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i 

57–835 2010

[H.A.S.C. No. 111–140] 

FORCE PROTECTION EQUIPMENT PROGRAMS FOR OPERATIONS IN IRAQ AND 

AFGHANISTAN 

JOINT HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SEAPOWER AND EXPEDITIONARY FORCES 

SUBCOMMITTEE 

MEETING JOINTLY WITH

AIR AND LAND FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

MARCH 17, 2010 
(II) 

SEAPOWER AND EXPEDITIONARY FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE 

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi, Chairman 

SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

BRAD ELLSWORTH, Indiana 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania 

GLENN NYE, Virginia 

CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine 

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri 

ROB WITTMAN, Virginia 

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

THOMAS J. ROONEY, Florida 

WILL EBBS, Professional Staff Member 

JENNESS SIMLER, Professional Staff Member 

ELIZABETH DRUMMOND, Staff Assistant 

AIR AND LAND FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE 

ADAM SMITH, Washington, Chairman 

JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina 

SILVESTRE REYES, Texas 

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina 

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

JIM MARSHALL, Georgia 

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania 

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona 

NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts 

LARRY KISSELL, North Carolina 

FRANK M. KRATOVIL, JR., Maryland 

BOBBY BRIGHT, Alabama 

WILLIAM L. OWENS, New York 

DAN BOREN, Oklahoma 

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland 

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

JOHN C. FLEMING, Louisiana 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri 

JEFF MILLER, Florida 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

ROB BISHOP, Utah 

MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

JESSE D. TOLLESON, Professional Staff Member 

JOHN WASON, Professional Staff Member 

SCOTT BOUSUM, Staff Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2010 

Page 

HEARING: 

Wednesday, March 17, 2010, Force Protection Equipment Programs for Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan ........................................................................... 1 

APPENDIX: 

Wednesday, March 17, 2010 ................................................................................... 39 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17, 2010 

FORCE PROTECTION EQUIPMENT PROGRAMS FOR OPERATIONS IN 

IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Akin, Hon. W. Todd, a Representative from Missouri, Ranking Member, 

Seapower and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee .......................................... 3 

Bartlett, Hon. Roscoe G., a Representative from Maryland, Ranking Member, 

Air and Land Forces Subcommittee ................................................................... 3 

Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Chairman, Air and 

Land Forces Subcommittee ................................................................................. 4 

Taylor, Hon. Gene, a Representative from Mississippi, Chairman, Seapower 

and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee ........................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

Brogan, Brig. Gen. Michael M., USMC, Commander, Marine Corps Systems 

Command .............................................................................................................. 6 

D’Agostino, Davi M., Director, Defense Capabilities and Management, U.S. 

Government Accountability Office ...................................................................... 7 

Oates, Lt. Gen. Michael L., USA, Director, Joint Improvised Explosive Device 

Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) ........................................................................... 4 

Spoehr, Maj. Gen. Thomas W., USA, Director, Force Development, U.S. Army; 

and Brig. Gen. Peter N. Fuller, USA, Program Executive Officer, Soldier, 

Commanding General, Soldier Systems Center, U.S. Army ............................. 4 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Brogan, Brig. Gen. Michael M. ........................................................................ 66 

D’Agostino, Davi M. .......................................................................................... 84 

Oates, Lt. Gen. Michael L. ............................................................................... 47 

Smith, Hon. Adam ............................................................................................ 43 

Spoehr, Maj. Gen. Thomas W., joint with Brig. Gen. Peter N. Fuller ......... 53 
Page

IV 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted post hearing.] 
(1) 

FORCE PROTECTION EQUIPMENT PROGRAMS FOR 

OPERATIONS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED

SERVICES, SEAPOWER AND EXPEDITIONARY FORCES

SUBCOMMITTEE MEETING JOINTLY WITH AIR AND LAND

FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE, Washington, DC, Wednesday, 

March 17, 2010. 

The subcommittees met, pursuant to call, at 2:29 p.m., in room 

HVC–210, Capitol Visitor Center, Hon. Gene Taylor (chairman of 

the Seapower and Expeditionary Forces subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GENE TAYLOR, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MISSISSIPPI, CHAIRMAN, SEAPOWER AND EXPEDITIONARY FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. TAYLOR. The subcommittee will come to order. 

Today, the Seapower and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee 

joins the Air and Land Forces Subcommittee in open session to receive testimony on force protection equipment for Operation Iraqi 

Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, with particular focus 

on armored vehicles, personnel body armor and counter-IED [improvised explosive device] initiatives. 

We welcome our witnesses for today. 

Representing the Army to discuss Army force protection systems 

are Major General Thomas Spoehr, director of force development, 

Army G–8; and Brigadier General Peter Fuller, program executive 

officer, soldier and commanding general, Soldier Systems Center. 

Representing the Marine Corps to discuss Marine Corps force 

protection and the MRAP [mine resistant ambush protected] joint 

vehicle program is Brigadier General Michael Brogan, commander 

of Marine Corps Systems Command, and the program executive officer for the MRAP Joint Program Office. 

Representing the Joint IED Defeat Organization is the new director of JIEDDO [Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization], Lieutenant General Michael Oates. 

Representing the Government Accountability Office [GAO] is Ms. 

Davi D’Agostino, director, Defense Capabilities and Management. 

Ms. D’Agostino appears to discuss the release of the GAO’s latest 

report on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance issues, 

based on site visits to Iraq and Afghanistan and prepared for the 

House Armed Services Committee. 

Today’s joint hearing continues the committee’s ongoing oversight activities regarding the full spectrum of force protection matters in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our last formal activity regarding 

force protection was a classified briefing in December of 2009. 
2 

We meet today to receive updates on these critical, life-saving 

programs and to provide an opportunity for the families of our 

fighting men and women to hear what the Army, Marine Corps 

and the DOD [Department of Defense] leadership are doing to protect their loved ones against the threats that their soldiers and Marines face abroad. 

Today’s hearing is expected to cover and provide updates on a 

wide rate of programs to include: the mine-resistant family of vehicles, to include the lighter and smaller MRAP all-terrain vehicle; 

individual protective equipment, such as lighter-weight body 

armor; the Army’s new battle dress uniform; equipment used to detect snipers; counter radio controlled IED electronic warfare 

jammers; the continued challenge of getting adequate intelligence, 

surveillance and reconnaissance assets; and improvements in 

weapons and tactics for our operational forces. 

At this time last year, the MRAP all-terrain vehicle was still 

under source selection. No vehicles had been produced beyond 

small numbers of test assets, and no vehicles had been fielded to 

Afghanistan. In just one year, over 4,700 MATVs [MRAP all-terrain vehicles] have been produced, over 1,400 have been delivered 

to Afghanistan, and over 900 have been fielded to operational 

units. Their current producer is averaging 1,000 vehicles per 

month. 

I want to publicly thank General Brogan and his entire team for 

the service they have provided to our nation in spearheading the 

MRAP and MATV effort. And as I have publicly mentioned before, 

I do not think there has ever been an acquisition program in the 

history of our nation that has fielded as fast and with such immediate and dramatic results. 

Your team’s efforts have saved lives, General, and I want to 

thank you on behalf of the American people. There are young people alive today, because of what you have done, what you and your 

team have done. 

There are still major challenges ahead for us with respect to 

long-term sustainment of these vehicles, both in the field, here and 

overseas, as well as improving these vehicles through capability insertions. 

I am aware the MRAP Joint Program Office is currently pursuing several capability insertions and vehicle modifications to include installing independent suspensions on legacy vehicles, heavier and more capable door hinges on the MATVs. And I expect to 

receive updates on these today. 

A critical component to force protection is adequate training. 

That means having the ability to realistically train on the equipment the warfighter will actually use in combat ranging from individual equipment to jammers and armored vehicles. 

For example, more than half of the accidents involving MRAPs 

since November 2007 have been rollovers. I realize that some of 

these rollovers were attributed to poor roads and infrastructure, 

but I do believe some of the rollovers might have been prevented 

through better training. 

General Brogan, you stated in formal response to these subcommittees that—I am quoting—‘‘the better trained the driver; the 
3 

less likely they are to conduct a maneuver that will hazard the vehicle.’’ 

I understand that one of the lessons learned from the original, 

legacy MRAP program was to concurrently field vehicles to address 

both operational and training requirements, and that we are applying that lesson in the MATV program. 

I am still concerned over the limited number of legacy MRAP vehicles available to the Army for training, and hope to gain a better 

understanding of the Army’s plan for addressing these vehicle 

shortfalls. 

Clearly, the MATV is a good news story and demonstrates that 

we are capable of applying lessons learned. However, we cannot become complacent. 

In the last year, Afghanistan has experienced a near doubling of 

IED events, and U.S. casualties have continued to increase. 

General Oates, in your testimony you state—and I am quoting— 

‘‘over the past three years in Afghanistan, casualty rates of our 

warfighters have increased by roughly 50 percent.’’ 

This concerns me, and I look forward to hearing from you on how 

your organization is addressing this trend. 

Before going to the witnesses’ opening remarks, I would like to 

recognize my friend—okay, well, I will not be recognizing my friend 

from Washington state, Congressman Smith. I will, however, recognize my ranking member and my friend from Missouri, Mr. Akin, 

for any comments he may make. 

STATEMENT OF HON. W. TODD AKIN, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM MISSOURI, RANKING MEMBER, SEAPOWER AND EXPEDITIONARY FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. AKIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would also thank 

you for scheduling this important hearing today. Because you have 

hit a lot of the highlights, I am going to be brief. 

I would also like to thank our GAO and Army witnesses for being 

here today. 

And, of course, General Brogan, you are not a stranger to this 

committee, and we are delighted to have you back. Thank you for 

being here. 

And also, General Oates, I believe this is your first time testifying in front of this committee. Welcome. This is an important 

subject. The testimony you are about to provide will assist us in 

determining how best to proceed with providing the necessary congressional oversight of these programs. 

Again, I want to thank all of you for your service to our country, 

and thank you for being here. 

And thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Akin. 

The Chair now recognizes the ranking member of the Air and 

Land Forces Subcommittee, the Honorable Roscoe Bartlett. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MARYLAND, RANKING MEMBER, AIR AND LAND 

FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you. I will be very brief, so we can get to 

the testimony and questions. Thank you very much for your service 
4 

to your country. Thank you for being here today. I look forward to 

your testimony. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Bartlett. 

The Chair now recognizes the new chairman of the Air and Land 

Forces Subcommittee, the Honorable Adam Smith. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM 

WASHINGTON, CHAIRMAN, AIR AND LAND FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for running a 

little bit behind schedule. 

