of 

the Bradley. And we have again bought our limit of that vehicle. 

The Stryker vehicle has proven itself in combat. With this committee’s help and Congress’ help we have introduced a double-V 

hull approach to the Stryker vehicle. We are going to have one brigade that we are going to send to combat this summer and we will 

assess it. 

And in the fiscal year 2012 approach we have also invested in 

modernization programs for all three of those vehicle types. They 

will not prevent, however, the production break that you talked 

about. We are cognizant of that. 

And I think I will turn it over to General Phillips, who can talk 

about some of our approach to that, if that is okay. 

General PHILLIPS. Sir, I would just say that we share the concern 

with the industrial base. And the industrial base across all the 

portfolios is incredibly important to us. 

It is also important that we have worked very closely with industry, and I will just give one example: the Humvee, and with AM 

General and the Humvee production line. Most recently we worked 

with Charlie Hall, the new president for AM General, and with the 

team there, to work on the production capability—number of vehicles per day. And most recently we were able to downsize slightly, 

from 55 per day to 35 per day, which sustains the industrial base 

over a longer period of time. And with FMS [Foreign Military 

Sales] customers and others coming in we are able to sustain that 

critical capability for that production line for a period of time 

longer. 

But we must do so in the most efficient, effective manner as we 

consider all options, sir. 

Mr. REYES. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you. 

As you heard, bells have gone off. I think we have time for Mr. 

LoBiondo’s questions. Then it will be about 5 minutes before the 

end of the vote, and we will need to recess for three votes, I think. 

We will be back as soon as we can get here. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

My question is regarding the modernization of the Abrams tank, 

and in recent weeks we have heard from the Secretary of Defense 

and I believe from you, General, the need to modernize the tank 

into the future. Specifically, the Army’s budget looks like it has less 

than $10 million in the fiscal year 2012 budget, and I think the 

statement was the tank has virtually reached its upper limits for 

space, weight, and power. So it looks like it is about $100 million reduction from previous 

budgets. In light of this, does the Army still support the Abrams 

modernization? 
10 

General LENNOX. Congressman LoBiondo, you are right. The fis- cal year 2012 submission does call for about $10 million in RDT&E 

[Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation] for the Abrams 

tank. 

We have several—hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars underexecuted 

from previous years, so now that we think we have the strategy 

right and the requirements right, the combination of previous 

years’ unexecuted funds and this amount we think is about the 

right amount that we can execute in fiscal year 2012, and that was 

the rationale for our approach. In the out-years we have programmed additional amounts for the Abrams. 

General CHIARELLI. And I might add, our modernization activities are focused on increasing the SWAP [Size, Weight, and Power] 

capability of that tank, particularly the power portion of it. So that 

is exactly our focus with the Abrams. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. And as a follow-up question, the modernization 

of the Abrams engine—I understand there is a proposal that could 

increase fuel efficiency by up to as much as 17 percent, which could 

translate to about 50 gallons a day for one Abrams tank alone. And 

with the emphasis on energy efficiency and who knows where oil 

is going to go to per barrel, the fuel consumption could be dramatically improved. 

In light of the Army’s energy conservation goals does the Army 

believe the Abrams modernization program should also include 

fuel-efficient engines? 

General LENNOX. Congressman, it does, absolutely, and that is 

one of the alternatives for Abrams modernization. We have not yet 

defined what that will be but that will certainly be one of the considerations. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Would seem that, in light of the energy costs and 

rising, skyrocketing, it might be something that could be moved a 

little closer to the front burner. 

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Generals. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you so much. 

We have 8 minutes remaining. We probably can take one more 

question. And who is next in our—— 

Ms. Tsongas. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Thank you. 

And thank you all for being here, and nice to see you again. 

I would like to sort of revisit the body armor question. I know 

that we will be having a hearing in the future, but nevertheless, 

you have heard the concerns expressed from Chairman Bartlett, 

from Ranking Member Reyes, and so I would just like to revisit it. 

To sort of restate the concern we have—and you know it well— 

currently soldiers deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan are outfitted 

with armor that weighs as much as 40 pounds. And, when combined with the gear that troops must carry in the field, the total 

weight our soldiers carry can exceed 120 pounds, causing skeletal 

injury just through the mere fact of carrying these materials. 

But also it poses another challenge. At an Armed Services Committee hearing just several years ago, when I was newly arrived in 

Congress, I asked a sergeant who was testifying about his experiences using body armor in Iraq if there was a temptation to take 
11 

off the armor, given its weight and restrictions on mobility, and he 

replied that, ‘‘Yes, ma’am. There is a risk that all soldiers are willing to take. And I think that in certain situations, mission dependent, that as soldiers we would be happy to take off some of the 

body armor to be more mission-capable, more mobile on the 

ground, more flexible faster.’’ 

The President signed into law language in the Fiscal Year 2011 

National Defense Authorization Act to establish separate, dedicated 

budget line items for body armor to improve research, development, 

and procurement of body armor equipment. This was a positive 

step in ensuring that the Department of Defense focused on addressing weight and protection issues and that Congress provides 

the necessary oversight. 

So my question is for you, General Chiarelli. Why has the department’s fiscal year 2012 budget request failed to include this 

procurement line item, created by this very committee last year, 

providing armor research and development, and failed to conform 

to the statutory requirement in fiscal year 2011? 

General CHIARELLI. Well, since I appeared before the committee 

last time on lighten the load we have made significant progress, 

and one area is in body armor. I think you know that we went 

ahead and gave soldiers the option between the old IOTV [Improved Outer Tactical Vest] carrier and a new, lightweight plate 

carrier, which is 8 pounds lighter than the IOTV. That is a significant improvement over the weight we had before. 

I was recently at a Yuma, where I saw a new 16-mm mortar tripod and 16-mm mortar that is 8.7 pounds lighter, and a new 81- 

mm mortar that is 20 pounds lighter than its predecessor. At the 

same time, cold and wet weather gear has been improved and is 

not only better but is lighter and less bulky. 

We continue to look at ways to further lighten body armor, but 

I have not heard of any technologies now that will give us the required protection as—and the capabilities continue to increase at 

a lighter weight. 

Bill, has—anything you have heard of? 

General PHILLIPS. No, sir. I would only add a couple points, sir, 

on target. 

Ma’am, our body armor is the most tested in the world, and for 

the targets for which it is designed to defeat there has never been 

a body armor that has been defeated by that kind of weapon. We 

saw that last year—by that kind of a round. 

We listened to your comments last year. We created a line this 

year, or in fiscal year 2012, for RDT&E, and for that year and some 

of the out-years as well we programmed about $5.8 million of 

RDT&E into the body armor line. 

At the same time, we are currently looking at a requirement for 

body armor holistically that is coming forward to the Army staff 

and we expect to see that requirement through the Army and approved probably in the fourth quarter of this year. And we will continue to work body armor really hard. 

Couple other things that I would share on lightening the load is 

things as simple as shoes and boots. The boots that have been worn 

previously in Afghanistan—we are using a new Danner boot that 

reduces the weight per soldier of about 1.2 pounds. 
12 

So we are looking, in every way possible, for the ability to lighten 

the load on soldiers. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Well, I think the point of a separate line item was 

really—there is no quick answer, and obviously without a focused 

investment in it we will never develop an answer. And so these 

sound like positive steps forward but there is still much work to 

be done. Eight pounds is obviously a good thing, but the load is 

still altogether too heavy, and it is going to take a very focused investment in research and development, and I encourage you to engage in that. 

Thank you. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much. 

We need now to recess for the three votes—— 

[Recess.] 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you for your patience. 

Okay, Mr. Kissell. Thank you. 

Mr. KISSELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I would also like to thank you for your patience and thank 

you for the job you all do. 

I have three worries—not questions, but worries. And you have 

addressed them and I just want to kind of address them again. 

Number one, I worry about the troop strength as we—I know we 

are talking about 2014, but the concerns about—we get the troops 

we need to keep the rotations we need to stay home 2 years for a 

year in combat, and I am concerned we drop off and then 6 months 

later we need those troops. 

I am concerned about the fragmentation of what we need for today’s combat in terms of equipment versus planning for the future. 

Do we have enough of a plan that we don’t end up with a mismatch 

of a lot of different kind of things and kind of 3 years from now 

we say, ‘‘Gee, how did we end up with this?’’ 

And I worry about the training of the soldiers and types of warfare other than what we are doing now, so that—I talked to people 

from the 82nd and they—you know, ‘‘When is the last time you 

jumped out of an airplane?’’ 

‘‘It has been a while because that is not what we are doing now.’’ 

And I could throw in the National Guard and Reserve but I said 

three. So, you know, I am just curious as to some of your thoughts 

on these three areas. 

General CHIARELLI. Well, sir, that is why I think GCV is so absolutely important. It is a full-spectrum vehicle. You know, and we 

talk a lot about the light force, but every single unit that we send 

into theater today comes out on the other end when they get assigned their TPE, or theater provided equipment, looking like a 

heavy force. 

We end up putting five light infantrymen into a vehicle that 

weighs over 20 tons. That squad is running around the battlefield 

today going from point A to point B in 40 tons of equipment. 

And that is what GCV does for us. We see GCV as a vehicle for 

the future and for today, quite frankly—a vehicle that will add, 

through these capability packages, additional passive armor and 

composite form when it needs it, if it gets into direct firefight, with 

the ability to shed it when it is not needed and it needs protection 

only from underneath from an IED fight; a vehicle that can go into 
13 

Sadr City, where we saw a lot of explosive formed penetrators 

being used in Iraq with the appropriate protection on it, to when 

you used it out in the West where you never saw an EFP [Explosively Formed Penetrator] not having to carry that extra weight. 

So GCV is really our attempt here to try to do something that 

takes into account all the lessons we have learned over the last 

decade and ensure we have a combat vehicle that will allow us to 

fight in a full-spectrum environment. 

General LENNOX. If I could, Congressman, over the last year 

General Chiarelli took us through a series of portfolio reviews, and 

you have heard the Secretary of Defense say we don’t do very well 

at predicting the future. As an output of those portfolio reviews we 

try to develop strategies that emphasize versatility and adaptability. 

General Chiarelli just talked about one of them, the ground combat vehicle—very critical and important to us. The network is another one. We think if we can get the network right it will work 

in—across the range of military operations and empower soldiers 

in that regard. 

Our aviation and our ISR [Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance] portfolios kind of add versatility to the kinds of missions 

we could be doing, be it along the border or in Afghanistan today, 

or some other mission in the future. And finally the soldier—I 

think Congressman Reyes went down the list earlier of the different kinds of attributes that you want to cover down in your portfolios, and empowering the soldier for the future to give them the 

right mix of protection and lethality are critical. 

And I think we have done that over the course of the last year. 

I am sure we haven’t gotten it right—perfectly right—but I think 

we have done a pretty good job at having that kind of versatility 

and adaptability built in. 

General CHIARELLI. And what is going to be different this time 

is we are not going to go another 10 years and not do this. We are 

internalizing this into the Army process so that we are reviewing 

this all the time. 

I was just down and saw the Third Brigade of the 82nd Airborne 

on Thursday using a rifleman radio with some of the command and 

control software that we are providing, and I tell you, it just made 

me feel so good to hear those soldiers talk about a capability that 

we had put in their hands as part of the JTRS [Joint Tactical 

Radio System] family, the rifleman radio, and say, this fills a capability gap that they have had for the longest period of time. 

They were just ecstatic about this radio and how it works. And 

it is really not a radio; it is all I.P. [Internet Protocol]-based, but 

the ability to pass data and have voice communication with all the 

members of that squad using a nonproprietary waveform, SRW 

[Soldier Radio Waveform], that works and passes that data, and to 

hear those soldiers was just absolutely wonderful. 

Mr. KISSELL. Well, I think that is one of the keys, and I know 

it is something we wrote into the last defense authorization, is to 

get feedback on new systems from the guys on the ground. And I 

think that is so important. 

And one of the points that was made, we have just—we have got 

to do this constantly. It has just got to be a measure in where we 
14 

are and just a constant, you know—keeping an eye on it. And I 

know this is what we are going to do, but it is just—once again, 

it is a worry and I appreciate your time. 

And I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you. 

Mr. Platts. 

Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

First, certainly my heartfelt thanks to all three of you for your 

dedicated and courageous service to our Nation. On Friday this 

past week and Monday of this week I had the somber responsibility 

to be at West Point for the burial of a true American hero, First 

Lieutenant Daren Hidalgo, and a young man who I had the privilege to nominate to West Point and gave his life February 20th in 

Afghanistan, and certainly a reminder of the importance of the 

issues we are talking about here today and the sacrifices that these 

courageous men and women in uniform are making in harm’s way 

on behalf of all of us. So I sincerely appreciate what you and all 

in uniform are doing for us, and your families. 

I want to touch on, and I apologize coming in late from another 

hearing, and I am running—I have the Secretary of Education in 

my Ed Committee hearing I have got to run to next—if I repeat 

anything that was asked earlier. And I want to touch on mainly 

Bradleys and M88s [armored recovery vehicles]. And it is my understanding that in the 2012 track vehicle budget that there is 

about $250 million for upgrading Bradleys, and that is something 

that you believe, as a service branch, is critically important to—not 

just having Bradleys out there but have them modernized to the 

best of our abilities for the needs of the soldiers in the field. Is that 

an accurate statement? 

General LENNOX. Yes, sir, it is. Two hundred fifty million dollars 

allows us to pure fleet both the Active and the Reserve, with certain types of Bradleys—most modern types of Bradleys. And it caps 

off our Bradley investment. 

Mr. PLATTS. A follow-up, then, specifically with Bradleys in 

Guard—and we have our Pennsylvanian Guard, also Stryker brigade, but interact with my Guard a fair amount here at home and 

overseas: Is also accurate that in the 2010 funds that were looking 

to upgrade the Army Guard’s heavy brigade combat team to the 

Desert Storm operation, is that accurate? 

General LENNOX. Congressman, I can’t tell you which set of 

funds—which year we are doing it. I know it is in the plan that 

takes care of the brigade in Pennsylvania and the other separate 

battalions that are in the National Guard. They will all be upgraded to that version. 

Mr. PLATTS. Is there—and you may not be able to answer this 

today—is there a timeframe for when the Guard units will start receiving the upgraded Bradleys? 

General LENNOX. I will have to take that one for the record, Congressman. I know it is in our plan and it is in the next several 

years, but I can’t tell you specifically when they will see them. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 111.] 

Mr. PLATTS. Appreciate your following up with me and the committee. 
15 

And then on the M88s, the A1 and the A2 versions, is there 

plans at all to upgrade to the A2 version and—across the fleet, or, 

you know, all of them or just a partial upgrade? 

General LENNOX. Congressman, it is really going to depend for 

us on how the ground combat vehicle develops. It will inform us 

whether or not we have an adequate mix of the A1 versions and 

the A2s, which we have today. We think we have a pretty good balance, but as we see the ground combat vehicle and improvements 

that may add weight to our combat vehicles in the future we are 

going to have to make that decision in the out-years. 

Mr. PLATTS. Whether to maintain a mix or—okay. 

A final—more of a comment, is associate myself with colleagues 

before we broke who were addressing the issue of personal body 

armor and the importance of doing right in this category. 

And this really, General Chiarelli, in my first time to have the 

privilege of interacting with you was in Iraq, and I will always remember you had a set of body armor there, including the glasses 

with the piece of shrapnel in one of the ballistic sunglasses, and 

that image, or that demonstration that you gave us stayed with 

me, on the importance of making sure we do right by our men and 

women in uniform in their own personal protection in addition to 

equipment modernization of the type we are talking about here 

today, and just associate myself with the importance of us not letting up on that effort as well. 

So my thanks, again, to each of you for your service and your testimony here today. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you. 

Mr. Critz. 

Mr. CRITZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Just two quick questions, and one I am going to show some ignorance because it was an article I read and I am trying to catch up, 

but I understand that the Army is going to—you are slowly eliminating the Sherpa airplane from Army aviation, and if I understand correctly—was it a C–27 [Alenia Spartan military transport 

aircraft] that was going to replace it and now the Army has decided 

that there is not going to be any more Army aviators, that you are 

going to rely on the Air Force to supply the C–27? 

And I come from a state that has lots of National Guard, a lot 

of aviators that wear the green of the Army, and it has been a concern and I am just curious as to what the justification or—is this 

a budgetary issue or is this something that you see that there is 

not a need for it? 

General CHIARELLI. The C–27 is the replacement, and we—our 

predecessors appeared before this committee and talked about the 

need for an improvement for the Sherpa, a replacement for the 

Sherpa, and the C–27 was always to be that replacement. There 

will be aviators in the Army. 

But we find it necessary, as we went through the portfolio on 

aviation, to go with earlier plans, and that was as the C–27 comes 

onboard to, in fact, divest ourselves of the Sherpa over the next 4 

years. Because it is not pressurized; it is an older aircraft. And we 

have got to look to the Air Force to provide that mission set for us 

using the C–27, which is, of course, a much more capable aircraft. 
16 

Mr. CRITZ. Right. Right. 

So the C–27, though—there are still going to be Army aviators 

flying C–27s, or that has been eliminated? The Sherpa is eliminated along with the mission for the Army? 

General CHIARELLI. The mission remains, but it will be—we will 

be supported by the United States Air Force and the C–27. The 

specific pilots who are currently Sherpa pilots will be given an opportunity, like pilots do many times, to transition to other aircraft 

that remain in the Army inventory. 

Mr. CRITZ. Okay. Thanks. 

And one quick question, and, General Phillips, you actually answered an inquiry I had on the APU [Auxiliary Power Unit] for the 

Abrams, and I am going to follow up with that as well, because it 

seems that during Operation Iraqi Freedom we had long fuel lines, 

fuel tails to supply, and it was more of an issue. And it seems like 

we do this—we do it in the private sector as well so that when it 

is needed everyone is saying, ‘‘Okay, let’s study the APU,’’ and then 

you get to a point where now it is not such an issue and it tails 

off again. 

And I believe we are at about 20 years now we have been studying the APU, and I am just curious, are we ever going to see one 

in an Abrams in my lifetime? 

General PHILLIPS. Congressman, great question. As we look at 

the Abrams and really all of our systems it is important that we 

take a holistic look on all the systems that are in there surrounding space, weight, and power. And certainly the APU that is 

inside the Abrams is a key part of that strategy. 

And also fuel efficiency, as we look at fighting in places like Afghanistan and potentially other places around the world. How can 

we gain more fuel efficiency inside those platforms? 

As we look at ground combat vehicle that has been discussed at 

length, there is a fuel efficiency requirement that is in that system 

as well. JLTV—joint light tactical vehicle—also has a fuel efficiency requirement as well. 

So we are very serious about the systems and subsystems inside 

our platforms as we look at modernization for Stryker, Abrams, 

Bradley in terms of efficiency, and greater capability as well, sir. 

Mr. CRITZ. So I am not sure if I heard—so where is the APU inside the Abrams? Five years? Next year? 

General LENNOX. Well, what we have funded, Congressman, is 

the start of the Abrams modernization program. So in fiscal year 

2012 we start with our requirement. As a result of our holistic combat vehicle fleet we have decided that we do need to upgrade the 

Abrams with all those concerns, and the APU will be one of these 

areas. 

Engine, APU, space, weight, and power issues inside the Abrams 

will all be taken as part of that. And it will be over the next 3 or 

4 years before that will get finally settled out. It is in our funding 

in our program but it is not in the immediate future—not in the 

next year or so. 

General CHIARELLI. As a tanker I will tell you—I hate to correct 

you, sir, but it has been longer than 20 years. We have been looking for an APU that does everything we thought an APU would do, 
17 

but it has been a—one of the most difficult engineering challenges 

I think we have had. 

Mr. CRITZ. Well, thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you. 

Ms. Hartzler. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, Gentlemen. It is an honor to be here and to hear 

from you. 

I was impressed with reading all of the procurement items that 

we have and glad to see that we have got some new Black Hawks— 

47 new Black Hawks, 32 new Chinooks, and 19 remanufactured 

Apaches. Whiteman Air Force Base—of course we have Apaches 

and we are very excited about that. 

I did have a couple questions. Under—on page five—well, you 

don’t have that—but it says that under the family of medium 

heavy tactical vehicles that the budget—2012 budget requests $433 

million for a total of 2,290 trucks and trailers. I just wondered, 

does that mean total then or does that mean how many more we 

are going to buy this year? 

General LENNOX. Ma’am, that does mean the additional amount 

in fiscal year 2012, and our goal is to replace the aging 2.5-ton, 5- 

ton 800 series and 900 series family of medium tactical vehicles, 

so we will do this over time and that is the fiscal year 2012—you 

have it exactly right—amount. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Okay. Very good. And that would be the same 

for the heavy truck, the 7,928—that will be new—new trucks in 

that category, right? 

General LENNOX. Yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Okay. And there was some press articles a couple of years ago, General, that—especially the ‘‘Baltimore Sun’’—regarding the weight reduction initiatives for soldiers, and saying 

that during that time there was over 20,000 soldiers were in nondeployable status due to muscle or bone injuries attributed to carrying the heavy rucksacks over rough terrain. So I was wondering 

what improvements have been made to lighten the load of our soldiers in 2009? 

General CHIARELLI. I appeared before this committee last year to 

talk about our lighten-the-load efforts, and I am here to say that 

we have made significant progress. I just saw the other day at 

Yuma Proving Grounds a brand new 16-mm mortar that has been 

reduced 8.7 pounds and a brand new 81-mm mortar that has been 

reduced 20 pounds using composite. 

We have provided a second type of body armor, what we call a 

plate carrier, to our soldiers, which lowers the weight 8 pounds. We 

have fielded a brand new machine gun that is 8 pounds lighter— 

MK 48. It is an M240 light machine gun that has gotten rave reviews from soldiers. 

We are working with lighter boots, new cold weather and wet 

weather equipment that not only protects better but is lighter. We 

have a full court press on lightening the load of soldiers, and we 

will continue to work that. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. I was at Fort Leonard Wood about a month ago 

and the soldiers were raving about their new boots and the shoes 
18 

that they have and how they say they are just as good as Nikes 

or anything; they would rather go running in those than regular 

type of tennis shoes. And I am—as a former track coach I thought 

that is smart. That makes sense to have them like that. 

So what is the, just, total weight that a soldier carries, then, if 

you have the body armor on and the sack—what are we looking at 

in their—— 

General CHIARELLI. It depends on the mission. Not every soldier 

will carry an 81-mm mortar, but for the one who does get caught 

with the base plate of the mortar, to have a 20-pound savings in 

the weight is a heck of a lot, which allows that soldier to either 

carry something else—additional ammunition—or to lighten that 

load. 

But I think our studies show anywhere from about 50 pounds to 

some, prior to us beginning this initiative, went up to 110 or 120 

pounds, depending on exactly what it is they were carrying. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. That is amazing. I am going to be going to Afghanistan soon and I hope to be able to put on all of that and see 

what it feels like. I am a farm girl, and we would pick up a bale 

of hay and it would weigh about like that and that would be hard 

to carry that around all day. 

And so I appreciate your efforts to try to make it more streamlined and lighter, but yet keep the safety factor. So I applaud what 

you are doing. Thank you. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much. 

I have a couple of quick questions and then I will ask one for the 

record, and there may be others submitted for the record as well. 

General Chiarelli, with regard to force structure and in terms of 

equipping the force, what I would like to understand is the relationship between the current requirement for 45 Active Duty brigade combat teams and the—cut the end strength of 27,000 between 2015 and 2016. General Casey testified last week that it 

took 10 years to get where we are today in terms of dwell time and 

equipment. 

How do you plan program and budget for equipment with a 

pending end strength cut of 27,000 soldiers when it is conditionbased? Are there plans to reduce the current requirement of 45 Active Duty BCTs [Brigade Combat Teams] and/or to change the current mix of heavy infantry or Stryker brigades? 

General CHIARELLI. Well, as General Casey testified, this is conditions-based. It is based on that we are out of Iraq. In most numbers it is based on the drawdown in Afghanistan progressing from 

this summer through 2014. And it is based on no other requirement for a large number of land forces in any other contingency. 

I would add a fourth condition, and that is access to the Reserve 

component. We have got to have access to the Reserve components. 

We don’t know whether that is going to be brigade combat 

strength that is going to come out. We are going through the mission analysis right now to look at the 27,000. 