Welcome to you all. 

If there is no objection, I would ask that my full statement be 

included in the record, and then I will follow Mr. Bartlett’s lead. 

And I look forward to your testimony, and will ask questions at the 

appropriate time. And I appreciate the very important issues that 

we are here to discuss today, and the work that you all are doing 

on them. 

And with that, I will yield back. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith can be found in the Appendix on page 43.] 

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Smith. 

Without objection, all the witnesses’ prepared testimony will be 

included in the record. 

General Oates, thank you for your service and taking the time 

to be with us today. Please proceed with your remarks. 

STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. MICHAEL L. OATES, USA, DIRECTOR, 

JOINT IMPROVISED EXPLOSIVE DEVICE DEFEAT ORGANIZATION (JIEDDO) 

General OATES. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today and testify. 

The IED remains the single greatest threat to life and limb of 

our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, to include the civilian employees that are present. And so, the protection of those forces is a priority for the organization I know lead, the Joint IED Defeat Organization. 

I have provided a written statement, sir, and I will stand by. I 

am anxious to answer your questions. 

Thank you, sir. 

[The prepared statement of General Oates can be found in the 

Appendix on page 47.] 

STATEMENT OF MAJ. GEN. THOMAS W. SPOEHR, USA, DIRECTOR, FORCE DEVELOPMENT, U.S. ARMY; AND BRIG. GEN. 

PETER N. FULLER, USA, PROGRAM EXECUTIVE OFFICER, 

SOLDIER, COMMANDING GENERAL, SOLDIER SYSTEMS CENTER, U.S. ARMY 

STATEMENT OF MAJ. GEN. THOMAS W. SPOEHR 

General SPOEHR. Chairman Taylor, Chairman Smith, Ranking 

Member Akin, Ranking Member Bartlett, and other distinguished 
5 

members of the committee, on behalf of the Army, Brigadier General Peter Fuller and I are honored to be here today to provide updates on Army force protection efforts. 

Let me preface my remarks by thanking the members of both 

committees for their leadership and continued support of the Army. 

We share a common purpose and commitment to develop in field 

the best equipment available to our soldiers, Army civilians and 

contractors serving in Operation Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. 

The brave men and women serving today represent the best of 

our society, and they continue to perform magnificently against a 

determined enemy in a complex and dangerous operational environment. 

After more than 8 years of continuous combat, we recognize the 

importance of keeping our deployed forces at the highest level of 

readiness and providing them the best capabilities available. Protection of our soldiers and critical warfighting assets remains the 

Army’s highest priority. 

In response to the continued threat of improvised explosive devices, suicide bombers, other non-traditional threats, as well as the 

more conventional threats, such as small arms fire, the Army has 

pursued numerous initiatives to enhance the mobility, lethality and 

survivability of our soldiers and the formations in which they 

serve. 

These initiatives are captured in complementary and reinforcing 

layers of protection, which include continuous improvements to individual soldier protection, new and enhanced armored and wheeltracked vehicles, new active and passive based defense capabilities, 

improved battlefield situational awareness with better intelligence, 

surveillance and reconnaissance platforms, as well as advances in 

biometrics and robotics. 

In addition, the Army has taken steps to lighten the soldier’s 

load by fielding freight carriers, light-weight machine guns and tripods. 

While we have made significant improvements in our force protection posture, we know we must continue to provide improved solutions for two significant reasons. 

First, technology is always changing. Advancements are always 

being made. And we owe it to our soldiers to continue to invest in 

promising technologies that will give them a decisive edge in combat. 

Second, the weapons, tactics and motivation of our adversaries 

continues to adapt, and we must be more versatile, adaptable and 

unpredictable than the enemies we face. Therefore, the Army’s ongoing commitment to provide our soldiers with the best equipment 

in the world is just that—ongoing. 

We are always mindful that the soldiers in the field are the ones 

that bear the burden of battle. The Army remains fully committed 

to provide unwavering support for our soldiers, by giving them the 

best protective equipment and capabilities available to successfully 

confront current and emerging threats. 

Again, thank you for this opportunity to testify before your subcommittees today on this important issue. Thank you for your 
6 

steadfast support of the American soldier. General Fuller and I 

look forward to answering any questions you may have. 

Thank you. 

[The joint prepared statement of General Spoehr and General 

Fuller can be found in the Appendix on page 53.] 

Mr. TAYLOR. The Chair thanks the gentleman. 

The Chair now recognizes Brigadier General Fuller. 

General FULLER. Thank you, sir. I have no prepared remarks. I 

am prepared to answer any questions you may have. 

Mr. TAYLOR. I hope you guys do not think you are getting off this 

light. [Laughter.] 

The Chair now recognizes a true American—you are all true 

American heroes—but another true American hero, Brigadier General Brogan. 

STATEMENT OF BRIG. GEN. MICHAEL M. BROGAN, USMC, 

COMMANDER, MARINE CORPS SYSTEMS COMMAND 

General BROGAN. Chairman Taylor, Chairman Smith, Ranking 

Members Akin and Bartlett, distinguished members of the subcommittees, thank you for the opportunity to be with you this 

afternoon, and to answer questions concerning Marine Corps force 

protection programs and the Joint Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle program. 

I appreciate, sir, that you are going to enter the written statement for the record. 

Your support these last many years in providing necessary funding to equip our Marines and the joint force to meet the challenges 

of irregular warfare has been tremendous. 

We work together on a daily basis with our counterparts in 

JIEDDO and the various program executives offices in the Army to 

field just this type of equipment. 

Throughout this conflict, we have fielded numerous generations 

of gear, and have had the opportunity to iteratively improve it. 

That goes for individual body armor plates, from the small arms 

protective insert, to the enhanced small arms protective insert and 

the side SAPI plate; in flame-resistant gear, from Nomex suits normally worn by combat vehicle crewmen, to now having fire-retardant uniforms that include antimicrobial, antibacterial, anti-vector 

properties. 

I very much appreciate your kind remarks regarding the MRAP 

program. As Paul Mann, the program manager, frequently states, 

it is a team sport. 

The leadership of the Congress in providing funding, and to the 

support of the Secretary of Defense, the services, the defense agencies and our industrial partners at all levels—prime, sub, vendor 

and suppliers—has made that program possible. 

Because of that, we have been able to rapidly field these vehicles 

and have a marked impact on the survivability of our joint 

warfighters. 

I would only ask that we recognize this is an open hearing. And 

though the topic is very important, some of the matters in force 

protection would go into classified areas. We do not want to broach 

that. We also, sir, would not like to discuss specific capabilities or 

limitations of the equipment in an open session. 
7 

This nation has fielded the best-equipped, best-protected force in 

its history, largely due to the support of the Congress. 

And finally, sir, on a personal note, this is likely my last appearance in front of these committees as the commander of Marine 

Corps Systems Command. I very much appreciate the access that 

you have provided me and the patience you have afforded me, and 

I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of General Brogan can be found in the 

Appendix on page 66.] 

Mr. TAYLOR. The Chair thanks the gentleman. 

The Chair now recognizes Ms. Davi D’Agostino. I hope that is 

correct. 

STATEMENT OF DAVI M. D’AGOSTINO, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE 

CAPABILITIES AND MANAGEMENT, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Ms. D’AGOSTINO. You did a great job. Thank you. 

Chairman Taylor, Chairman Smith, members of the subcommittees, thank you for having me here today to discuss GAO’s January 

2010 report on DOD’s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, 

or ISR, processing, exploitation and dissemination or sharing capabilities. 

There has been a dramatic increase, as you know, in demand for 

ISR systems to collect intelligence in Iraq and Afghanistan, to a 

point where DOD now has more than 6,800 unmanned aircraft systems alone. 

ISR is also seen as the first line of defense for U.S. and allied 

forces against insurgent attacks and roadside bombs. But to be useful to the warfighter, after intelligence is collected, it must be analyzed and shared with all those who need it in a timely manner. 

The presentation board beside me shows the intelligence data 

processing cycle. And you should have a sheet in your briefing book 

that shows that, too, up close. 

This processing cycle is commonly described in five interconnected phases. At the front end you have, first, planning and direction, and second, collection. At the back end you have, third, 

processing and exploitation; fourth, dissemination; and fifth, evaluation and feedback. 

My testimony today focuses on phases three and four of the cycle, 

or the back end of the cycle, that transforms the collected data into 

useable intelligence for the force. 

Today I will discuss, first, the challenges DOD faces in processing, exploiting and disseminating the information collected by 

ISR systems, and the extent to which DOD has developed the capabilities needed to share the information. We have reported on 

DOD’s challenges with ISR integration, requirements and tasking 

of collection assets. 

For this report, we spent 16 months obtaining and analyzing documentation from the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, 

all four military services, the ISR Task Force, Joint Forces Command, Central Command, the National Security Agency and the 

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. We also traveled to several locations in Iraq and the United States to observe the processing of ISR data firsthand. 
8 

We found that the military services and defense agencies face 

longstanding challenges with processing, exploiting and disseminating the ISR data they collect. 

First, the dramatic increase in collection has not been accompanied by an increase in processing capabilities, and these capabilities are now overwhelmed. As General Deptula, the Air Force’s ISR 

chief, recently stated, in the not too distant future, the department 

will be swimming in sensors, and it needs to ensure that we do not 

end up drowning in data. 

Second, transmitting ISR data requires high-capacity bandwidth 

for communications, which can be extremely limited in theater. 

Third, analyst shortages, including linguists, hamper DOD’s ability to exploit all the ISR information being collected. For example, 

Central Command officials told us they exploit less than one-half 

of the signals intercepts collected from the Predator. 

DOD has begun some initiatives to try to deal with these issues, 

but it is too soon to tell whether or not the efforts will result in 

measurable improvements. 

DOD is also trying to improve the sharing of intelligence information through a family of interoperable systems called the Distributed Common Ground Surface System, or DCGS. DOD has directed the services to transition to DCGS, but each service is at a 

different stage in doing so. 

Further, to facilitate the sharing of ISR data on this system, 

DOD developed common information standards and protocols. A 

key problem for all of this is that the legacy ISR systems, the older 

systems, do not automatically tag data for sharing with certain key 

information, like location and time. And the services are also not 

prioritizing the data that should be tagged. 

The services have expressed concern to us that DOD has not developed overarching guidance or a concept of operation that provides them needed direction and priorities for sharing intelligence 

information. As a result, we recommended in our report that DOD 

develop such guidance, and that the services then develop plans 

with timelines, and prioritize and identify the types of ISR data 

they will share consistent with the overarching guidance. DOD 

agreed with our recommendations. 