But understanding the modernization program that we have 

brought onboard and how we have done that with our capability 

portfolio reviews, we are looking at 2-year packages. And with a 

third of the force always in reset we really believe we can do this. 
19 

And it is absolutely essential we do this, given the top-line cut that 

we had, so that we can ensure that we do not rob our equipment 

accounts to get underneath the cut that we received in the top line. 

So we feel that by having the time to plan for this across the 

board, both in equipment and exactly where we take those cuts, 

and given those four conditions, that it makes a lot of sense for us 

to be looking at this now. But General Casey also does call it reversible planning, that based on the situation we could, in fact, reverse and feel we would get the support of the Secretary of Defense 

if conditions changed. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you. 

And the second question, as I mentioned in my opening statement, the Army continues to review its network strategy to ensure 

that the Army’s acquisition strategy supports the needs of the 

warfighters and the fielding of the brigade combat team tactical 

network. Would you please detail the essence of your evolving acquisition strategy, the timelines, and how you are proposing to 

align these with the Army’s needs in Afghanistan and the BCT 

modernization schedule? 

In particular, please explain how your network strategy will impact the Joint Tactical Radio System program. And you might, if 

you wish, submit additional details for the record after your response to this question. Thank you. 

General LENNOX. Congressman Bartlett, great question. For us it 

is really two key programs in fiscal year 2012 get us along the big 

first step of building capacity in our network, and that is the WIN– 

T [Warfighter Information Network–Tactical] program, where we 

have about $1.3 billion requested, and that is the big pipes that get 

us from satellites down to corps, division, brigade, and battalion, 

and even to the company level that start providing the big pipes 

and capacity down to soldiers. 

The next is the Joint Tactical Radio System, and we have re- quested about $800 million for a variety of radios that take the 

communications then from the brigade and battalion level down 

through the company and platoon to the individual soldiers. You 

heard General Chiarelli talk about the rifleman’s radio. That is 

part of our Joint Tactical Radio System. 

We think the program has made enormous progress and we 

think it is on the verge of really providing the capacity that we 

need for soldiers in the future. 

General CHIARELLI. Key to our strategy is what we are doing out 

of Fort Bliss, Texas. The establishment of a full brigade combat 

team—we call it the AETF [Army Evaluation Task Force]—that 

has all the equipment in the Army, from that which the light soldier has to that which the heavy soldier has, and putting them on 

a 4-month test schedule. We are going to solve a lot of problems 

out here. 

I know everybody looks at JUONS [Joint Urgent Operational 

Needs Statement] and ONS [Operational Needs Statement] and 

getting support to the warfighter because he needs it, but many 

times because we don’t have anybody dedicated to being able to do 

this like we have now that equipment is sent downrange without 

giving soldiers the opportunity to get through the integration 

issues, and those integration issues have to be done downrange. 
20 

By putting this brigade into a 4-month test cycle they are going 

to be testing every single 4 months. We are going to be able to rapidly take even the requests from the fields in ONS and JUONS— 

joint operational needs statements and operational needs statements—we are going to be able to take that, test it, integrate it, 

and make it so much better for the soldier downrange and rapidly 

get equipment to the soldier. 

I will tell you, we have had an amazing thing with the Stryker 

double-V hull. Thanks to the next panel you are going to hear 

about—and Dr. Gilmore’s team. You know, it is from January 10 

until about 18 months, it will be—we are going to be putting in the 

hands of soldiers a brand new Stryker double-V hull that provides 

increased protection to them. 

And that was tested in accordance to ensure that we really were 

putting a good piece of equipment in there. And we have done it 

in a year-and-a-half thanks to the great help that we got from the 

next panel you are going to hear from. 

So I really hold a lot of—I am excited about what is going to happen at Fort Bliss and to be able to take this equipment and test 

it every single 4 months and get it through those integration challenges and into the hands of our soldiers. I think it is going to be 

big for our network and it is going to be big for other equipment 

we want to get in the hands of the warfighter as quickly as possible. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Sir, how will the acquisition strategy change in 

light of this and how will competition be applied in production? 

General PHILLIPS. Sir, one of the biggest challenges that we have 

in acquisition—Dr. O’Neill, the Army acquisition executive and myself—is the alignment of programs—program executive offices and 

program managers—in execution of the network strategy. It is the 

most important program that we will execute. 

So what we are doing today is aligning programs that were just 

mentioned, like Joint Tactical Radio System and WIN–T, to align 

them with the strategy, doing the testing out at Fort Bliss, White 

Sands to make sure that the programs and the acquisition strategy 

is aligned with the needs of the Army in terms of our Army Force 

Generation, our ARFORGEN. And that piece of it we are going to 

work really hard. 

Joint Tactical Radio System—I will talk a little bit about that. 

We are aligning the acquisition strategies; we are seeking to accelerate for the rifleman radio that was mentioned in the demonstration we just did down at Fort Bragg last week. 

We are driving toward a Milestone C decision in July for airborne, maritime-fixed station JTRS. We are looking for a Milestone 

C in early fiscal year 2012; ground mobile radio for a Milestone C 

this year. 

So we are driving the key components of the—or, I am sorry, the 

network strategy toward acquisition decisions on a short timeline 

and we are delivering. And I agree with my partner, Bob Lennox, 

that we have made great strides over the last year in JTRS as well 

as WIN–T. Critically important. 

General CHIARELLI. And you said in your opening statement, Mr. 

Chairman, the key here is non-proprietary software. We call these 
21 

things radios. They are not radios; they are small computers. That 

is what they are. Different sizes of computers, I.P.-based. 

And because we have non-proprietary waveforms in the soldier 

radio waveform—in all the waveforms—we don’t care who builds 

the box as long as it carries our waveform. And that is the JTRS 

business model and that is going to spur competition. 

And we are not going to necessarily go out and buy one for everyone to start with. We will let the competition make those boxes better and cheaper. That is the model—the business model that we 

have adopted with JTRS, and we are excited about it. And not everybody is, but we sure are. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much. 

I have now one question, this for the record. Supplying our 

troops in Afghanistan has focused increased attention on a number 

of things, and one of them is the line haul tractor. I have been told 

the Army has not held a competition for the M915 line haul tractor 

in nearly 11 years. 

Why would there not be a business case to pursue a full and 

open competition? Is the M915A5 basically a commercial vehicle or 

has it changed significantly in the last 10 to 15 years? 

How does the Army know it is getting the best truck available 

for the best possible price? Is it possible that industry could provide 

a safer, more fuel-efficient truck at less cost than the Army is currently paying for the M915A5? 

Does the Army plan to pursue a competitive procurement of line 

haul trucks in fiscal year 2018 in support of a new line haul capabilities production document requirement? You may answer this 

multifaceted question for the record. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 111.] 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you all very much for your testimony. 

Thank you for your service. 

And we will recess this panel and empanel the next witnesses. 

Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Gentlemen, for taking your time to join us. I have 

been to the floor a number of times to do a special order after the 

close of business. As they pan the floor you may note that there 

is nobody in the chamber but there are somewhere between 1.5 

million and 2.5 million people watching in addition to staff and 

members in a lot of their offices. 

I just returned from Afghanistan and I was surprised that soldiers there told me that they watched our hearings here. So although there are few of us here at the hearing be assured that 

there are many people watching this, so be careful what you say, 

and that this will be a part of the permanent record that people 

will pore over for quite a while to come. 

Thank you very much for joining us. 

Dr. Gilmore, please proceed, and you will be followed by Mr. Sullivan. 
22 

STATEMENT OF J. MICHAEL GILMORE, OPERATIONAL TEST 

AND EVALUATION, OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE 

Mr. GILMORE. Chairman Bartlett, Congressman Reyes, members 

of the committee, I am happy to be here no matter how many of 

you are actually in the chamber. I consider it an honor to be here. 

I will just very briefly summarize my written testimony, beginning with the results of testing of the Early or Enhanced Infantry 

Brigade Combat Team systems, then moving on to testing of 

Stryker double-V hull, which General Chiarelli referred to, and 

then closing with an assessment—a quick assessment—of the plans 

to continue testing our Army network systems over the next several years. 

Unfortunately, with regard to the testing of the E–IBCT [Early– 

Infantry Brigade Combat Team] systems that was conducted last 

year, my assessment remains the same, actually, as it was based 

on the results of the testing that was conducted a year prior to 

that, which is that with the exception of the small unmanned 

ground vehicle the systems under test really demonstrated very little, if any, military utility. 

The unattended ground sensors provided the test units little useful tactical intelligence. The images that they provided were frequently blank or contained little, if any, useful information. 

The sensors were difficult to conceal and easily identified by the 

opposing force, which precluded their utility. Connecting them to 

the network was complex, and in fact, the majority of the time during a test the soldiers did not succeed in connecting the sensors to 

the network. 

And also, since the information that was collected that was useful was useful primarily locally to the units that were actually in 

charge of the sensors there really wasn’t much point in trying to 

connect the sensors to the network, although some of them can 

only be controlled if they are actually connected to the network. 

The primary purpose of the network integration kit and its key 

component, the Joint Tactical Radio System ground mobile radio, 

which I will refer to as the GMR, is to provide the mobile adaptive 

Internet, enabling information from the sensors to be shared 

among all echelons of command during combat. Because the sensors provided essentially no useful information the key function 

that the NIK, the network integration kit, has was not demonstrated during the test. 

Now, the NIK and the GMR, while providing the mobile adaptive 

Internet, actually have many more purposes than just that, and in 

fact, the GMR is planned to replace a number of the existing radios, including radios that provide secure voice communications for 

the soldiers. This was the first time that the secure voice communications capability of the GMR was tested under operationally realistic conditions, and 70 percent of the time it didn’t work, which 

meant that the test units had to rely on the existing legacy radios 

that they had, or if they didn’t have them they had to use runners, 

which is something that hasn’t been done regularly since World 

War II. 

The NIK startup and reboot times were very long, in excess of 

the 25-minute requirement. The NIK was complex to operate and 
23 

the soldiers expressed little confidence in it, frequently turning it 

off or putting it in standby when they went on offensive missions. 

Also, there were critical information assurance vulnerabilities 

that were found in the NIK. Now, the Army reports that it has 

fixed the last three problems that I mentioned and we will have an 

opportunity to test those fixes during the upcoming tests this 

spring and this summer, that General Chiarelli mentioned and I 

will touch on briefly at the end of my remarks. 

The Class 1 Block 0 Unmanned Aerial System was not useful in 

offensive operations due to its weight and bulkiness. It was not 

useful in situations requiring surprise because it is very loud. 

It was most useful when used from a static defensive position, 

and it was meant to be used in much more—in many more situations than those. It was also unreliable and crashed. 

The unit showed a preference for the existing Raven Unmanned 

Aerial System over the Class 1 UAS because the Raven is quieter, 

was easier to deploy, and had longer endurance. 

The small unmanned ground vehicle, as I mentioned, did provide 

useful military capability. It can be used for remote investigation 

of potential threats, such as improvised explosive devices. 

It is also used to support a range of other tactical missions, including clearing buildings or caves and traffic control points, but its 

utility is limited by the fact that—for example, in a building if it 

goes around a couple of a corners and the building has, you know, 

rather thick walls the operator loses radio communications with 

the unmanned ground vehicle and has to go retrieve it. And in a 

number of instances during the tests that exposed the operator and 

the operator was scored as being killed. 

So there can be improvements made to the small unmanned 

ground vehicle but it does provide useful military capability. 

There were several lessons learned, that I mentioned in my written testimony, from this experience with the E–IBCT systems. I 

think the most important one for me is that rigorous testing of 

these systems beginning as early as possible is really mandatory. 

These systems originated in the Future Combat Systems program, which started back in 2000. After 9 years we did operationally realistic tests of these systems. We found that the majority of 

them didn’t provide military utility. 

I can say, I think without challenge, that that should have been 

discovered much sooner and could have been discovered much sooner if more rigorous developmental testing had been done than was. 

With regard to the Stryker double-V-shaped hull, we have been 

doing a robust test program, both live fire and operational, of that 

vehicle to support deployment in June 2011. That is just one of 

many examples I can cite of doing rapid, robust testing to support 

rapid fielding of such a system. 

The preliminary results of that live fire testing are very positive. 

It indicates that the Stryker double-V hull provides substantially 

increased protection to crew relative to the existing flat-bottom 

Strykers, as they are called, that are deployed in the theater. 

But that testing also indicates—and it was the first time comprehensive testing was done of the existing flat-bottom Strykers— 

that they provide better-than-expected protection of the crew, and 

in fact, in a number of instances meet the threshold protection re-
24 

quirements that are levied upon the all-terrain version of the mine 

resistant ambush protected vehicles. However, there is testing that 

remains to be done of the Stryker double-V hull in order to assure 

that all of its variants provide needed protection. 

Nonetheless, I support fielding the system as soon as possible 

based on these test events. 

As far as Army network testing is concerned, this summer’s integrated network baseline event is going to be the Army’s first major 

test within its fiscal year 2011–2012 integrated evaluation schedule, and General Chiarelli talked about his plan to do this continuous testing in order to support rapid fielding, and I certainly support that strongly. In this particular case this summer the Army 

intends to conduct six so-called limited user tests under operationally realistic conditions to support production or fielding decisions 

for systems, including the Joint Tactical Radio System ground mobile radio. 

I am focused in that test, as far as the GMR is concerned, on 

demonstrating that, notwithstanding the somewhat disappointing 

results of the tests last year, that the radio can be used in a 20- 

to 30-node network to rapidly provide useful information to soldiers 

in combat on the battlefield. 

I am concerned about the testing that is planned, primarily because in order to make this testing worthwhile the requisite planning has to be done and that is behind schedule. The individual 

systems that will compose the network, how they will interact with 

one another, where they will be deployed, at what echelons, is yet 

to be determined, even though we are supposed to start testing in 

June. 

And the Army Test and Evaluation Command has not yet developed a plan for conducting the tests, collecting data, and evaluating 

the data. We are late to need for all that information and we are 

working with the Army to develop it as quickly as possible, but if 

we are not able to get that information in line here very quickly 

then we run a risk that this first major event will not produce all 

the information we need. 

Thank you very much, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gilmore can be found in the Appendix on page 76.] 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you. 

Mr. Sullivan. 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL J. SULLIVAN, DIRECTOR OF ACQUISITION AND SOURCING MANAGEMENT, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Chairman Bartlett, Ranking Member Reyes, 

members of the subcommittee, I am pleased to be here today to discuss Army modernization. My oral statement will focus on efforts 

to initiate the ground combat vehicle acquisition program, developments in the initial brigade combat team program, and emerging 

plans for the future tactical network. I have a written statement 

I would like to submit for the record. 

I will begin with the ground combat vehicle program. After several false starts the Army now appears to have reduced the GCV’s 
25 

expected capabilities in favor of a strong focus on mature technologies to control cost. 

However, we believe there are critical questions that must be addressed as the Army begins technology development on that system. These include questions about the urgency of the need for the 

vehicle, the depth of the analysis supporting the preferred concept, 

the feasibility of a 7-year delivery schedule, and whether the program will be able to deliver key capabilities using only mature 

technologies. 

It is imperative, in our opinion, that the Army demonstrate the 

match between those requirements it needs and the available resources before it proceeds past a Milestone B decision by the spring 

of 2013. 

With regard to the first and second increments of the Initial Brigade and Combat Team Systems, the director of operational tests 

has indicated that most demonstrated little or no military utility 

in recent user tests. In response, the Army decided not to pursue 

the second increment and terminated all but two of the first increment’s systems, the small unmanned ground vehicle and the network integration kit. 

However, the Army still assesses the maturity of two technologies critical to the kit’s performance: the wideband networking 

waveform and the soldier radio waveform. It has very low maturity 

at this point and still risky. We believe this raises legitimate questions about whether procurement of up to 181 units is appropriate 

at this time. 

The results of these tests have prompted the Army to review its 

requirement-setting process to determine how validated requirements that have come through TRADOC [Training and Doctrine 

Command] can translate into little or no military utility. One explanation may be that these systems were spun out of the Future 

Combat System concept and the Army restructured the acquisitions without an adequate analysis of the new post-FCS operational environment. 

Finally, the Army Tactical Network has recently been established as a special interest portfolio. I think the last panel talked 

a little bit about that. The Army is now developing an integrated 

network architecture and a comprehensive acquisition strategy for 

it and plans to deliver that strategy, we have been told, sometime 

this month, in March. The Army’s first step is to establish an understanding of the network requirements and develop strategies to 

manage a number of communications command and control acquisitions in a coordinated fashion. 

These recent developments in Army acquisition present new 

questions for the Army that it really must address. It is not helpful 

to promise early capabilities, as we have seen here, if they are not 

technically mature or reliable. 

Last year we cautioned that moving too fast with immature designs could cause additional delays as contractors concurrently address technology, design, and production issues. The Army must 

now incorporate that lesson as it examines its current acquisition 

strategies. 

After a rough start the Army has shown a willingness to rethink 

its original ground combat vehicle acquisition approach, for exam-
26 

ple. However, the acquisition strategy is still very ambitious, allowing just 4 years of product development before delivering its first 

vehicle. 

During the next 2 years in technology development the Army 

must determine whether this proposed timeframe is sufficient. If 

not, it must be prepared to add time and resources to the development of the ground combat vehicle and it must retain the flexibility 

and the resolve, frankly, to ensure that the right work gets done 

now. And that means good systems engineering, good technology 

development, and good requirements definition. 

The GCV acquisition, if done right, could be a breakthrough for 

Army acquisitions. However, if the risks are not appropriately accounted for right now it could end up in the same failed position 

that the Army found itself in with the FCS and other programs. 

More importantly, decisions on whether and how the ground 

combat vehicle program enters the acquisition process will define 

how recent acquisition reform legislation will actually be implemented. These decisions will be symbolic, from that standpoint. 

The Congress and the department have enacted acquisition reforms in both legislation and policy, and now is the time to enforce 

those reforms by making the tough decisions at the service, the department, and at the congressional levels. If this program does not 

measure up to the standards in law and in policy, yet is approved 

and wins funding, it will be a setback to acquisition reform. 

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my prepared statement. I will be 

happy to answer any questions. 

[The joint prepared statement of Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Graveline 

can be found in the Appendix on page 86.] 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Graveline, for joining us. I understand you will 

be available for questions. 

Mr. GRAVELINE. Yes, sir. Happy to be here. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you. 

Let me turn now to my good friend and ranking member, Mr. 

Reyes. 

Mr. REYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Gilmore, in your testimony you raised some concerns about 

how the Army will conduct a major network testing event at Fort 

Bliss this summer, as you made mention. Can you be a little more 

specific about your concerns, aside from the comments that you 

made in—I guess putting it in context in terms of the requirement 

to be able to function in an integrated manner? 

Mr. GILMORE. My concern is that we don’t know how many 

GMRs are going to be in the test. We don’t know what units will 

have them at what levels. We don’t know what kind of information 

the test units will try to transmit over the mobile Internet. 

Absent that kind of information, it is very difficult to plan for the 

test. We also don’t know the same thing for WIN–T and some of 

the other systems that are going to be tested. 

We don’t know what the Army’s plan is for collecting data. We 

don’t know that the Army is going to have sufficient capacity to collect the digital information needed to do a full assessment of the 

performance of the systems. 
27 

These are things that we would expect, at this point, to already 

know. Hopefully we will know them by the middle of this month, 

around the 18th of March. That is the current schedule on which 

this information should be provided. However, originally it was 

supposed to have been provided a month ago. 

And if we are going to start testing in June and we don’t know 

how many radios are going to be on the—you know, on the—in the 

test, who is going to be using them, what they are going to be trying to use them to do, how the information is going to be collected, 

that is a concern. 

Mr. REYES. If you were us, what would be your recommendations 

as to the—first of all, the ability to conduct the test; secondly, the 

ability to track the data that you are concerned about; and third, 

how the results would be utilized? What would be your recommendations? 

Mr. GILMORE. First of all, we can conduct the tests but we have 

to plan appropriately and we have to have enough time to do that 

planning. In fact, that was a lesson learned from the operational 

testing of the E–IBCT systems in 2009, where we had a good plan 

but we couldn’t execute it and so we didn’t get as much information 

as we needed in 2009. 

We can conduct the tests. We need sufficient time to plan them 

and we need to make sure that the Army Test and Evaluation 

Command is staffed and has the infrastructure necessary to collect 

the data and analyze it. 

So at this point my recommendation would be—and this may be 

not greeted with joy by some senior leaders in the Army—my recommendation would be that we wait until the end of the window 

for testing this summer in order to do the test. There is a window 

over which it could be conducted. 

Currently, it is planned to begin at the beginning of that window, 

at the earliest possible time. I would recommend, at this point, that 

we look hard at giving ourselves a little more time to plan the 

test—not delaying it, you know, a significantly long amount of 

time, but maybe delaying it about 6 weeks so that we have sufficient time to plan the test so that it can be executed in such a way 

that it gives us the information that we really need to support General Chiarelli’s desire—and I fully support it—to get this equipment out into the field as quickly as we can. 

Mr. REYES. So based on your work, your concerns are predicated 

on either the lack of information, or lack of access to the information, or—what is the basis for your—— 

Mr. GILMORE. It is not the lack of access to information. We are 

working well with the Army. They are sharing information as they 

have it, so there is no problem with access to information. It is just 

they have not yet been able to figure this out. 

And that is not a criticism of, you know, of the Army. I don’t 

mean this as a harsh criticism at all. This is going to be one of the 

most complex tests the Army has ever conducted of its communication systems, and it will be a comprehensive test. And I support it. 

We need to do comprehensive tests of these networks. 

But, because it is comprehensive and it is so complex—and this 

is the first time we are attempting it, so we are just beginning to 

learn how to do this—we need to make sure that we have enough 
28 

time to make this test a success. And then as we move forward we 

will learn and we will be able to support the Army’s desire and 

General Chiarelli’s vision to do these tests every few months, every 

year, and have them yield the information we need to get this 

equipment out into the field quickly. 

But this is the first one. It is very complex, and so I would recommend that we take a little more time to make sure that it is a 

success. 

Mr. REYES. I guess the obvious question is, have you made those 

recommendations and what have—what has the Army—— 

Mr. GILMORE. I have discussed this with General Dellarocco, who 

is the commander of the Army Test and Evaluation Command, and 

we are working on it. He shares a number of my concerns. Of 

course, he and the Army leadership are reluctant, until they absolutely have to, to admit that a delay may be in order. 

And they may come up with this information in the next couple 

of weeks and it may be sufficiently comprehensive that I would 

then evaluate that a delay is not needed. I don’t mean to completely prejudge this. I am just expressing a concern because this 

information is already late to need. 

Mr. REYES. Okay. Thank you. 

Just one more question for Mr. Sullivan. 

In your testimony you raised concerns about the 7-year schedule 

to the ground combat vehicle. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. REYES. However, the Army is still evaluating, as we understand it, the three bids it received from the defense industry. So 

I guess what I am wondering is how can you assess that the schedule is ‘‘high risk’’ if you haven’t seen what the different companies 

will propose? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, I think, I guess to clarify that a little bit, 

it is not necessarily that we see it at high risk at this point. We 

haven’t seen enough, I guess. But just judging from past history 

and how these programs have gone before, 7 years is a very ambitious schedule. So what we have is a lot of questions. 

I think that is probably—you know, right now there are a lot of 

questions and it may take a year or so to sort these out. But what 

we are really concerned about is if, when they do get to a Milestone 

A and a Milestone B we want to make sure that the decisionmakers make decisions based on really good knowledge. 

So, you know, what we look for is the maturity of the technologies they are using and to make sure that their required capabilities they are going for are really doable. Right now we are waiting to see. I guess that is the best way to put it. 

Mr. REYES. Fair enough. And since the Army has stated that 

they are taking an incremental approach to the development is it 

possible that the, you know, that the first phase, the first increment will not achieve all the requirements based on the benchmarks and that it is designed that way, to—— 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. In fact, we would—— 

Mr. REYES [continuing]. Develop it slowly—slower and more methodically? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes, sir. In fact, that is what we have advocated. 

And, you know, we have done a lot of work looking at best prac-
29 

tices on how to develop products and we have always said that 

the—if you can do it in a knowledge-based way, you know, where 

you really, truly understand your requirements and you do it incrementally, not in such a revolutionary fashion, you know, like a lot 

of the weapon systems where they begin inventing things, that is 

the best way to do it because you—as long as you are delivering 

needed value to the warfighter and improved value over what they 

have and you are getting that to the warfighter a lot quicker, we 

see that as a win-win. 