And while my testimony has been focused on the back end of the 

intelligence cycle, our prior work for this committee has shown that 

there are also problems on the front end. In theater, collection 

taskings are fragmented, and visibility into how ISR systems are 

being used, both within and across domains, is lacking. And all of 

these challenges combine to increase the risk that the operational 

commanders on the ground may not be receiving mission-critical 

ISR information, which can also create the perception that additional collection assets are needed to fill gaps. 

Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittees, this concludes my 

oral summary. I would be happy to answer any questions you may 

have. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. D’Agostino can be found in the 

Appendix on page 84.] 

Mr. TAYLOR. The Chair thanks the gentlewoman. 

The Chair now recognizes the chairman of the Air and Land 

Forces Subcommittee, Mr. Smith. 
9 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Oates, I will start with you on the JIEDDO process. 

When this originally came up, certainly, in our response to the 

problems that we had in Iraq, it was, you know, multifaceted and 

an evolving threat in Iraq, and now in Afghanistan, as well. And 

JIEDDO was stood up to try to grab every corner of that and do 

everything we could to respond to that threat. And there are many, 

many different pieces of it. 

There have been some concerns on behalf of the committee and 

others about the way that money has come together, how well organized and well structured JIEDDO is, because there is a bunch of 

different ideas floating around out there. It is everything from, you 

know, individual, certainly—you know, body protection for our 

troops. It is the vehicles that they are in, you know, a variety of 

different other countermeasures that we have employed. 

And I think there have been some concerns in terms of keeping 

track of the money and whether or not it is being well spent and 

well organized. I know you have made statements that that is a 

priority of yours, to make sure that you get that organized and 

structured. 

I was wondering if you could just take a moment to sort of walk 

us through how that has improved and, you know, improve our 

confidence that the money and the resources are going to their absolute best use in terms of defeating the threat. 

General OATES. Thank you, Congressman. It is an interest of 

mine in two areas. One is full accountability. I do know that we 

are the stewards of the government’s money, and I want to make 

sure that that is not opaque to anyone, especially the Congress. 

The second is transparency with our other partners. That would 

include the services, the other combatant commanders, as well. 

Let me first start at the process. There are a great number of 

good ideas. Those are generally filtered by the combatant commander, and, as you know, comes forward with a Joint Urgent 

Operational Needs Statement [JUONS]. That is screened by the 

combatant commander and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And not all of 

those come to JIEDDO. 

We are generally the first stop, if it is a largely IED-related 

issue, or there is a requirement to respond very quickly. So, in our 

budgeting, we actually set aside about 20 percent of our budget 

every year for that emerging enemy technique or capability gap 

that appears that we did not anticipate. 

I receive my priorities from the Deputy Secretary of Defense and 

the Secretary of Defense. And he has just shifted mine recently, on 

becoming the director, to the Afghanistan surge. And so, we have 

appropriately assigned our funding towards meeting the capability 

gaps and JUONS that have come out of Central Command. 

Mr. SMITH. How do you measure the effectiveness of what you 

do? And it is hard, I know, because we are certainly not going to 

stop the IED threat no matter how we do it. But how do you measure whether or not a given idea and a given amount of money 

spent on that idea actually worked or it did not? 

General OATES. Sir, let me take that in just a second. I want to 

conclude by reminding you that we do provide monthly reports, if 

not more frequent, to the oversight committees to ensure there is 
10 

absolutely transparency on the spending of our money. And I am 

very confident that we can account for it. 

This is a very difficult challenge, establishing measures of effectiveness against dollars spent in this particular realm, so there are 

some objective tenets that we use. We actually look at the total 

number of IEDs, those that are effective, how many and what type 

of IEDs render a resultant casualty or killed. And we can draw 

some analogies to money that we put into force protection, how 

much more energy is required by the enemy to inflict a casualty, 

for instance. 

There are subjective tests, largely in the area of training. And we 

rely on our troop commanders and their non-commissioned officers, 

in particular, to inform us about what training is required and 

what might be effective. 

And most recently, in my short time as the director, I had a 

chance to see some, what you would call good ideas, developmental 

ideas in simulated air training, which we know intuitively from 

having been in the fight now for a number of years, will bring dividends, save our soldiers and deny the enemy access to our soldiers. 

But this is a major challenge, is trying to establish concrete, objective measures of effectiveness against the money that is spent, 

sir. 

Mr. SMITH. Have you found that the challenges are significantly 

different in Afghanistan than in Iraq? Or is it pretty much the 

same battle? 

General OATES. Sir, the battle writ large against the IED is fairly similar, but the methods employed and the type of IED is very 

different, as is the terrain in Afghanistan. I would be happy to 

elaborate if you would like me to. 

Mr. SMITH. You can, if you want. Actually, I would love it if your 

staff could just give a statement on that. I have taken up quite a 

bit of time. I do have a couple of other questions, but I will wait 

until the next go-around, to give some of my colleagues a chance. 

But I would be interested if your staff could provide some information on how they see the threat different and the response different as it is shifting more to Afghanistan. Obviously, it is still a 

problem in Iraq, but it is certainly a growing threat in Afghanistan. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Smith. 

And just for everyone’s information, I made the decision, for 

Chairman Smith and the two ranking members, we will not have 

a 5-minute rule. But I would remind you that we are expected to 

have votes sometime around 3:15. 

Mr. Akin. 

Mr. AKIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

First of all, General Oates, my understanding is there were some 

people that were critical about resources and what we were doing 

with your organization. You had a chance, as I understand it, to 

kind of read over that. 

You have been a user of the services. Now you are charged with 

trying to provide the same services you were using in the past. 

Are there some structural things that you have wanted to change 

about how you approach the problem, or anything? Or is it just 
11 

kind of an ongoing management situation? Or what has been your 

perspective moving from user to first in charge? 

General OATES. Thank you, sir. 

I have been a tactical customer of JIEDDO now for about 6 

years. Over three tours in Iraq, I did not always know where the 

capability and benefits were coming from. I have a clear vision of 

that now. 

And I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Congress 

for what it has done for my soldiers, both in the 101st and the 10th 

Mountain Division. 

Now, from my perspective as the director of JIEDDO, one of my 

key concerns is ensuring that we provide a good response to the 

Congress about these particular lines of operation, whether they 

are adequately funded, whether we need to make any changes. 

And defeating the device, largely focused on some technology developments and detect, attacking the network is an area that really 

is difficult to establish measures of effectiveness, going back to the 

chairman’s question, and train the force, which in my experience 

has been the greatest return on investment, and an area where, as 

the chairman alluded earlier with the MRAP, providing quality 

training for soldiers in all three of those domains—defeating the 

device, attacking the network and, in fact, training in this environment—will return great dividends. 

I am not prepared at this point to give you a very specific answer 

on whether adjustments need to be made. We are adequately funded at this point, sir. The funding has been provided by the Congress that is allowing us to meet these very urgent capability gap 

requirements that have come out of Afghanistan. And we believe 

that we can handle them at this point. 

Mr. AKIN. Thank you. 

And then, the second question over to the loop, or the intelligence 

data processing cycle, and being able to process all of the—we are 

picking up so many—our sensors are so good. 

Have you seen an approach of what has to be done to process the 

data? Or do you have any suggestions along that line? Or what is 

our plan to be able to process as well as to collect? 

Ms. D’AGOSTINO. Yes, one of the challenges I think they have 

had is the problem of tagging this data automatically. If it is not 

automatically tagged, either on board the system or at the ground 

stations, it has to be done somehow—maybe by hand or by some 

kind of adaptor or with a computer. 

So, it would take time away from the soldier’s main mission. So, 

it creates a difficult problem. 

And if it is not tagged, then it is not discoverable by other people. 

Even if it is put up onto a DSIG, it is not discoverable without 

being tagged. 

So, I think that is probably the most pivotal problem that they 

face in being able to share—— 

Mr. AKIN. I did not understand a word you just said—tagged and 

discoverable. And those are not my normal vocabulary. 

Ms. D’AGOSTINO. Okay. It is like when you take a picture with 

your digital camera, it has a date on it. And when you load it onto 

your computer, you can find your digital photos by date. If it does 

not have any tag on it, there is no way to find it for you. 
12 

So, this is part of the problem with—— 

Mr. AKIN. So, it is a classification, how to identify information. 

Ms. D’AGOSTINO. Right. It is how to locate it. It is like giving it 

a name. And without the names, there is no way for somebody to 

discover it and then use it. So, that is—— 

Mr. AKIN. So, how do we name it, then? 

Ms. D’AGOSTINO. Well, there are requirements that the data be 

tagged. But the problem is, some of the older systems do not have 

the capability to automatically do that. And therefore, some unknown amount of the data that we are collecting right now in theater cannot be shared in its form that it comes off the platform. 

Mr. AKIN. I would think that you would want a date and a location, would you not? Would those two be the main things that you 

are looking for? 

Ms. D’AGOSTINO. Right. 

Mr. AKIN. Because if somebody does an IED, you want to run 

time backwards—— 

Ms. D’AGOSTINO. And the time—— 

Mr. AKIN [continuing]. Two days and see who has been there. 

Ms. D’AGOSTINO. There are these standards and protocols, and 

also rules that have been made about the kind of tagged data that 

you put on when you tag it. General Brogan is going, ‘‘yes, yes.’’ 

But it is important to get that onto the data, so that other people 

can find it and use it, and benefit from it. 

Mr. AKIN. So, it is a classification kind of thing. 

General Brogan, you want to comment? 

General BROGAN. It is not really a classification in the sense of 

confidential, secret, top secret. It is more of identification by date, 

time and location, sir. 

Mr. AKIN. And that allows you, then, if something occurs, you 

can go back and take a look at what you might have seen? License 

plates or—— 

General BROGAN. Well, it makes it database searchable. And so, 

particularly if you are looking at the same area in multiple scans, 

you can look for differences. You know, were there disturbances 

that were not there previously, to help identify the locations of the 

IEDs, sir. 

Mr. AKIN. Good. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The Chair thanks the gentleman. 

We would now recognize the ranking member of Air and Land, 

Mr. Bartlett. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much. 

I have two questions. The first is for General Fuller and General 

Brogan. The second is for General Fuller. 

General Fuller and General Brogan, I continue to be very concerned about the short-term and long-term effects on our soldiers 

and Marines in regards to the total weight of the individual equipment that they are carrying in Afghanistan. As you know, in Vietnam the average weight was 30 to 40 pounds. Today they are carrying 90 to 100 pounds, and sometimes even more than that. 