So the first increment, you know, not being real sexy and a big 

bang or anything, we—you know, as long as it meets the 

warfighter’s needs that is a good thing. 

Mr. REYES. And based on General Chiarelli’s testimony earlier, 

the manner in which the Abrams tank—you know, he mentioned 

it has been upgraded numerous times and that is basically, at least 

the way I understood it, that is basically the approach they are 

using for the GCV. Is that, in your mind, a good approach? Is 

that—— 

Mr. SULLIVAN. That is the approach we would actually like to 

see. We will believe it when we see it, I guess, is one way to put 

it. 

Mr. REYES. All right. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much. 

Dr. Gilmore, one of the striking outcomes of the 2010 limited 

tester using of the Early–Infantry Brigade Combat Team equipment was that a majority of performance requirements were demonstrated, but in spite of that the equipment provided little or no 

military utility for the force. How could this have happened, sir? 

Mr. GILMORE. I can’t give you a completely definitive answer. I 

can give you my impressions. 

The requirements that existed tended to be, for the most part, 

what I would characterize as technical performance specifications 

that engineers could relatively easily measure. So there were requirements for the resolution of the cameras used in the unattended ground sensors, for example. 

What the requirements didn’t specify was that the sensors 

should be capable of being easily concealed. This was a problem for 

both sets of sensors—the urban unattended ground sensors, which 

are, you know, similar in appearance to the kinds of sensors that 

the alarm company I use in my home sticks up on my wall, as well 

as the tactical unattended ground sensors, which are larger sensor 

sets that are placed outside. 

One of the problems with those—well, there were several problems with them, but one of the problems with those is that in order 

to connect to the network there is a large antenna that sticks up 

where the sensor field is, basically saying, ‘‘In case, enemy, you 

were wondering where the sensors are, they are right over here 

where this antenna is.’’ 

So the primary problems seem to be—and this is not unique to 

Army programs—is that the requirements were stated mostly in 

terms of technical specifications that were easily measured—and 

they must—and those technical specifications certainly have to be 

satisfied in order for the systems to be useful. In other words, the 
30 

camera did have to have sufficient resolution for you to be able to 

recognize a face, for example, or recognize a human versus someone else—something else. But they aren’t sufficient to guarantee 

military utility. 

To fix this problem—and in fact, I think the Decker-Wagner 

panel, in its recommendations, addressed some of these problems 

with requirements, and I agree with a number of their findings, 

but we need to get the operators involved much sooner in the development of requirements. It shouldn’t be a bureaucratic process. 

The operators need to get involved early on. 

And I would suggest that the testers should get involved early 

on, particularly people from my office. The law last year made my 

office an official advisor to the Joint Requirements Oversight Council, and I view that as a good thing. We are participating in JROC 

[Joint Requirements Oversight Council] deliberations. 

But that is not sufficient. We have to get involved earlier in 

the—when the services themselves, before they bring the requirements to the JROC, when they are actually developing them, to 

give them our perspectives and our lessons learned on what we 

have found useful when we have done testing and what we haven’t. 

And we also monitor what goes on in the field. 

And then also, we can advise them on whether requirements are 

technically realistic or not, based on our experience. And then 

when they are technically realistic, if they are, we can advise them 

on what the implications are for testing of those requirements. 

So getting more people involved earlier, particularly the real operators and the testers who have a lot of experience, would be very 

useful. And I think that that is consistent with some of the recommendations made by the Decker-Wagner panel. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you. 

We understand that the results of the 2009 limited tester—user 

testing were obscured by poor reliability of the equipment being 

tested. Are you more confident with the results of the 2010 limited 

user testing? 

Mr. GILMORE. Yes, I am. The reliability of many of the systems 

was, as you note, very poor in the 2009 testing, but with regard 

to operational effectiveness we saw many of the same things in 

2010, albeit with substantially improved reliability, with the exception of systems like the unmanned aerial system—we saw, essentially, the same kinds of things. 

In the 2009 limited user test we saw that the majority of the images taken by both sets of sensors were blank or blurry and didn’t 

provide useful information. We saw that the UAS was noisy and 

difficult to pack around and had limited utility. 

So unfortunately the answer is yes, I am—you know, I am confident that the assessment that we generated is correct. 

Mr. BARTLETT. In regard to weapon systems taking too long to 

get into production, some believe that we might shorten that time 

by reducing the quantity of testing. Can you—in this regard what 

should the individual services be doing that they currently aren’t 

now doing to work more effectively and efficiently with your organization? 

Mr. GILMORE. Let me comment first on this proposition that we 

should be, you know, cutting back on testing. My office doesn’t 
31 

want to do gold-plated testing. We don’t want to do any more testing than is required. 

But we do want to do testing that is sufficiently robust so that 

decisionmakers here in the Congress and in the executive branch 

have the information they need as quickly as they can get it to 

make decisions on these systems, which frequently cost many billions if not tens-of-billions of dollars, and that is an important mission my office has under the law. But even more importantly, we 

want the information to be available to the commanders in the field 

and the soldiers in the field so that they understand what they are 

getting and, just as importantly, what they are not getting. 

And my office has demonstrated, in the case of double-V hull, in 

the case of testing of the mine resistant ambush protected vehicles—both the original versions of the vehicles and then the all-terrain versions of the vehicles—and the ongoing testing of the Gray 

Eagle ER/MP [Extended-Range/Multi-Purpose] UAV, in which my 

office took the initiative to combine testing and training at the National Training Center so that we could not only get test data but 

also train the units, because we saw that they weren’t being 

trained sufficiently when they were being deployed as part of the 

quick reaction packages that are now being deployed to Afghanistan. 

We want to do testing as quickly as possible to get equipment 

that works into the field so that the soldiers in combat can use it. 

But what I mentioned as a lesson learned here I think is a clear 

lesson learned, and that is, to do that—to get equipment into the 

field quickly—you need to do robust, rigorous testing early and 

often. 

And so one of the things that I have been pushing, even though 

I am in charge of operational testing—the law says I can advise on 

developmental testing. I have been pushing for earlier, more rigorous developmental testing, and I see that, unfortunately, in many 

instances, including the E–IBCT systems, that hasn’t been done. 

We need to do that. 

Then I will not be giving you these pessimistic operational test 

reports, which I do not enjoy giving you. It is much better if we 

can detect these problems early when they can be fixed more 

cheaply or we can make an informed decision that, you know, fixing these problems really isn’t going to be cost effective. It isn’t 

really going to be feasible. We need to stop and pursue a different 

approach. 

So I think it is key to do rigorous, robust testing—not gold-plated 

testing. If we do it and if we plan for it, that will enable us to get 

these systems into the field more quickly. Not as quickly as we 

often plan for, because unfortunately the Department of Defense 

still is the department of wishful thinking in many ways, but more 

quickly than will otherwise happen if we have to redo tests, redesign equipment, restructure programs, with all the efficiency and 

increased costs that that yields. So I hope that answers your question, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you. 

In your testimony you mentioned that developmental testing is 

a key to successful operational testing. How can we improve the relationship between developmental testing and operational testing? 
32 

Mr. GILMORE. Oh, and this gets to the one question that you 

asked me previously that I actually didn’t answer, and so I will try 

to do that now: You need to get the testers involved early. Just as 

I said we need to be involved early in the development of requirements, we need to be involved early in the programs, once the program’s offices are set up and once the program managers are installed. 

And we are willing to do that; we are doing that. For example, 

we have done it in Stryker double-V hull. We are doing it in Gray 

Eagle. I can go down the list. 

If you get the testers involved early—and I can cite you many examples in all of the services where that is happening; I can also 

cite you some examples where it is not happening. For example, it 

didn’t occur in the Joint Strike Fighter program until within the 

last year-and-a-half, and particularly with the advent of Admiral 

Venlet taking charge of that program. 

The restructuring that occurred in JSF [Joint Strike Fighter] 

under Secretary Carter and Admiral Venlet—it dealt with problems that are mentioned in detail in several of the DOT&E [Director, Operational Test & Evaluation] annual reports preceding my 

assumption of this office but continuing in the report that I issued 

last year—in the reports I issued last year and this year. 

So getting us involved, having a dialogue with us, listening to 

our concerns, let us understand what the concerns of the program 

managers are because they are always under the gun for time and 

schedule and we understand that and we want to help them out 

in both regards—but getting us involved early and getting the developmental testers involved earlier, and doing more robust governmental testing as well as contractor testing—on a number of these 

contractors that have been led over the last decade we have been 

relying on the contractors to do the testing and the record is not 

very good, so I think we need to reinvigorate government developmental testing. All those things will clearly help. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Sir, across the department we have trouble during operational testing. How much of that do you think is due to 

a lack of quality developmental testing along with trying to test immature technologies? 

Mr. GILMORE. The short answer is, much of it. I think it was true 

in the case of E–IBCT. It has been true, for—another example is 

the advanced anti-radiation guided missile. 

Early last year I was presented a test plan for operational testing of that missile. I reviewed the developmental testing that had 

been done, which was just a few shots. My response was, to the 

Navy acquisition leadership, ‘‘I am not going to prevent you from 

going to operational testing because I know you will learn a lot 

from it, but I think you are also going to be disappointed by the 

results.’’ 

So they took the missiles, they put them on the aircraft, and the 

missiles started to fail for a variety of different reasons. A variety 

of different failure modes manifested themselves. 

The planes would take off, the operational test squadron; they 

would have to turn back because the missiles failed and couldn’t 

be fired. This happened so often that the operational—the commander of the operational test squadron said, ‘‘’We are going to 
33 

stop testing. We can’t fire the missiles. We can’t test. And there are 

so many different failures occurring we don’t know what is happening.’’ 

So they stopped the operational test, which was unfortunately 

what I had thought would probably happen, based on my review 

of what the developmental testing had been—was. Now they have 

been working on the missiles to try and fix the problems. I got a 

report just last week that they have, unfortunately, still been exhibiting a lot of failures, many of which are not yet completely understood. 

These are problems that should not surface for the first time during operational testing. They should be worked out during developmental testing, and unfortunately they are not. 

So again, the short answer to your question is yes, that is clearly 

a problem and I hope that we can work to fix it. Now, it is hard. 

It is hard even when budgets are fat, and the budgets are not fat 

now. 

And it is very hard for a program manager who is under the gun 

for budget and schedule to take additional time and spend additional money for testing. Then it comes to operational tests and I 

have to report very straightforwardly, both to the Secretary of Defense and to you, what the results are. 

And those results, when they are stark and they are publicized 

in that manner, then force them to go back and restructure the 

program and relook. And that is a good thing—better late than 

never—but it would be much, much better if that happened sooner. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Sullivan, as the Army proceeds to implement its network investment strategy what advice would you offer the Army on how 

to proceed? What are the major areas of risk for the Army to focus 

its management attention? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, I think most importantly is the idea that 

they do it incrementally, you know, which I think they are trying 

to do now anyway. And the director here has been talking an awful 

lot about developmental testing and immature technologies and 

things like that. I think they have to work with technologies in advance in order to make sure they are mature. 

As we know, the network integration kits, for example have immature technologies. They were ready to go to procurement with 

this. In fact, they procured 81 kits already and they still have immature technologies on that. 

So in a way I think they are doing a lot of the things that we 

probably would recommend, and maybe Mr. Graveline could weigh 

in on this. But they are taking an incremental approach. They are 

kind of decentralizing this. 

This is not the Future Combat Systems system of systems operation anymore, and they are not relying as much on the information and—you know, the ground combat vehicle, for example, is 

going to be a big, heavy vehicle again so that, you know, it can 

have a lot of power and carry a lot of subsystems. They have reduced the emphasis on information cutting through the fog of war. 

I don’t know, Bill, if you have anything to add. 

Mr. GRAVELINE. I would just echo some of the things that Mike 

said, was about the incremental approach, and building on the cur-
34 

rent foundation of the network that they already have, because 

there are already a lot of the pieces are in place in the current 

forces now. And then secondly, their approach for demonstrating on 

a regular basis at Fort Bliss, building up the network over time 

there, having the operational forces working with it on a regular 

basis, working out the bugs, learning the best ways how to use it, 

that is just—it is a very good approach. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you. 

As the Army approaches the launch of the technology development phase of the ground combat vehicle what do you see as the 

major areas of risk for this program to meet its performance expectations within 7 years? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I think, as I was talking with Congressman Reyes 

about that, it is hard to tell right now really what the risks are. 