Obviously, body armor is a major part of that weight increase. 

And I understand that we have modular and—designs that can 
13 

help with this issue. And certainly, every pound that we can reduce 

this weight count. 

But in the mid to long term, what are we doing to incentivize industry to lower this weight? 

For example, what would it take, assuming an ESAPI level of 

protection to reduce the weight of body armor by, say, 50 percent 

in less than 5 years? Have we even asked industry something along 

these lines? 

And General Fuller, as you know, the Army and the Department 

of Defense have recently started a new round of body armor testing 

to help establish a standard testing protocol with a specific focus 

on statistical analysis and statistical confidence levels. 

We briefly discussed this in my office a couple of weeks ago. Can 

you explain this testing, give us an update on the progress of the 

testing, and explain what you hope to achieve with the results? 

Thank you. 

General BROGAN. Sir, you are absolutely right. The weight is significant. The long-term impact is currently unknown. We have not 

seen a marked increase in injuries to our Marines during training 

or during their combat operations, but we do not know the longterm impact. 

The answer to the question, we do communicate with industry in 

a number of forums in all of my public comments. Every 2 years 

we hold an advanced planning brief for industry, where all of those 

who do business with the United States Marine Corps, and academia, as well as government labs are there. And we lay out for 

them what our priorities are. 

The commandant and the commanding general of the Marine 

Corps Combat Development Command have all indicated that reducing the weight is important. 

I believe the most significant thing we need, though, sir, is a materials breakthrough. We have nothing better than the ceramic 

plates that we are currently using with the attendant weight that 

goes with them. We need a materials science advance. 

And to that end, the commandant, in his guidance for the planning of POM [Program Objective Memorandum] 2012 has directed 

that our S&T funding be fenced. If we have bills to pay corporately 

throughout the institution, we are not permitted to reach into those 

science and technology accounts to get the money. Much of that 

money is not run by my command; it is handled by the Office of 

Naval Research, or the Naval Research Laboratory and the Marine 

Corps Warfighting Lab. 

But that is an area where we could certainly use some help from 

our industrial partners. 

Mr. BARTLETT. We were advocating, as you know, for a specific 

line for R&D for this. We believe that the potential for markedly 

reducing this weight is there, if industry is sufficiently 

incentivized. We believe that including the acquisition of this and 

the research on this, along with underwear and uniforms and helmets, and so forth, is probably not the best way to get the best 

technology out there. 

General Fuller, my first question? 

General FULLER. Yes, sir. As General Brogan said, weight is a 

concern we have with our soldiers. And when we think about our 
14 

soldier, we try not to treat him like they are a Christmas tree and 

we just hang things on them. Body armor is one of those elements 

that we are putting on our soldiers, and we are looking at how do 

we lighten that load. 

We have lightened the load when we fielded them the new, improved outer tactical vest. It was three pounds lighter. And as General Brogan said, not only are we trying to lighten their load, but 

we are redistributing how that weight was worn by the soldier. So, 

now it is coming off all on their shoulders down to their hips where 

you can distribute and carry that weight better. 

We have also looked at, on the soft body armor side, a new plate 

carrier, which we are now fielding into Afghanistan. 

Between a fold-up, improved outer tactical vest and our plate 

carriers, an eight pound delta. That eight pounds is what our soldiers are looking for. 

In terms of the hard body armor that you were talking about, as 

General Brogan said, you really need a new technology. We are just 

tweaking the edges of that technology right now to refine it, to try 

to lighten some of that weight. 

But until we have that new breakthrough in science and technology, I do not believe our R&D efforts, or even the independent 

research and development efforts of our contractors, is going to give 

us that breakthrough that we need to get that lighter weight onto 

our soldiers. But we treat them as a total system. 

You heard General Spoehr talk about we are also providing our 

soldiers with improved lethality. And that lethality is now lighter. 

We are giving them a lighter machine gun, because you want to 

give them the total package—their survivability package, their 

lethality package and also their operating environment. 

When we talked, you asked the other question specific to what 

we call our phase two testing. 

Sir, as you are aware, Congress directed that we conduct additional testing on our ESAPI, our enhanced small arms and protective inserts, and our XSAPI, which is the next generation of our 

protective inserts. We conducted that testing with GAO oversight, 

and also DOT&E [Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, Office of the Secretary of Defense] oversight. And when we completed 

that testing, we realized, we have been working on—our testing 

protocol has been one of over-match. 

We take our products and we test them through a round that is 

heavier, harder and faster than any round found in the battlefield. 

And we realized what we were doing is taking that capability and 

giving it great capability, but we do not have the statistical confidence that we have of the best body armor. We know that it is 

the best, because of what we hear from our soldiers and through 

the over-match testing. 

So, we are transitioning our testing. We are transitioning from 

over-matched to a statistical confidence basis. 

And we are really pleased to report that we have conducted one 

phase of that testing, where we have taken real plates from our 

soldiers down-range, wearing them. We took them off—we gave 

them other ones—but we took them off their backs, brought them 

back, and we have shot at those plates with real threat rounds at 
15 

a high statistical confidence interval. And we have outstanding performance with those plates. 

We are taking another set of plates, doing the same thing. And 

these are going to be brand-new coming off of production line. 

So, what we are doing is, I tell everybody we are stepping up our 

game. We have always had quality product. But we are not going 

from bad to good in any of this. We are going from good to great. 

And we want to ensure to the American public and to Congress 

and anybody else, we have the best body armor. And now we are 

doing it through a statistical method, so you can demonstrate it 

with high confidence that it is quality product. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. Chairman, I would just like the record to 

show, and I would like our witnesses to confirm this. There have 

been some questions about a specific protocol in the testing procedures. 

My understanding is that none of that has in any way permitted 

any defective armor to get out to the troops, that these were some 

protocol differences that did not in any way impact the quality of 

the armor that our young men and women wear. 

The XSAPI is not yet fielded? Is that correct? It is there to be 

used if needed? 

General FULLER. Yes, sir. The XSAPI product is currently listed 

as contingency stocks. It is available if the threat materializes in 

the theater. And we are watching through different intelligence 

sources very carefully if that threat materializes in theater, and it 

has not. 

It is a heavier plate. The reason we are not fielding it now, the 

threat is not there, and we do not want the soldiers to bear the 

weight of a heavier plate. It is approximately a half-pound heavier 

for each plate to have them have that capability, when the plates 

that we have right now are doing the job, as you said. 

We might have had some process issues. We never had any challenge with our product. It is quality product. 

Mr. BARTLETT. Our fathers and mothers can be assured that 

these differences in testing procedures in no way had any impact 

on the quality of the protection that got out to the field to our 

young men and women. That is a correct statement? 

General FULLER. Yes, sir. That is an absolute correct statement. 

Mr. BARTLETT. I just want to make sure the record shows that, 

because I want to remove any concern that in any way, any armor 

that was less than what we thought it was got out to our young 

men and women. 

Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The Chair recognizes the chairman of the Readiness 

Subcommittee, Mr. Ortiz, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you so much for joining us today and for your service. 

I note that you were touching on the testing of the technical vest. 

But we are buying from two different sources. Am I correct? 

General FULLER. In two different sources, you mean between the 

Marine Corps and the Army, sir? 

Mr. ORTIZ. Correct. 

General FULLER. We have the same product, sir. 
16 

Mr. ORTIZ. It is the same product, but different—— 

General FULLER. Different colors, just as we have different color 

of uniforms on today. 

On the plates? Well, when we talk about body armor, sir, there 

are two components. The soft body armor, the same ballistic package is inside, different color, and how we might attach them. On 

the hard plates, the Army procures the hard body armor plates for 

all the services, so the Marines are getting the exact same plates 

that the Army or the Air Force or the Navy is getting. 

We have currently, we have three vendors building the ESAPI 

plates. And the Army is no longer in the procurement business for 

plates. We have transitioned that for ESAPI plates over to DLA, 

the Defense Logistics Agency. And they are procuring it for a 

sustainment of all services. 

Mr. ORTIZ. And the prices are the same for different services? 

General FULLER. For the hard plates, yes, sir, because it is off 

of our contract, and they just buy the same thing. 

Mr. ORTIZ. I spent some time lately, last year, visiting with the 

troops who were getting ready to deploy. And one of the things that 

the Army was very concerned with was the color of the camouflage 

uniform that they wear. They would much rather have like the Marines had. 

Are you gentlemen sharing information with one another to see 

what would be the best uniform for training? Not the training, but 

the goal, they could move—are being shot at. 

Now, have you decided on, the Army at least, on the uniform? 

Are you going to continue to have the same camouflage uniforms 

that you are utilizing today? 

General FULLER. The first part I would like to answer on, sir, is 

the Marines and the Army, General Brogan and myself work very 

closely together. Our teams are working very closely on sharing information as to what we are working on. Matter of fact, the Marines were in our office yesterday looking at our new capabilities 

and inquiring as to what we are doing and how we are doing it. 

We are doing the same thing with Special Operations Command. 

So, the three commands that are operating and generating new capability all the time, we are sharing all that data. 

Specific to the uniform, the Army has made a decision, based on 

a new methodology that we have developed that we are sharing 

with the Marines and the other services, that we believe we need 

a different color uniform for Afghanistan specifically. And we are 

in the process of generating that uniform. We are calling it the 

MultiCam uniform. 

And when you talk about our uniform, our Army combat uniform, I consider it to be two parts. One is the chassis—how it is 

designed, how we wear things such as the Velcro and things like 

that—and the other is the color. 

When we field this new uniform to our troops in Afghanistan, not 

only are we going to change the chassis, we get soldier feedback. 

We are constantly getting input from the soldiers, understanding 

what are the challenges with our uniform. So we are making some 

chassis changes, and we are making a color change specific to Afghanistan. And that is going to be the MultiCam uniform that will 

be fielded starting in July, sir. 
17 

Now, we did consider, in that process, the Marine Corps uniforms. And actually, we had 57 different uniform options that we 

considered. And where we see the Army operating in Afghanistan, 

we believe that this uniform would work the best in all of the environments in Afghanistan. 

Mr. ORTIZ. How soon before you get them? 

General FULLER. We will start seeing the first uniforms available 

in the July time period, sir, and we will start fielding them to the 

units deploying in August, with major brigades going over in August. 

And then we are working carefully with the theater to provide 

that same capability to the soldiers that are in the theater, but we 

are working through with the theater to ensure we do not fill up 

their lines of communications with the uniforms when they are also 

supporting a surge of troops. So, we are working on this whole effort real time, sir. 

Mr. ORTIZ. One of the things that they were concerned with was 

that the issues were not sufficient, because they wore out quicker. 

And then, if they needed another set, they had to pay for them. 

Are you aware of that? 

General FULLER. Sir, I am aware of that. As a matter of fact, I 

received your letter concerning that. 

Two items. One, the uniforms that we issue to our soldiers that 

are used in a combat zone are fire-resistant uniforms. They do not 

wear the same as our regular uniform that you would see. They 

look exactly the same in terms of the chassis and the color. They 

just are different material for fire resistance, so they wear differently. 

What we do is provide our soldiers with four of these uniforms 

before they deployed. And as they wear out those uniforms, they 

can go into the supply system and get reissued uniforms in theater. 

So the soldier does not have to pay for uniforms when they are in 

the theater, if they tear them, rip them, or whatever they may do 

to them. 

Mr. ORTIZ. You have to hear this, because it was one of the main 

concerns when I spent time with them in Italy. 

Thank you so much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General BROGAN. Sir, I would only add that, there are fire-resistant uniforms, organizational equipment. It is issued to the Marines 

in theater. And then, they wear it out over there, they do not have 

to buy that uniform. They do not wear the flame-resistant uniforms 

when they are back at home station in garrison. 

Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you so much. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Hunter, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, thank you for your service. 

The first thing, General Fuller, I just wanted to make you aware 

of something in case you—do you know what the counter bomber 

is, the ECM [Electronic Counter Measure] device called counter 

bomber? 

General FULLER. Not directly. No, sir. 
18 

Mr. HUNTER. Low-level radar, has some video. The Marines are 

using it right now. Air Force is using it over there. The Army has 

12 here in a warehouse that it has yet to deploy. 

General Brogan, do you know what I am talking about here? 

General BROGAN. I am familiar with it, sir. And I will tell you 

that it has met with mixed results from the user in theater. They 

are dissatisfied with its performance—too many false alarms. And 

so, we are not—— 

Mr. HUNTER. Is it better than nothing? Or is—— 

General BROGAN. It may or may not be. 

Mr. HUNTER. Okay. 

General BROGAN. Best handled probably offline, sir. 

Mr. HUNTER. Okay. Got it. Going with that, the only reason I 

bring this up is not because it is a great device or a bad one. It 

is that the Army has got 12 sitting back here. 

So, they are in a warehouse, and it is kind of—this goes along 

with other things, too, where there are situations where we have 

stuff and we do not—the Army buys it. Different services buy it. 

You know, it could be anybody. And then it sits here as opposed 

to being deployed. There is no plan right now from the Army where 

they want to put them, so they are just sitting here. 

This is one of those things that has been fast-tracked, has been 

purchased, has been fast-track testing, and now it is just sitting 

here in a warehouse. There are 12 of them. 

Just so you know, they are here. There are 12 in the U.S. in a 

warehouse that have not been deployed yet. And just to see what, 

you know, if the Army is going to use them at all, or try to use 

them, or try to upgrade them, or whatever. So, that is the first 

thing. 

Second, I want to get down to one more thing just to touch base 

with you. As everybody looks at a new carbine to replace the M– 

4 or replace the upper receiver, or do something with it, if we need 

anything done with it, if at all, if it is down to we do want to upgrade it. 

Right now there are only three competitors in our small arms industrial base that are listed that can be—that are viable options 

to make the new carbine. There are three of them. One makes the 

Ma Duce .50-cal machine guns, so they are out. And then the other 

two left are the ones that make the M–4 now, and a foreign company, a Belgian company. 

So, my question is, the Secretary of Defense has the ability right 

now to waive this rule and bring other companies in, like the three 

or four other American small arms manufacturers that we have, 

into this competition. And my question is, have you encouraged 

him to do so, or will you? 

General FULLER. Sir, I understand what you are talking about. 

When we look at both the improved carbine competition, that it 

would be upcoming, and also improving our M–4 in a parallel path. 

We are looking at ensuring we have a full and open competition, 

meaning all vendors can come forward. 

Recognizing that the current language would preclude potential 

full and open, we are working through that process right now. I 

cannot say that we have asked—we have not asked the Secretary 
19 

of Defense for a waiver at this time. But we are considering that 

process and how we are going to do that. 

Mr. HUNTER. Great. Okay. 

And my last question is for General Oates—something we do not 

talk about too often. We will talk about IEDs and what is going on 

with those. 

I was able to talk with Dr. Ash Carter and General Paxton, who 

lead up the IED Task Force. It is a party of two, and that is good, 

I think, because they were talking about they were able to get 

more MRAPs over there, to do some things to bring people’s different lanes together, and just get things going over faster. And 

they have Secretary Gates’ ear all the time. 

I asked them something yesterday. They did not have an answer. 

I asked General Petraeus this morning—did not have an answer. 

And it is this. Do we own any road in Afghanistan? 

Do we own it? Do we own 20 kilometers? Do we own five kilometers? Can we say that we have persistent coverage of any road 

at all, any certain amount where we have ISR, whether it is 

manned or unmanned, watching that road? 

General OATES. Sir, from this distance away from the warfight, 

I would not hazard a guess whether we actually own the road, any 

stretch of it 24 hours a day. 

I do know that there is adequate ISR coverage and force to dominate portions of the road when they operate on them. But I, quite 

frankly, have not looked at how many kilometers that is. 

My first visit to Afghanistan was a couple of weeks ago, and I 

was struck by the difference in Afghanistan versus Iraq in terms 

of how much unpaved road there is and the extreme peril of operating, especially in the east and the north—extreme fall-offs on either side and a twice as large country from Iraq. 

I think—— 

Mr. HUNTER. But less road than Iraq, less ASRs [Alternate Supply Routes], less MSRs [Major Supply Routes]. You only have one 

quarter of the ring road from RC-South [Regional Command-South] 

to Nangarhar you have got to cover. 

General OATES. I would agree with you—obviously, less paved 

road. But I could not give you an answer on how much we actually 

control day to day, sir. 

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, gentlemen. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Maryland, Ms. Tsongas. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Massachusetts, excuse me. 

Mr. TAYLOR. I am sorry, Massachusetts. My apologies. 

Ms. TSONGAS. I only say that, because I know General Fuller is 

from Massachusetts, as well, and we are proud of it. 

First, I would like to thank all of our witnesses for being here. 

I appreciate all the time and effort you have not only put into this 

hearing, but that you have put into providing our service members 

with the best force protection equipment available. Your efforts 

truly save lives, and I thank you for that. 

General Fuller, as I said, it is nice to see you again. I want to 

commend you and all of our witnesses on the fine work that has 
20 

been done throughout the past 8 years to improve soldiers’ survivability on the battlefield due to improvements in body armor. 

The services have come a long way to ensure each and every soldier, sailor, airman and Marine has the individual protection 

equipment that they need. 

But there is still far to go, and I still have some concerns about 

how the Department of Defense is going to meet the requirements 

of reduced weight, operationally tailored body armor. My primary 

concern is in the fact that the Department of Defense failed to establish separate procurement in RDT&E [research, development, 

test and evaluation] budget line items for body armor, as was mandated in last year’s National Defense Authorization Act. 

And this failure leads to the perception, in spite of what you all 

have been saying here today, that Department of Defense, the 

Army and the Marine Corps are not committed to body armor as 

an investment item. In fact, body armor procurement has traditionally been funded through supplemental and overseas contingency 

operations [OCO] funding, and this year is no different. The Army is requesting $327 million for body armor in OCO, 

while there is no discernible amount requested in the base. 

What is going to happen when there is no more OCO funding 

and the services can longer count on the supplemental funds to 

procure the central protective equipment? 

The lack of commitment to move body armor procurement funding into the base is compounded by the fact that the Army reported 

in a hearing we held last week on acquisition and modernization 

that its fiscal year 2011 base budget request for modernization of 

body armor programs is zero dollars. 

By requesting body armor funding solely in the overseas contingency operations fund, and by putting practically no dollars against 

research and development for body armor, my concern is that services are setting themselves up for a future situation where once 

again our soldiers are deployed for combat operations with inadequate and outdated body armor. 

So, now, here are my questions, and I am going to ask several. 

First, General Fuller and General Brogan, what is the long-term 

investment strategy for providing Army procurement and RDT&E? 

And I know, as we have heard today, the department is creating 

one standard for body armor testing and evaluation, and I appreciate your efforts. But what is the Army and the Marine Corps and 

the other services doing to create the same synergy of effort when 

it comes to procurement and research and development of body 

armor? 

If you could, please describe the process you use to communicate 

body armor requirements and performance specifications to industry. 

General FULLER. Yes, ma’am. I appreciate your question. 

As we have talked about before, it is a complex issue when we 

talk about our soldier protection. 

We are looking in the Army as to what should be in a portfolio 

associated with our soldier protection. And when we talk about 

that, we look at how do we protect the total soldier from their head 

to toe. And we are looking at the bomb suits, the concealable body 

armor, our hard and soft ballistic armor that we were talking about 
21 

previously, even our fire-resistant uniforms and our ballistic underwear. 

We are working with, in the Army and the department, to address the language that was in the—address this year’s language 

identifying we needed to have a research and development and a 

procurement line. And at this time, we do not have it. I recognize 

that. We are trying to define what should be in that line, what 

components, and then, how much should be there. 

In terms of why we are not looking at buying additional product 

in the future, from a procurement perspective, our requirements 

right now in the Army is approximately 966,000 improved outer 

tactical vests. And we are reaching the end of that procurement. 

And in terms of our hard ESAPI plates, we have procured over 2 

million of the ESAPI plates, and we have on contract 240,000 of 

our XSAPI that I talked about as contingency stocks. 

So, I believe our soldiers are covered. But I do recognize we need 

to think, where are we going to go in the future when we want to 

have a new capability, and how do we fund for that when currently 

we are funding everything through OCO. 

Ms. TSONGAS. General Brogan. 

General BROGAN. Yes, ma’am. We actually communicate the performance specifications to industry. We do that through requests 

for information—can you provide this capability—requests for 

quotations, which is how much would it be, what in your production capacities, that sort of information. 

And then, when there is an actual decision to buy, it is a request 

for procurement. Tell us in a proposal how much it would be, what 

your production capacity would be, the rates, delivery schedules, 

and things like that. So, those are the performance specifications. 

With respect to purchasing, you are absolutely correct. We have 

purchased a large amount of this equipment with the overseas contingency operation funding, and the supplementals prior to that. 