We do know that they had an extreme amount of risk, I think, with 

their first RFP in the areas of armor. You know, I think they had 

a lot of very, very immature technologies they were looking for for 

armor protection, and then a lot of the sensors on there, a lot of 

the 360-degree protection that they were looking for was calling for 

technologies that were pretty high-risk and pretty immature. 

Now, they pulled back the RFP. They looked at it again and we 

have been told that they reduced the need for a lot of those technologies. They have reduced the capability in order to be able to 

control time and cost a little bit more. 

The question—so there is a risk there—are they going to get 

enough bang for their buck? And, you know, that is kind of the balance, I think, that you have to play when you try to go for an incremental approach like that. 

So the risk on ground combat vehicle now is, number one, we 

probably would like to take a better look at what the RFP really 

calls for, what technologies they are trying to integrate into a system, and then in that short period of time whether or not they can 

do, you know, kind of a clean sheet of paper design. There is a lot 

of integration risk, I guess, too—not just technology, but system integration risk. They need a lot of systems engineering done early 

on that program. 

Mr. BARTLETT. You questioned in your written statement whether the Army’s final assessment of the reduced GCV requirements 

during its analysis of alternatives was sufficiently robust. Can you 

expand a bit on this? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. I think when we looked at the first RFP that 

went out—first of all, they initiated the beginnings of the program 

before the analysis of alternatives was complete, so they kind of 

had an RFP out there for some exotic technologies needed to meet 

the capabilities before they had the analysis done. When the analysis—the original analysis of alternatives came in for the first set 

of requirements it came in and said that this was a very risky— 

basically there was no way that they could accomplish this in 7 

years; there was too much technology risk, too much integration 

risk, you know, the industrial base probably wasn’t fully prepared 

for this. 

But that is when the Army take it—and they said, I think they 

put an estimate on the eventual unit cost of the ground combat vehicle somewhere between $18 million and $23 million, which bust-
35 

ed the Army’s budget. The Army is looking for a target of somewhere around $10 million. 

To the Army’s credit, that is when they pulled that RFP back. 

When they sent the new one out with the new set of requirements 

that were lower the analysis team looked at that again but we 

don’t believe that they did a full analysis. In fact, we would recommend—one thing that we would recommend at this point in the 

ground combat vehicle is that they do a robust, very quantitative 

analysis of this new RFP before they get too much further down 

the road. 

They did a kind of a qualitative assessment. I don’t want to—the 

team looked at it. They didn’t do the modeling and simulation they 

had done before, they just kind of looked at the changes they made 

and looked at the delta and said, ‘‘Yes, this looks less risky,’’ more 

or less. 

Mr. BARTLETT. I have a couple questions about lessons we 

learned with the procurement of MRAPs. How long was it from ‘‘we 

need it’’ to ‘‘we had it’’? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, I will be a little bit fuzzy on this but I think 

it was within a couple of years when they—you know, once an urgent need statement went in to the time they delivered the first 

systems I think was within 2 years. Is that right? 

Mr. GRAVELINE. Yes, I believe so. There seemed to be some lag 

from the—there was some tracing back of the original needs from 

the warfighters, and that seemed to take some time to get up to 

the right levels and get the needs statements—— 

Mr. SULLIVAN. But suffice it to say it was an efficient process. 

Mr. GRAVELINE. Yes. 

Mr. BARTLETT. It certainly was. And is the ground combat vehicle so enormously more complex? Does it have so many more required capabilities? 

My understanding is that MRAPs have done pretty much what 

we wanted it to do and we kind of bypassed all of our very meticulous checkpoints to get it there as quickly as we could and we really did. We got it there in a couple of years. 

You are looking at a program here that is 7 years—three-and-ahalf times longer—and you are questioning whether it is doable or 

not? What kind of lessons have we learned from the procurement 

of MRAPs that might help us here? Do we really need to go 

through—this really was revolutionary, wasn’t it? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, the MRAP—it was—it certainly was an incredible development and acquisition program to meet an extremely urgent need. It met the need. 

I don’t know that it was a revolutionary—I mean, basically what 

they did—— 

Mr. BARTLETT. I didn’t mean, sir, that the platform was revolutionary—— 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Right. 

Mr. BARTLETT [continuing]. I meant the procurement was revolutionary. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. The speed of time it took for them to get that 

fielded was incredible. 

Mr. BARTLETT. It was incredible. 

Mr. GILMORE. Mr. Chairman, could I—— 
36 

Mr. BARTLETT. Yes. 

Mr. GILMORE [continuing]. Offer something here? 

We were already building—MRAPs were already being built. It 

is a very heavy armored truck. It was not a great leap forward in 

technology. 

Mr. BARTLETT. But it met our needs, did it not? 

Mr. GILMORE. And it met our needs—— 

Mr. BARTLETT [continuing]. The question, do we really need all 

of these technologies to meet our needs since the MRAPs obviously 

did? 

Mr. GILMORE. It depends upon what those needs are. The needs 

in the case of MRAP were clear and relatively simple: Protect crew 

from underbody blasts—— 

Mr. BARTLETT. Right. 

Mr. GILMORE [continuing]. Which was actually something the 

Army hadn’t really thought about a lot prior to the experience in 

Iraq because it hadn’t had that experience. The South Africans had 

and so they had already designed the predecessors of the MRAPs 

that we have and were already building them, as were others. 

So if you are not going to take a revolutionary leap forward you 

can design and test in parallel, and produce in parallel with testing, and get the equipment into the field very quickly. 

And, you know, is it possible, in my view, to do a ground combat 

vehicle in 7 years or even less than 7 years? Yes. But it depends 

upon what kind of requirements you are trying to impose. 

If you are trying to impose a great leap forward in sensor technology or active protection system technology then you may need 

7 years or you may need more. If you are trying to build an upgraded version of a Bradley you can do that relatively quickly. 

So, you know, the requirements and the schedule go together. 

And by the way, the budgets are coupled in there, too; the costs are 

coupled in there, too. 

Now, I have heard—and, you know, it is expressed by senior 

leaders in the Army, ‘‘Well, only once every 20 years or so do we 

get an opportunity to build a new ground combat vehicle so we 

want to get the best that we possibly can,’’ and I understand that 

view. But if we want to get the best that we possibly can and that 

turns into a revolutionary leap forward then it will take time to get 

it. If we are willing to settle for somewhat less then we can do it 

more quickly. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. Sullivan. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. One thing I would say about the ground combat 

vehicle now is that if you think about it, really they are doing, you 

know—what we are talking about really, the period of time where 

you are investing very, very large sums of money in product development, that really isn’t going to begin on that program until 2013. 

So what they are talking about is that product development period 

of really only 4 years. 

This 2-year period they are going to do now is kind of, you know, 

playing around with technologies and risk and kind of playing in 

the sandbox stuff with—I mean, I know it is a lot of money but it 

is a lot less money than when they finally say, ‘‘Okay, we are going 

to start integrating these products and doing all the full-scale test-
37 

ing on them.’’ So I think we are probably talking about 4 years, 

which is a little less. 

And then I would say that probably, because it is kind of a clean 

sheet of paper, it is going to have more capability and probably be 

at more risk than an MRAP. It is going to be a combat vehicle. It 

probably will be a little—it will take a little more time. 

But I get what you are saying. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. Reyes has a comment, observation, question. 

Mr. REYES. Well, you know, and mine is predicated on the issue 

of immature technologies. For instance, sensors—we were dropping 

long-range reconnaissance patrols on the Ho Chi Minh Trail north 

of the DMZ [Demilitarized Zone] in 1967, 1968, and they were— 

they had these PSIDs, the portable seismic intrusion devices, they 

were called, that they would just lay on the trails because there 

there were no friendlies. All they needed to know was that there 

was an alert, that there was somebody coming at them on these 

various trails so they would put those out there to be able to respond and they would put clamores and all these other kinds of 

protective devices in place. 

But my point of that is in 1972, when I was then in the border 

patrol, we were using these PSIDs, you know, surplus from Vietnam in the border patrol in 1972. So sensors have been around for 

40-plus years now that I personally worked with, and I saw—Fort 

Bliss is in my district, so I saw a lot of the soldiers that came back 

from—mostly veterans from Iraq—that got a chance to evaluate the 

sensors, the robots. You have the ‘‘flying keg’’ [Honeywell gas-powered Micro Air Vehicle], you know, if the wind was too high it 

wouldn’t maneuver right and all of these other things, but I can 

tell you, those soldiers were very much impressed and said, ‘‘We 

wish we could have had these first,’’ and some were veterans of 

Fallujah, and they wished that they could have used robots to go 

down those alleys rather than soldiers, their buddies that got killed 

because they went down those alleys. 

So when we talk about immature technologies we are not talking—I hope we are not talking about sensors and we are not talking about robots, because they have been around a long time. We 

have seen them evolve very quickly, as the chairman has said. 

You know, in wartime we have the capacity and the capability 

to accelerate these things because lives are on the line. I was with 

Chairman Hunter, and as the chairman here was, when we went 

to Quantico to test some of the armor repulsive capability to do the 

V-hull and the MRAPs and stuff like that. So I, like the chairman, 

think—I am all for testing and I am all for making sure that we 

follow the carpenter’s rule, measure twice and cut once, but we just 

have to streamline this process because we have seen it done better. 

And that is why I wanted to comment on the immature technologies, because they—sensors have been around, you know, in 

my lifetime since I was a soldier going into North Vietnam to drop 

these LRRPs [Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols] in there. And I 

was—frankly, I was amazed that we were, still in the combat evaluation brigade, that we were still evaluating these things. 

And I guess when I asked the questions they said it is because 

they have to be part of the network. And it is not just the squad 
38 

that is using these things, like the LRRPs, that are going to have 

to maneuver and respond to them; they want to have it at the— 

I guess at the company level, at the battalion level, so that they 

can see a fuller picture of what the battlefield looks like. That was 

the reason that they gave me why they needed to be a little more 

complex. 

But they were—border patrol today is using those. They bury the 

battery and there is nothing that sticks out except a little reed-like 

antenna. So the capability to hide them was not an issue. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, yes, I think that is an instance where you 

are certainly not gold-plating the requirements, right? They are 

using pretty much what they need. 

Mr. REYES. Right. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. And, you know, I would say there are a lot of programs—acquisition—if you look at the F–16, for example, there is 

a pretty high-tech instrument, and that was a—really when you 

look at it it was an incremental. The sensors on the F–16—you 

know, all those sensors weren’t on there on the first one that came 

out in the 1970s, right? But they were able to—they worked the 

tech base. 

And I think sensors and subsystems do this a lot better. When 

you have a platform like a ground combat vehicle, which will eventually grow into all of these sensors as they develop, that is something different. You know, that is where you are—you have got to 

get the technologies right on that. 

But, you know, you do see a lot—F–16, F–15 were examples of 

pretty good acquisitions where they did that incrementally, and 

you can take advantage of—you know, you grow the sensors and 

grow their capabilities in the tech base. You know, you invent and 

do trial and error with the S&T [Science & Technology] money, and 

when they are ready they should be able to snap into a ground 

combat vehicle. 

That is another thing about this is open systems architecture is 

critical for all of that. 

Mr. BARTLETT. That was going to be my final question: When 

will we know enough about spiral development and open architecture so that we can start with a platform like the MRAPs and then 

have it current with technology for the next 30, 40 years of its life? 

Couldn’t we shorten these programs? Now we try to build into 

the original platform all the bells and whistles that are conceivable. 

Wouldn’t it be better to start simple and put them in when we 

know that we are really mature? 

How far are we away from our ability to do a spiral development 

with open architecture so that we can do this? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, I would hope that the Army, with the 

ground combat—that is one of the things that, for example, we 

would be looking for if we were asked to go in at Milestone B, 

where they make the business case. You know, we have looked at 

the capabilities, we have system engineered them, we have looked 

at the technologies needed, we know they are mature. So if you 

have a business case that has a lot of knowledge about what you 

are going to build, it is not too big, it has open systems architecture, for example, and it is going to be the first increment but we 

are going to put space, power, and cooling in there and pay atten-
39 

tion to open systems so as new technologies come available we can 

snap them in, you know plug and play—we would expect that— 

that is something that we would be looking for on the ground combat vehicle. 