As General Fuller has said, we now have in our possession the 

required quantities. However, the soft body armor wears out roughly every 3 years. It has not met the investment threshold to be 

funded through a procurement line. We have funded that through 

an operations and maintenance line. 

And as I mentioned, we have iterated. We started the conflict 

with the outer tactical vest. Based on feedback from the user in 

theater, we went to the modular tactical vest, which addressed a 

number of the deficiencies. And now, we have designed in the U.S. 

government improved modular tactical vest. And we have given 

that specification to industry to build to print. 

So, we own the technical data package for that, and industry is 

making it to our specifications. 

Aligned with that is the plate carrier, the smaller vest that does 

not have the extra soft armor. That reduces the weight being carried by the Marine in theater. We also own that design. It is interoperable, so the accoutrements that go with the improved module 

tactical vest can be moved back and forth between the plate carrier 

and the IMTV. 

I mentioned, to an earlier question, how we communicate generally with industry, and that our 6–1s, 6–2, research and develop-
22 

ment lines are handled by the Office of Naval Research and by the 

Naval Research Laboratory. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Thank you for your testimony. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Colorado, 

Mr. Coffman, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The preponderance of our casualties are in Afghanistan now. And 

I believe that the preponderance of those are due to IED roadside 

bombs. 

Recently in Afghanistan, it is my understanding that the government there outlawed ammonium nitrate, and that ammonium nitrate is a primary ingredient in Afghanistan for the making of 

IEDs, unlike, I think, in Iraq, where it was old munitions, mortar 

artillery rounds were a primary source for the IEDs there. 

What impact—and I understand that north of 90 percent of the 

ammonium nitrate in Afghanistan was used for the making, actually, of IEDs—what impact does this outlawing, or this ban on ammonium nitrate in Afghanistan, if I am correct in that, have in a 

reduction of IED capability? 

General OATES. Sir, thanks. That is a great question. 

As a point of clarification, ammonium nitrate actually has some 

beneficial uses in Afghanistan and every other country for road 

preparation and mining, to some degree. But President Karzai 

did—at some insistence on our part—ban ammonium nitrate. 

I believe, and I think the command currently assesses, that will 

have an impact, a favorable impact, on the availability of this fertilizer to be used as an explosive device. 

We also have a challenge with potassium chlorate, which is used 

to make matches. It comes out of facilities in Pakistan, as well, for 

perfectly legitimate reasons, but can be converted to explosive capability. 

So, the short answer to your question is, the enemy has shown 

us in Iraq, and is showing us in Afghanistan, that they are adaptive. Were we to go take away all the ammonium nitrate, they 

would shift somewhere else. 

And so, while it is a good step, and it will have good benefits for 

protecting our soldiers, airmen, Marines, it is not going to close out 

their options, sir. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Have we seen any effect that can be traced back 

to this decision at this time, in terms of any kind of slow-down or 

reduction in IED-making capability? 

General OATES. Sir, it is a little early. I do not want to misspeak, 

but I think this ban has been in place for a little bit over a month 

maybe. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Okay. 

General OATES. And so, I think it is a little premature. However, 

there are indications from our intelligence sources that it will have 

an impact. How much so, we will have to gauge. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Okay. Very well. Thank you. 

In terms of individual force protection equipment, where are we 

at in terms of the next generation of helmet? 

General BROGAN. The enhanced combat helmet that you mentioned, sir, started as a joint effort between the United States 

Army and the United States Marine Corps. They did the first 
23 

round of research and development, testing. There was certainly 

potential in a new, composite material that we looked at. 

We took on, then, the next step of actually putting out the request for proposals to industry and awarding a number of development contracts for test items. 

When we got those test items in and tested them, they did not 

perform as we had hoped and anticipated. We provided the results 

of those tests back to our industry partners, so that they could 

make the modifications to their designs. And we would expect to 

begin to start receiving the next set of test items early this summer, sir. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Very well. 

Let us see. Could someone go over with me? I know that in the 

ISR area that we have been flooded with data. And I think that 

the primary problem seems to be it is too much information coming 

in, and an inability to sort it in real time in order to have an effect 

on the battlefield. 

Can you tell me what improvements there are in terms of managing the information coming in from various ISR platforms? 

Ms. D’AGOSTINO. I can speak to two initiatives that were discussed with us during the course of our work for the Air and Land 

Subcommittee. One is the National Security Agency, is finding innovative ways to find more linguists to help in translating and 

dealing with the signals intelligence data that is being collected. 

And again, you know, these are initiatives that we are unable to 

measure how, you know, how much impact they have. 

In addition, the Air Force has announced plans to add 2,500 analysts to their corps, to be able to process more, and exploit and disseminate more of the data coming off the ISR systems. 

So, these are two that we mention in our report and that were 

raised to us. So, people are trying to deal with it, as, you know, 

breaking the back of the back end of the cycle with all of this flooding of data. 

But again, you know, it is too early to tell how effective these efforts are going to be. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. SMITH [presiding]. Thank you. 

Mr. Kissell. 

Mr. KISSELL. Thank you, gentlemen, and thank you for being 

here today. And I would like to note that, while the apparent position to me being near the end of the line and asking questions, I 

do want to allocate—you know, note that I have a whole row allocated to me here. [Laughter.] 

So, do not let that kind of show you where I am in importance. 

Mr. SMITH. The room is a little big. [Laughter.] 

But we are very happy back in Rayburn when we get back there. 

Mr. KISSELL. Yes, you kind of lose track of who is behind you 

when you are down here. 

Mr. SMITH. I did not even see you down there for a couple of minutes. [Laughter.] 

Mr. KISSELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I do have a question. And it is kind of hard to—and General 

Fuller, I think maybe this question would go to you. This is a ques-
24 

tion I normally might run through channels. And I am not advocating a particular vendor here. 

But we had a—being that so much of our conversation has been 

about body armor and about can we move ahead to a new technology, a new generation—I had a gentleman come to my office a 

while back that was on the cutting edge of science at one end of 

an idea, and using some of the oldest technology known to mankind 

at the other. 

If what he said was true, it would seemingly be a huge step forward in the possibility of reducing weight and increasing the 

strength of protection to our people. And he has been working with, 

you know, Department of Defense, and just seemingly getting more 

and more frustrated as he went. 

I am going to ask my military E.A. [Executive Assistant], Captain Tim Meadows over here, to get with whoever you would like 

for him to get with. I would like to have a report back from you 

all. Is this a possibility? Is what he is talking about realistic? Is 

it a step forward, a giant step forward as he is talking about? 

I am not pushing this vendor. I am just wanting some feedback 

as to—because if it is, then let us pursue it. If it is not, then I can 

just say, I am sorry, this is not what we are looking for. But there 

are some things here that got me somewhat curious about what he 

is offering. 

And General Oates, in the scheme of—and Mr. Bartlett said it 

today, that, you know, the proportion amount of money we spend 

in fighting IEDs and protecting our soldiers versus the cost of 

IEDs. And then also, we have got to keep doing that. We have got 

to protect our soldiers. 

But are we catching up, or are they getting further ahead? 

General OATES. Sir, it is a great question. I actually think Iraq 

might be informative here. 

If we go back and look at what has transpired in Iraq and the 

funding that has come forward to protect our soldiers, but also 

allow us to understand the networks that were engaging us, begin 

to attack them directly, understand the devices and defeat a great 

number of them, the trend lines are fairly clear. And we can get 

back to you on the record on the specifics over the years. 

But in aggregate, it took the enemy more IEDs to attack us to 

achieve the same results. And those are all positive trend lines, to 

now, where Iraq does not begin to resemble this year, as it did the 

first time I was there in 2003, and several more times after that. 

I do believe that, if we look at the investment provided to the 

services and to JIEDDO, that would directly translate to protecting 

our soldiers and helping us attack the networks over there, the results are clear. The difficulty is tying individual dollars to, you 

know, what will 10 more dollars get you in terms of effects against 

the IED. That one is very tough. 

And we are going to try and do better, to the chairman’s question, and try and play back what we believe the reasonable measures of effectiveness are. But I think Iraq is informative of great 

success we have had in this area. 

Mr. KISSELL. And I do not want to indicate at all that this is a 

monetary issue. We have got to protect our soldiers. I am just wondering, you know, are all the technological things we are doing, all 
25 

the efforts we are making, are they getting further ahead, or are 

we catching up in terms of protecting our soldiers? 

And I do want to also follow up with what Congressman Hunter 

said about sharing the technologies, and making sure that if we 

have something sitting somewhere because somebody has chosen 

not to use it at that point in time, that we are not just ignoring 

the fact that somebody else might have need for it, because there 

have been a couple of situations brought to our attention that we 

followed up on that that happened. And we want to make sure all 

our assets are being used. 

And I yield back. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. TAYLOR [presiding]. The Chair thanks the gentleman. 

The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. 

Wittman, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, panel members, so much for joining us today. I 

appreciate you taking times out of your busy schedule. And thank 

you for your service to our nation. 

General Spoehr, I wanted to ask, at last year’s joint forces protection hearing, I asked General Lennox about what the Army was 

doing to upgrade our small arms capability, specifically in the M– 

9 pistol and M–4 carbine. In regards to the M–9, at that point I 

cited the findings of a 2006 Center for Naval Analysis study of our 

soldiers and Marines in Afghanistan—and also Iraq—who had engaged the enemy with their weapons in combat. 

And in that study, 48 percent of the respondents were dissatisfied with the M–9 pistol, with 26 percent requesting a larger caliber weapon, and 20 percent saying the M–9 should be replaced. 

I note that the fiscal year 2011 DOD budget includes new start 

authority for a handgun to replace the M–9, and that the requirement may already be JROC approved. 

I was wondering if you could tell us what progress the Army has 

made towards replacing the M–9 with a more powerful, modern 

and feature-rich sidearm. And when can the committee expect an 

RFP [request for proposal] for the new handgun? And what is the 

Army’s timeline for fielding the new weapon? 

General SPOEHR. Thank you, sir. As you say, there has been a 

new Joint Requirements Oversight Council requirement for a pistol 

approved. It was actually submitted by the Air Force, who felt the 

need for a new pistol. So, that requirement was approved. 

We are still examining the requirements in the Army for a new 

pistol. We are aware of the study you mentioned and the soldiers’ 

feedback on the pistol. 

In light of their feedback, we have done a couple of key improvements for the pistol. We have given them improved magazine. And 

General Fuller’s people are going to put new hand grips, modular 

hand grips, to kind of accommodate the variety of people’s hand 

sizes for the pistol, because we think that is a fair amount of the 

dissatisfaction with that weapon. 

We are going to look at the Air Force’s requirements document. 

They have done a lot of work to get it to this point. If we think, 

and if we believe that that requirement meets the Army’s require-
26 

ment, I think you will—you know, we could proceed with a program. But no decision has been made yet, sir. 

Mr. WITTMAN. I know there has been some talk about the caliber 

of the handgun and its stopping power, and people being a little 

concerned about the small caliber that they currently have. So, I 

am assuming that is going to be one of the array of issues that you 

will address in looking at a replacement for the M–9? 

General SPOEHR. Yes, sir. And as you are aware, stopping power 

is caliber. But there is also a component of ammunition. And you 

have probably heard in recent press reports about something called 

‘‘green ammunition,’’ which we are going to be fielding soon for the 

M–4 carbine—much more stopping power, much more, we believe, 

lethality. 

We think that same technology has applicability over to the M– 

9 pistol. So, as we get done probably with fielding green ammo for 

the carbine, we are going to be looking at importing some of that 

same technology over to the pistol, where it may make up for any 

lethality gaps that they currently have. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Do you believe some of the concerns with the M– 

4 as far as its range or capability will be taken up with this green 

ammunition? In other words, are the main objections to the weapon 

basically its stopping power? Or are there other aspects of the M– 

4 that are creating challenges for our men and women in—— 

General SPOEHR. Sir, most of the concerns we hear about the M– 

4 have to do with its reliability and how many rounds between 

stoppages—mean rounds between stoppages. 

The carbine as it is now is demonstrating performance well beyond its specifications. It was only required to do 600 rounds between stoppages, and it is demonstrating around 3,600. 

We are looking at improving the carbine, giving it a heavier barrel, some other improvements. There have been over 60 improvements made to the M–4 carbine. But we do not get a lot of complaints, frankly, about the M–4 carbine. It has met with fairly 

widespread success. 

I would defer to General Fuller, if you have anything you want 

to add. 

General FULLER. Thank you, sir. 

In light of your question, what would we think about when we 

talk about our M–4 and other weapons is, it is a combination. It 

is the weapon. It is the ammunition. It is the optics. It is the training. And then, equally important, it is how it interfaces with the 

soldier. 

And as General Brogan and I work through not hanging things 

onto soldiers, we need to ensure that what we do for body armor, 

for example, does not adversely impact a soldier’s ability to get a 

good sight picture on their weapon. 

In light of what General Spoehr was talking about, we are looking at improvements to our M–4. But we believe we have made, actually, a very recent one that is going to have significant impact 

in the field. 

Where we are doing all the additional testing, we saw that the 

magazine did not reliably feed the ammunition straight up into the 

upper receiver. And we have now fielded a new magazine. We have 
27 

pushed that into the theater. It is now part of our rapid fielding 

initiative, and we are rapidly getting that capability out there. 

But we also are getting ready to release a RFP, a request for a 

proposal, that will give us the ability to give the soldiers that heavier barrel, so they can have an increased, sustained rate of fire. 

The Army is asking us to look at giving them back the fully automatic mode in that M–4. We are also looking at changing some of 

the bolt in the upper receiver components. And we are looking at 

all these different options. 

At the same time we are working on the M–4, we are looking at 

a new carbine. Is there something better out there than what we 

currently have? But we believe the M–4 is a very good—provides 

a very good capability to our soldiers. But it is a combination. 

And I think the green ammunition is going to give back a lot of 

that lethality that the soldiers were asking about, where did it go. 

Well, it went because we gave you a much shorter barrel, a round 

that was designed on a longer barrel, and a lot of other technical 

components, sir. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Again, I want to thank all the panel, particularly Lieutenant 

General Oates. I think you, with your combat experience in Iraq, 

you bring—you all bring a lot to this conversation, but in particular, your experience. 

General Oates, our nation’s ability to deliver vehicles that have 

mine resistance has been a challenge. The Humvee was a great vehicle until the enemy discovered it had a vulnerability to explosions 

from beneath it, which resulted in the fielding of the mine resistant 

vehicle. 

The Stryker is a great vehicle. But unfortunately, now that the 

bar has been raised with the introduction of the mine resistant vehicle, the Stryker appears to be more vulnerable to that problem. 

What steps are you taking to address that? What does this committee need to do to help you? 

And above all, what are the lessons that we have learned in the 

development of the MRAP? Again, I always will commend General 

Brogan on a great job that he did, but it is just a sad fact that from 

the time we made up our minds that we were going to buy 18,000 

MRAPs till they were fielded, people needlessly died in Iraq and 

Afghanistan. 

So, what steps are we taking for a more survivable Stryker? 

What did we learn from the MRAP program, so that we can field 

it quicker than we did, and even though General Brogan did a phenomenal job of fielding the MRAP? 

General OATES. Sir, I thank you very much. 

As you know, this is an extremely complex set of interdependent 

variables on a vehicle. Afghanistan, what we have learned is, due 

to the absence of improved roads, that there is another significant 

ingredient to survivability of vehicles, and that is the enemy’s 

placement of the IED and, in some cases, the inability to go offroad. 

But the Stryker is a very, very survivable vehicle, in my opinion. 

I have been in it and been in combat with it. 
28 

In Afghanistan it has a unique capability, because it can go offroad, and it is very quiet. And so, it can seek to avoid obvious emplacements of IEDs [Improvised Explosive Devices]. 

So, just taking that independent variable, you could conclude the 

Stryker is more survivable, given that the MRAP is largely confined to the road, whereas the enemy has a very clear attack axis. 

We have studied the process of the MRAP in JIEDDO [Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization] and looked at the 

evolution and understanding of the V-shape and U-shape hulls. 

And we are working with the MRAP Task Force underneath the 

senior integration group to see what new technologies there may be 

out there that we have not yet explored, and how we might offer 

some assistance to the MRAP Task Force and what we discover in 

our own technological reviews. 

But to date, my major concern is trying to help the forces that 

are in Afghanistan detect these under-body explosions where they 

are located, and seek to defeat them before we drive over them. 

That is my primary focus right now. 

The MRAP Task Force is currently looking at the new set of vehicles, and we are a support role there, sir. And we offer advice 

along those roads, but we do not produce the vehicle platform itself. 

So, I may have to defer on this issue to my good friend down 

there who does the MRAP business, or understands it better than 

I do. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Would anyone like to address what steps are being 

taken on the Stryker? It is my understanding that one of the manufacturers has come up with a double-V-type bottom. 

The immediate question that I would have is, I believe it was 

General Blum that explained to me that the drivetrain on the 

Humvee had the unintended consequence of shaping the charge, 

where the force of the blast tended to go in the cab because of that. 

I guess my first question would be, with that double-V, do you 

get that same problem with the unintended consequence of shaping 

the charge? I guess that would be the apex of where the two Vs 

come together. 

General SPOEHR. Yes, sir. As you mentioned, industry has come 

to the Army with a proposal for the Stryker for what we call the 

double-V hull. It is really a W. And we were concerned about the 

same thing you were, that the apex, wouldn’t that channel all the 

energy and perhaps even make things worse. 

Industry believes not. They have some actual blast tests. They 

have done modeling, as well. They say, because that apex is significantly higher than the floor of the Stryker used to be, that the exponential difference in height from the IED makes a huge difference in survivability. 

Nevertheless, we are—so, we are going to ask, and we have 

asked OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense] for permission, to 

build prototypes of this vehicle. And as quickly as get those prototypes, we intend to take them up to Aberdeen and blow them up, 

and see for real how this works. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Well, I guess my next question would be, going back 

to our responsibilities, do you have the financial resources—do you 

have all the financial resources that you need to expedite this program? 
29 

General SPOEHR. Sir, right now in fiscal year 2010, we believe 

right now we can initiate this effort with no support needed from 

Congress. If that changes, if we develop some need, we will immediately come back to this committee. 

Mr. TAYLOR. General Oates, going back to your observation, and 

since you actually mentioned potassium chloride and ammonium 

nitrate as being part of the problem, I am curious how—well, I will 

make an observation. 

The Center for Remote Sensing from satellites happens to be in 

south Mississippi. One of the things they pointed out to me was 

that from space, looking at extremely slight differences in temperatures of trees, they can tell me or you which trees in the forest 

have pine beetles, which trees in the forest are stressed for lack of 

water. 

They can tell you the 10 most likely places to catch bluefin tuna, 

updated every 90 minutes—a number of things that are just absolutely remarkable they can tell us from information coming from 

space. 

I would imagine that both ammonium nitrate and potassium 

chloride have to give off vapors. I would imagine they have to give 

off heat. 

To what extent have you just put out the word to industry, I 

need someone to help me find a better way to locate these substances when they are in concentrations of 10 pounds or more? 

General OATES. Mr. Chairman, it is a great question. And I 

would like to take that one offline with you, only because we actually have some pretty good technology right now that we believe is 

going to assist us in detecting these items. 

But we are actively looking for additional assistance in both 

change detection on the road and the detection of the actual items. 

And I would be happy to share with you for the record on an 

emerging technology that we intend to put in theater here very 

soon. 

It actually returns to the point that Congressman Hunter made. 

If we can achieve some persistent surveillance on these roads, it 

will increase our confidence in understanding where the enemy is 

operating and what he is doing with those roads. 

To that end, this is one of the top priorities for Central Command, is the emplacement of additional tethered capability to survey these roads, much as we used in Iraq. And that is the first 

tranche of items that we have funded and we will be moving forward to Afghanistan. 

The technology you are describing, we would be very interested 

in, sir. And we have openly and directly with vendors indicated 

that we would like to close that gap. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Let me ask you the same question. Do you have— 

has this committee and our appropriator counterparts, have they 

provided for you all the resources, financial resources you need to 

pursue this? 

General OATES. Yes, sir. At present, we do not have any issues. 

And like my friend here, and based on what you have told me personally, we would return to you immediately, because we understand the sense of urgency. If we need additional resources, I would 

not hesitate to come ask for them. 
30 

Mr. TAYLOR. Lastly—and I will open this up to the panel—on almost every visit to theater, when you ask the troops what is it that 

you want, what can we get you, almost in every instance it comes 

back. They kind of shuffle their feet and say, gee, if you could just 

make my body armor lighter. 

What sort of resources do you have to pursue that? And again, 

is that—was that adequately addressed in the President’s budget 

request? Do you have the resources you need? If a manufacturer 

were to come to you today with a 10 percent or 20 percent reduction in that weight, would you have the funds available to see if 

that product is worth purchasing? 