Mr. GILMORE. I would just say, I think we can do it now. It is 

just a matter of deciding to do it. 

Mr. BARTLETT. So why don’t—— 

Mr. GILMORE. I would also say we have done it before, perhaps 

not with as much forethought as you are engaging in. But the B– 

52 has been around for a very, very long time. It has seen many 

different uses. 

At the time it was built people decided to build a long-range aircraft that could carry a lot of payload and they did the best job of 

it that they could. They probably didn’t try to engage in some big 

analysis of what would happen even 10 years in the future because 

they couldn’t foresee it, but they built a good truck of an aircraft 

at the time—the best one that they could build—and it has had a 

lot of use since then. 

So I think it is more than just thinking about the technologies 

that are available. It is shifting your view of what it is you want 

to do and changing the culture of it. 

Mr. BARTLETT. I have one last, last question. Sometimes you can 

get 95 percent of the way there for half the cost of getting 100 percent of the way there. Who is making those kind of judgments as 

we move along? 

Mr. GILMORE. Well, I would say that Secretary Gates has been 

making them. And not everyone agrees with all of the decisions—— 

Mr. BARTLETT. But there are thousands of these little things 

along the way in development and, you know, you ask for something and if you only needed 95 percent of that you might get it 

2 years quicker and at half the cost. Who is out there looking at 

these things saying, ‘‘Hey, guys, do you really need 100 percent? 

Won’t 95 percent do okay because it will cost half as much and you 

will get it in half the time’’? Who is doing that kind of thing and 

looking at these—— 

Mr. GILMORE. I would say that Secretary Carter is doing that. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Okay. 

Mr. GILMORE. He has done it on ground combat vehicle. 

I would say that General Chiarelli is doing that, and Secretary 

McHugh are doing that—— 

Mr. BARTLETT. That is kind of a 30,000-foot evaluation and I 

would like to see it down at the—— 

Mr. GILMORE. I understand. But Under Secretary Westphal is 

also getting into it. Under Secretary Westphal and General 

Chiarelli are participating in these acquisition portfolio reviews 

and they are bringing in their subordinates to do this, and I would 

say in some sense they are training their subordinates to do that, 

who will eventually replace them. 

I would agree with you that there is a way to go in terms of getting those kinds of ideas and that way of thinking down lower into 

the service requirements organizations and so forth, but clearly 

General Chiarelli and the Army leadership are trying to do that. 

Secretary Gates is trying to do that. For example, you know, his 

push to get Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance capabilities 
40 

into the theater as quickly as possible, and I think he engaged in 

some teachable moments with the Air Force leadership in that regard. 

And I agree with you if your point is that is shouldn’t have to 

happen at the level of Secretary Gates. That is absolutely true. But 

it has to start somewhere and sometimes it has to start at the top 

and percolate down. 

Also, constrained budgets are going to play a big role here. There 

will be no choice but to try to go for the 50- and 75-percent solutions because the 90- or 95-percent solutions simply won’t be affordable. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Sir, by the time the Secretary gets involved we 

are several billions down the road and several years late. I would 

just like to see it start at the very beginning. Do you really need 

that? Because if you only have to get 95 percent of that can you 

live with that? That would only cost you half as much. 

People need to be asking those questions all along the line, and 

my perception is those questions don’t get asked. You just take it 

as a requirement and try to fulfill it, never telling them, ‘‘Gee, do 

you really need that requirement or would 95 percent of that be 

okay and that would really cost you a whole lot less?’’ 

Mr. SULLIVAN. The director made a good point a while back, and 

I think that, you know, the culture has an awful lot to do with this. 

The Army says we get to do this ground combat vehicle; this is our 

only chance in 20 years. They are going to gold-plate those requirements. They are going to make sure that this is the best thing 

since sliced bread. 

And that culture probably has to change a little bit, but—— 

Mr. BARTLETT. If you will excuse us for just a moment to welcome an old and dear friend. 

Mr. GILMORE. Certainly, sir. 

Mr. BARTLETT. You will recognize him from his picture on the 

wall. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. That is Morgan Freeman, right? 

Mr. BARTLETT. When he sat here I sat down there at that first 

chair 18 years ago. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. The only point I guess I would make, there are 

pockets of what you are talking about out there. Every once in a 

while they try it. You know, I would reach back to, like, JDAM 

[Joint Direct Attack Munition], the precision kit that was a simple, 

kind of, you know, a very unsexy thing that did a lot for precision 

strike, right? That was an 80-percent solution. 

And I think there are some systems now. I think of P–8A [Boeing 

Poseidon maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft], for example, 

which I think has made some pretty good trades—you know, not 

gold-plated, just trying to get the job done. And the reason is is because they need it because the system that it is replacing is getting 

really old. So, you know, when forced to good decisions can get 

made. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you. 

You have been a great panel. Thank you very, very much for 

your testimony and your service. 

[Whereupon, at 4:14 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 
A P P E N D I X 

MARCH 9, 2011 

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WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING 

THE HEARING 

MARCH 9, 2011 

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RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. BARTLETT 

General CHIARELLI. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

[See page 21.] 

RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. PLATTS 

General LENNOX. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] [See 

page 14.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

MARCH 9, 2011 

(115) 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. BARTLETT 

Mr. BARTLETT. I am pleased to see the Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP) 

supported as an Army priority. This program greatly reduces fuel consumption and 

increases power for the Black Hawk and Apache fleets and provides the engine for 

the next generation helicopter. I am concerned that all too often we make premature 

selections that result in schedule and cost escalation and cancelled programs. It is 

important that this program embraces competition through flight demonstration in 

order to reduce risk and validate operational capability. Please keep congress informed on the acquisition strategy and status of this key program. Please explain 

what measures the Army is taking in the acquisition strategy to ensure there is 

competition beyond the Science & Technology phase and into Flight Demonstration. 

General CHIARELLI. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. BARTLETT. 1. In a recent ‘‘Inside the Army’’ article there was a quote that 

said the Early-Infantry Brigade Combat Team is a ‘‘great example of how technology 

changes so rapidly, based on requirements that were written a long time ago.’’ 

Might not the same logic apply to the various pieces of ‘‘the network,’’ Nett Warrior, 

and other future Army systems still in the acquisition pipeline? What is the Army 

doing now to ensure that the requirements for these systems have also not grown 

stale? 

General CHIARELLI, General PHILLIPS, and General LENNOX. [The information was 

not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. BARTLETT. 2. The committee noted that the Early-Infantry Brigade Combat 

Team (E–IBCT) test results in 2010 were not very different from the results of the 

2009 E–IBCT operational tests, with the exception of improved reliability of several 

systems. Our concern is that DOD and the Army spends millions of dollars and a 

great deal of institutional energy on these tests. Do you believe that the Army is 

capturing and applying the lessons learned from these operational tests? 

General CHIARELLI, General PHILLIPS, and General LENNOX. [The information was 

not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. BARTLETT. 3. The committee noted that the 2010 Early-Infantry Brigade Combat Team (E–IBCT) operational test not only revealed weaknesses in several E– 

IBCT systems, but also noted the lack of military utility of the network itself. The 

Army now has another important network operational test planned for this summer. 

What is the Army’s plan should this test also reveal that soldiers and their leaders 

don’t see utility in these new and expensive communications systems? 

General CHIARELLI, General PHILLIPS, and General LENNOX. [The information was 

not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. BARTLETT. 4. With regards to Ground Combat Vehicle, the committee notes 

that the Army plans to use mature technologies rather than concurrently chase 

some future as-yet-invented ones. We agree with that approach. However, since 

whatever replaces the Bradley Fighting Vehicle will have many of the same capabilities as our latest model Bradley fleet, has the Army considered other, non-newmateriel and perhaps far cheaper solutions such as changes to doctrine, training, 

manning, organization, etc.? For example, adding a fifth Bradley Fighting Vehicle 

to mechanized infantry platoon formations? 

General CHIARELLI, General PHILLIPS, and General LENNOX. [The information was 

not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. BARTLETT. 5. The Army has stated that its number one modernization priority 

is the Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) which may enter production in 2017 and replace the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle. The Abrams tank will remain in the 

inventory for the foreseeable future. As you know, this committee has long been concerned over the lack of balance between investment in the Army’s current and future force. There are concerns that it may be too early to put all our eggs in the 

one basket of GCV. We probably won’t have a better understanding in regards to 

what is doable in terms of GCV for a few more years. In the mean time, what is 

the Army doing to upgrade the current fleet including the Abrams tank in terms 

of RDTE and production? 

General CHIARELLI, General PHILLIPS, and General LENNOX. [The information was 

not available at the time of printing.] 
116 

Mr. BARTLETT. 6. What was the impact of terminating the Future Combat Systems Program and what has the Army learned from recent Limited Users Testing 

at Fort Bliss, TX? 

General CHIARELLI, General PHILLIPS, and General LENNOX. [The information was 

not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. BARTLETT. 7. What is the extent of the Army’s R&D effort to reduce the 

weight of body armor systems? What are your thoughts in establishing a task force 

similar to the MRAP Task Force and ISR Task Force to accelerate these efforts? 

General CHIARELLI, General PHILLIPS, and General LENNOX. [The information was 

not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. BARTLETT. 8. There is no funding in fiscal year 2012 for new production high 

mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles (HMMWV or ‘humvee’). Could you please 

elaborate on the Army’s acquisition strategy for Humvees? 

General CHIARELLI, General PHILLIPS, and General LENNOX. [The information was 

not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. BARTLETT. 9. In today’s austere budget environment, can the Army afford to procure the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) at a base unit cost of $300–400,000 

and a total unit cost of $700–800,000? I understand the Army plans to procure 

about 50,000 JLTVs. How much better than the Humvee is JLTV projected to be? 

General CHIARELLI, General PHILLIPS, and General LENNOX. [The information was 

not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. BARTLETT. 10. As it currently stands, the Abrams tank program is set to have 

a production break (of upgraded vehicles) in 2013 and a full blown Abrams modernization effort isn’t scheduled to begin until 2016. Some might say that it is too 

expensive to continue to upgrade battle tanks just to keep the industrial base employed. However, this issue is much larger than that. Would we let our only tactical 

fighter producer close down production 5 years before its replacement was scheduled 

to be procured? And while Foreign Military Sales (FMS) may have been a possible 

risk mitigation in the past, the current FMS market is uncertain. Is the Army currently looking at any alternatives to minimize the impact of this production break? 

For example, is it possible to upgraded older National Guard tanks to bring them 

in line with the most modern version that the Active Duty forces have? 

General CHIARELLI, General PHILLIPS, and General LENNOX. [The information was 

not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. BARTLETT. It is my understanding that a contract to manufacture M915 line 

haul tractors was competitively awarded to Freightliner, now Daimler Trucks North 

American, on September 8, 2000. I also understand it was a 7-year requirements 

contract, that has since been extended for 3 years on a sole source basis. Now the 

Army is proposing to buy another 222 vehicles sole source using anticipated FY 11, 

12 and 13 funds. It is also my understanding that the justification for the sole 

source award is that competition would result in unacceptable delays and duplicative costs. 

1. Is it correct to say that the M915A5 line haul tractor the Army is buying sole 

source is just an upgraded version of a vehicle designed almost two decades ago? 

General PHILLIPS. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. BARTLETT. 2. What are the major differences in the original configuration and 

the configuration of current vehicles? 

General PHILLIPS. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. BARTLETT. 3. Since it has not held a competition in nearly 11 years, how does 

the Army know it is getting the best truck available for the best possible price? Is 

it possible that industry could provide a safer more fuel efficient truck at less cost 

than the Army is paying for the M915A5? 

General PHILLIPS. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. BARTLETT. 4. The J&A provided this committee stated that it would take 39 

months to begin full rate of production of a new line haul tractor. That seems like 

a very long time to buy what is essentially, a commercial vehicle. But assuming that 

is an accurate projection, why is it unacceptable, since none of the funds requested 

for FY 11 were identified for Overseas Contingency Operations? 

General PHILLIPS. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. BARTLETT. 5. The Army procured MRAP and Stryker vehicles competitively 

during a time of war, why can’t it buy a truck? 

General PHILLIPS. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. BARTLETT. 6. The other justification for making a sole source award is that 

a competition would result in duplicative costs of $20.8 million that could not be 

recovered through competition. These included buying test vehicles, operational 

tests, logistics costs and Armor kits. One, how does the Army know it could not recover those costs since it hasn’t held a competition in nearly 11 years? Second, 

aren’t similar costs incurred as part of any acquisition? If the Army’s logic who ex-
117 

trapolated to every vehicle or weapon it buys, wouldn’t it be forced to continue buying the same product from the same vendor in perpetuity? 

General PHILLIPS. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. BARTLETT. Also, the J&A stated that Daimler would pay some of the costs 

for the proposed sole source procurement. Please provide for the record, the legal 

basis for this arrangement (i.e. the governing statute, FAR provision, comptroller 

general decision and case law). Please provide for the record: 

a. The schedule for delivering each of the 222 vehicles the Army plans to procure 

sole source to units and identify when those units are expected to deploy to Afghanistan or Iraq. 

General PHILLIPS. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. BARTLETT. b. The procurement history for the MRAP and Stryker vehicles to 

include: the date the RFP was issued; the length of time for safety/operational testing and date that full rate of production began. 

General PHILLIPS. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. BARTLETT. 1. One of the striking outcomes of the 2010 limited user testing 

of the Early-Infantry Brigade Combat Team equipment was that a majority of performance requirements were demonstrated but that the equipment provided little or 

no military utility for the force. From your perspective, could you offer an explanation on how this outcome could have possibly occurred? We understand that the 

results of the 2009 limited user testing were obscured by the poor reliability of the 

equipment being tested. Are you more confident with the results of the 2010 limited 

user testing? 

Mr. GILMORE. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. BARTLETT. 2. One of the two Early-Infantry Brigade Combat Team items of 

equipment that is moving forward is the Network Integration Kit (NIK). However, 

its performance during the 2010 limited user testing was marginal at best. Do you 

think that the testing was robust enough to either demonstrate its potential or its 

true limitations? Some of the test findings were that the NIK was cumbersome to 

operate and its contribution to the operating unit was quite small. Are these correctable issues, in your view, or is there still hope for more positive results on the NIK? 

Mr. GILMORE. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. BARTLETT. 3. At the heart of the Network Integration Kit’s (NIK) problems 

seem to be the Joint Tactical Radio Systems (JTRS) and its complex waveforms. Although some technical experts have expressed grave concerns about the viability of 

these radios and waveforms, the Army seems intent on going forward with them in 

some fashion. From a test perspective, do we know enough yet to make an informed 

decision on the future of these technologies? 

Mr. GILMORE. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. BARTLETT. 4. The Army plans on establishing the Fort Bliss complex with a 

full composite brigade to, among other things, conduct regular demonstrations of the 

current tactical network as well as possible upgrades. Given the significant investments involved in this objective, do you support the Army’s network demonstration 

plans? Do the DOD and Army test communities have the necessary resources to 

monitor and evaluate the Army plans for network demonstrations? 

Mr. GILMORE. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. BARTLETT. One of the striking outcomes of the 2010 limited user testing of 

the EIBCT equipment was that a majority of performance requirements were demonstrated but that the equipment provided little or no military utility for the force. 

From your perspective, could you offer an explanation of how this outcome could 

have possibly occurred? We understand that the results of the 2009 LUT were obscured by the poor reliability of the equipment being tested. Are you more confident 

with the results of the 2010 LUT? 

Mr. SULLIVAN and Mr. GRAVELINE. First of all, the requirements were probably 

not thoroughly refined and vetted with the ultimate users of the equipment. For example, the Network Integration Kit has proven to be troublesome for the operators 

and its startup process is complicated and time consuming. These are things that 

the operators or users may have readily pointed out much earlier. Second, there was 

too much focus on what the equipment was expected to do and not enough focus 

on what burdens it may impose on the users. The Tactical Unmanned Ground Sensor did fairly well in detecting approaching threats but it was much heavier than 

expected and was time consuming to put in place and to support. The Class I unmanned aerial system was expected to ‘‘hover and stare’’ and send back video on 

enemy locations. However, it turned out to be very noisy and that eliminated any 

possibility of stealthy operations. Third, as we predicted earlier, the equipment was 

not technically mature and was not ready for production or fielding, no matter the 

perceived urgency in doing so. Fourth, the E–IBCT Increment 1 systems were a continuation of previous Future Combat System (FCS)-related efforts to spin out emerg-
118 

ing capabilities and technologies to current forces. FCS was to be a synergistic system-of-systems. The Army conducted a single analysis of alternatives for the program and concluded that an FCS-equipped brigade would be more effective than 

other Army combat brigades. When the FCS program was terminated, the Army restructured the program into the E–IBCT Modernization, which aimed to field subsets of former FCS systems to the current force. However, this decision was not informed by analyses of alternatives for the individual systems. Such analyses would 

have informed decision makers about the systems’ individual ability to satisfy a mission need outside of the earlier FCS fighting construct, which may have provided 

insights into their potential military utility. Finally, the poor reliability of the equipment did seem to prevent an earlier understanding of their poor military utility. 

Moreover, given the fact that the evaluations of the 2010 Limited User Tests from 

both the Army Test and Evaluation Command and the Director of Operational Test 

and Evaluation reached the same conclusions, we are confident in the results of 

testing. 

Mr. BARTLETT. One of the two EIBCT items of equipment that is moving forward 

is the NIK. However, its performance during the 2010 LUT was marginal at best. 

Do you think that the testing was robust enough to either demonstrate its potential 

or its true limitations? Some of the test findings were that the NIK was cumbersome to operate and its contribution to the operating unit was quite small. Are 

these correctable issues, in your view, or is there still hope for more positive results 

in the NIK? 

Mr. SULLIVAN and Mr. GRAVELINE. We would leave it up to the test and evaluation experts to determine whether the 2010 limited user testing was sufficiently robust. However, the NIK’s performance in that testing was marginal at best and it 

did not contribute very much to the unit’s effectiveness. This indicates that the testing was at least robust enough to expose operational inadequacies in the NIK systems. The Under Secretary approved additional NIK production but directed the 

Army to correct a number of deficiencies and continue testing before fielding the 

NIK to operating units. We believe that this is vitally important. Only systems that 

are proven to be reliable and capable should be fielded to our warfighters. Hopefully, the Army can identify solutions to the NIK deficiencies in the coming months 

but those solutions will need to be thoroughly demonstrated in testing. Moreover, 

it is important to keep in mind that the Army has clearly stated that they do not 

consider the NIK to be a viable, affordable, long-term solution. We agree and do not 

see the need to procure any more NIKs than those needed for testing. 

Mr. BARTLETT. At the heart of the NIK’s problems seems to be the JTRS and its 

complex waveforms. Although some technical experts have expressed grave concerns 

about the viability of these radios and waveforms, the Army seems intent on going 

forward with them in some fashion. From a test perspective, do we know enough 

yet to make an informed decision on the future of these technologies? 

Mr. SULLIVAN and Mr. GRAVELINE. The Army has been developing JTRS radios 

and associated waveforms for about 13 years. Maturity levels for the associated 

technologies have not improved much during that time. While the Army has demonstrated some improved reliability at the 2010 Limited User Test and reported 

some success in more recent testing, the systems have not yet proven to be militarily useful. Additional testing is to be conducted shortly. Thirteen years of knowledge exists about the performance of the JTRS program and associated waveforms, 

and it is up to the Army, DOD, and the Congress to make the necessary and prudent decisions based on that knowledge. We would defer to DOT&E to provide the 

test perspective on the viability and future of these technologies. 

Mr. BARTLETT. The Army plans on establishing the Fort Bliss complex with a full 

composite brigade to, among other things, conduct regular demonstrations of the 

current tactical network as well as possible upgrades. Given the significant investments involved in this objective, do you support the Army’s network demonstration 

plans? Do the DOD and Army test communities have the necessary resources to 

monitor and evaluate the Army plans for network demonstrations? 

Mr. SULLIVAN and Mr. GRAVELINE. In our acquisition best practices work, we have 

advocated an incremental development approach as well as thorough testing of systems before production and fielding. In the case of the evolving networking systems, 

the Army Evaluation Task Force will periodically receive equipment that it will test 

and train with so that soldiers can provide feedback to developers for system improvements. It will also provide Army and DOD officials with information that will 

help them make production decisions and better plan fielding of the network systems. In the past, we have commented on the task force’s potential advantages, like 

having a near brigade-sized unit testing prototypes and incorporating soldier feedback into the design process. While there may be some advantages with the Army’s 

new process, it will have a substantial cost. For example, the projected spending for 
119 

brigade combat team network integration, modeling, simulation, test and evaluation 

for fiscal year 2011 is $169 million. Finally, we would prefer that the test community comment on the adequacy of the resources available to monitor and evaluate 

network development and demonstration. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. LOBIONDO 

Mr. LOBIONDO. The Army’s Fiscal Year 2012 Research, Development, Test and 

Evaluation budget shows a decrease in funding for Abrams Tank Improvement program from $107.5 million in Fiscal Year 2011 to $9.7 million in Fiscal Year 2012— 

close to a 90% reduction in funding. However, in the accompanying budget material 

provided to the Committee, the Army notes the Abrams tank has ‘‘virtually reached 

its upper limits for space, weight and power.’’ And, the Abrams tank is expected to 

be in service through 2045. Moreover, it appears the Army doesn’t plan to address 

engine improvements until the second increment of the Abrams Modernization Program—which we understand could be as early as Fiscal Year 2018. 

1. How does current Abrams Modernization Program account for engine technology insertion in the Fiscal Year 2012 budget and associated Program Objective 

Memorandum? 

General CHIARELLI. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. LOBIONDO. 2. It is anticipated the engine improvements will yield approximately 50 gallons of fuel savings per mission day; how does the Army account for 

return on investment in the decision making process for Abrams Modernization? 

General CHIARELLI. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. LOBIONDO. 3. Assuming the Army had the available resources for power train 

improvements in Fiscal Year 2012, what power train technology insertion programs 

could the Army implement for the Abrams Modernization Program? Please include 

costs, benefits and program element numbers for each power train technology insertion program. 

General CHIARELLI. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. ROONEY 

Mr. ROONEY. The Committee understands that the Army plans to extend the 

Abrams service life through 2045. Based on budget information provided to this 

Committee, the Army does not intend on modernizing the engine of the Abrams 

tank until past 2018. The power train accounts for 60% of the annual maintenance 

costs for the Abrams tank. The facts would seem to lend themselves to a far greater 

urgency for an engine upgrade. The Army has not truly upgraded the Abrams engine in 20 years. Shouldn’t any decision on Abrams modernization also include 

prioritizing the engine upgrade? 

General CHIARELLI. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. AKIN 

Mr. AKIN. 1. The Committee understands that the Army plans to extend the 

Abrams service life through 2045. Based on budget information provided to this 

Committee, the Army does not intend on modernizing the engine of the Abrams 

tank until past 2018. The powertrain accounts for 60% of the annual maintenance 

costs for the Abrams tank. The facts would seem to lend themselves to a far greater 

urgency for an engine upgrade. The Army has not truly upgraded the Abrams engine in 20 years. In light of this significant delay in upgrading the engine, does the 

Army still support Abrams modernization? 

General PHILLIPS. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. AKIN. 2. Are you aware of an initiative to modernize the current Abrams engine in such a way that would significantly increase fuel efficiency, reducing fuel 

consumption by up to 17%? This improvement equates to 50 gallon per day reduction of fuel for one Abrams tank. With the emphasis on energy efficiency it would 

seem to me we would want to reduce Abrams fuel consumption as fast as possible. 

In light of the Army’s energy conservation goals, does the Army believe the Abrams 

Modernization program should also include fuel efficient engines? 

General PHILLIPS. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 
120 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. TURNER 

Mr. TURNER. 1. In today’s austere budget environment, can the Army afford to 

procure the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) at a base unit cost of $300–400,000 

and a total unit cost of $700–800,000? 

General CHIARELLI. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. TURNER. 2. I understand the Army plans to procure about 50,000 JLTVs. How 

much better than the Humvee is JLTV projected to be? Will the JLTV be worth the 

additional cost? 

General CHIARELLI. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. TURNER. 3. Originally, when were JLTVs supposed to go into production? 

When are they expected to go into production now? 

General CHIARELLI. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. TURNER. 4. How long are Army and Marine Corps supposed to use these recapitalized vehicles before receiving JLTVs? 

General CHIARELLI. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

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