General FULLER. Sir, in light of that question, yes, we are. As 

General Brogan said, we really are at the knee of the curve. We 

are looking for a new technology to be able to get us that lighter 

weight, and in particular to our hard plates. 

If it was found, we would buy it. I do not know how much we 

would buy, but we would be buying it. But we do not have it out 

there right now. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Okay. 

Again, General Fuller, if it was found, do you have the resources 

available now? Would you need an additional line item in the authorization and appropriations bills? I guess that is what I would 

like to know. 

Do you have the authority to pursue that, if you saw a product 

that you liked and thought was worthwhile for the troops? 

And General Brogan, if you would like to address that? 

General BROGAN. We absolutely have the resources we would 

need to go test it, to see if it was, in fact, better. We entertain frequently industry members who think they have an idea of what 

could be a better body armor. Unfortunately, many of those are 

PowerPoint. And that is about how deep they are. 

Very few people bring us actual product that we can go shoot and 

test. But if someone has that, we have the ability immediately to 

go to Aberdeen Test Center and shoot those, and determine if it is 

good enough. 

And then, using our below-threshold reprogramming authority, 

and because on them there is a fungible appropriation, we can very 

easily move that and begin to buy it. And then, if we needed significant quantities, we would put that in the OCO request either 

at the beginning of the fiscal year, or, like we have often received, 

the June additional money, sir. 

Mr. TAYLOR. General, can I follow up on that? I happen to come 

from, as most of the members of this committee, a very pro-defense 

community—heck of a lot of National Guardsmen, a heck of a lot 

of people who are serving and have served, and therefore, a heck 

of a lot of moms and dads who follow this issue very closely. 

So, if someone were to come to you with a better body armor, are 

you telling me that you have the financial resources to not only test 

it, but to begin acquisition immediately? 

General BROGAN. We certainly have to test, and we would have 

the money to begin production. Probably not to outfit the entire 

force, and we would come to you for that. But we do have the ability to begin production. 
31 

I have right now on my desk a letter from the father of a Marine, 

who is convinced that NASA [National Aeronautics and Space Administration] has an armor that we should be using, just because 

he knows that in space they armor their satellites. 

I can tell you, I have personally visited the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, and looked at what they have. And it is not 

designed to stop bullets. It is designed to stop small pieces of junk 

that are flying at high velocity in space. 

And I truly do reach out and try to find a solution, sir. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Okay. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. I think I do not have anything much further, just to 

follow up a little bit on the Stryker discussion. We have several 

Stryker brigades out of Fort Lewis in my district. And it has received rave reviews from the soldiers coming back who have used 

it, not just in Iraq, but in Afghanistan. And I think that is an important point to make that you made, General, that its maneuverability really improves its survivability. 

And also, the soldiers love it, because it gives them a little bit 

of control of their own destiny. They are not counting on a piece 

of metal below them to save them. They are counting on their own 

ability to foresee danger and react to it. And they very much appreciate that. 

I guess the one question I have as we go through on the doubleV—in the state of Washington I always say W-hull, but whatever. 

You know, as we test it and go forward, number one, what we do 

want to make sure—we want to move as quickly as possible, but 

we want to make sure it works. 

And I know you know that, but it is going to be particularly difficult in this instance, because if it does work, we are going to want 

to do it quickly. So we have to be really careful about that. 

I have gotten a different answer from a couple of different people 

to this question. If it works and we decide we want to do this, however, is the situation that it is not possible to retrofit the existing, 

I think roughly, 2,400 Strykers? That the way this is designed, it 

will have to be built on new Strykers? Is that your understanding? 

If we decide this works, we could not go back and put it on the existing fleet? 

General SPOEHR. Sir, you are correct. It cannot be retrofitted currently. Now, we have asked the question, you know, could we hypothetically saw a Stryker and put the top back on it? That has not 

been the case so far. 

And so, fortunately, there is currently an active production line 

from Stryker. So, if this improvement were to play out, we would 

ask the manufacturer to cut this improvement in, and so it would 

become a part of new Strykers coming off the line. 

Mr. SMITH. And they are very confident that they can do that as 

they go forward. I understand that. 

And then also, you know, just following up the original point, if 

we do this it is important to emphasize that the existing Stryker 

fleet is still very, very useful. And we certainly do not want to create the impression, because we have a new variant, that the old 

variant is not still very effective for the warfighter. 
32 

We have got 2,400 of them. We want to use them. And from all 

reports, they are performing quite well. 

Thank you. I do not have anything further. I yield back. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The Chair thanks the gentleman. 

The Chair recognizes Mr. Hunter for 5 minutes. 

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And my little brother is a specialist. He is a Stryker guy who is 

over there in Iraq now, so he is Chairman Smith’s constituent, he 

and his family every now and then in Fort Lewis. In fact, he is 

home right now to have his third boy—his third baby, first boy. He 

has got a little three-week leave, and then he goes back for six 

months over to Iraq. So, I want to make sure that those Strykers 

are good to go. 

One thing that I want to bring up that I think is important, and 

I think it is important that JIEDDO remains a consistent entity, 

probably forever, because one thing we have not talked about is future wars. The enemy knows how to get to us now. It is IEDs. 

So, if you look at the level of IED in Afghanistan, think of what 

Iran could do with their level of sophistication. Think of what 

China could do, or a country that is not a backwoods spot like Afghanistan. The enemy knows how to do it now. It is going to be 

a threat to us forever, because we have not been able to actually 

defeat IEDs. 

So, I think this is something that we are going to have to keep 

in mind forever. When it comes to warfare, why go line-to-line with 

us when you can just IED the hell out of us forever, whenever we 

are in someone else’s territory? 

So, I think this is something that, even when Afghanistan dies 

down, it is going to be up to us here, and to you all to ask for it, 

for us to maintain this persistence when it comes to IEDs, because 

we are going to see it forever. And we are going to see it in 20 

years or 30 years. They are going to say, hey, look at Afghanistan 

and Iraq; we know how to do this. 

But my last question for General Oates, you wrote here in your 

testimony, ‘‘In the last several months Task Force ODIN has been 

supplemented with U.S. Air Force Liberty aircraft to good effect. 

We are not where we need to be yet on this capability but are rapidly moving to close this gap.’’ 

Do you have metrics? I mean, how do you know ODIN’s working? 

Have IEDs gone down where it has been flying? Have we been killing guys, or what? 

General OATES. Yes, sir. Colonel Don Galli, who commands 3rd 

Cav, and I go back about 20 years. And I was in Iraq when ODIN 

[Observe, Detect, Identify and Neutralize (U.S. military task force)] 

was started. I am a big fan of it. 

We did not have Liberty in Iraq. Now there is Liberty in Afghanistan. And they are roughly half-way through their intended fielding—I am sorry, about a third of the way through their intended 

fielding—of Liberty. 

I have actual metrics I can share with you, that I will take for 

the record, on the effects we have had with ODIN. 

[The information referred to is classified and retained in the committee files.] 
33 

General OATES. A problem to date is, ODIN has been carrying 

the load for the whole country. Now, with about 7 Liberty aircraft 

and about 14 more to come, maybe 15 more, I think they will be 

able to expand that coverage. 

There is a direct, compelling corollary between integrating air assets like ODIN or Liberty with a maneuver force toward success on 

defeating the IED threat. 

Mr. HUNTER. Let me interrupt you there. Is Liberty integrating 

like ODIN does? Or is it being used as the Air Force uses Predators, using Pred lines based on priorities? Or is it being used—that 

sensor-to-shooter ODIN relationship that made ODIN so effective— 

is it being used that way? 

General OATES. No, sir. ODIN resides inside the combat aviation 

brigade. And it is a very tight link with the maneuver force. 

Liberty, though, is following the priorities of the ground commander. And so, although it does not work directly inside a U.S. 

Army combat aviation brigade, it does respond to the ground commander’s priorities. 

The way the Air Force and the Army and the Marine Corps utilize their aviation assets, you know, is somewhat different. We 

really look at effects. 

I personally believe that the additional assets of Liberty will generate those effects we are looking for. But the command and control 

structure is different. There is no doubt about that, sir. 

Mr. HUNTER. Would you recommend that the Army have tactical 

control of Liberty, as it is intermixed with ODIN? 

General OATES. Sir, I do not dodge many questions, and I am not 

dodging this one, but I do believe that is the inherent authority of 

the commander in Afghanistan to determine how he wants to command and control those assets. I will defer to his judgment. 

Mr. HUNTER. Okay. How about this? As a division commander in 

Iraq, would you have rather had control of the air assets that are 

watching your roads and your rail? Or would you rather have a different service provide that for you? 

General OATES. Sir, as a division commander in Iraq, I had control of the air assets that operated in my area. But I also received 

assets based on priorities. So, as a ground maneuver guy, I have 

always been more comfortable by culture having an air-ground 

team under my direct control. 

But when I was the priority effort in Iraq, I received additional 

assets. And I think sometimes that that is not quite understood. I 

receive actually more assets if I am the priority. And there again, 

that goes to the ground commander. 

So, I have full faith and confidence the guys over there know 

what they are doing. And if they need to make a change—and incidentally, they have made a change to the command and control relationships of the engineer route clearance teams, based on an observation that they should be in direct support, not in general support. And we can show you a direct corollary to improve in that regard. But the commanders in country made that call. 

Mr. HUNTER. I would love to see those metrics, too. 

Thank you, gentlemen. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
34 

Mr. TAYLOR. The gentlewoman from Massachusetts, Ms. Tsongas. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Thank you. 

General Brogan and General Fuller, as you can see, the issue of 

body armor is a consistent theme here. And I have one more question before we head out to vote. 

Those of you who have testified to the fact that you feel, as far 

as procurement goes, you have the right amount of body armor to 

support the force. You also said, when asked about lighter-weight 

body armor, that the technology just is not there to reduce the 

weight of the small arms protective insert. 

And so, we find ourselves in a dilemma. Industry is now saying 

that, because the services have almost stopped buying body armor, 

they no longer have the internally generated funds to continue development of lighter-weight products. And the number of firms who 

supply body armor and its ceramic tile components is being reduced, due to the lack of procurement. 

So, how do we balance this? You are not really buying body 

armor, which leads to the industrial base shrinking. There is no investment from DOD in research and development. And now, the industrial base is not putting its own money into research and development, because it does not have any. 

You are saying the technology just is not there to reduce the 

weight of body armor, but it does not seem like anyone is actively 

investing in technology. 

So, where do we go from here, given those realities? 

General FULLER. Yes, ma’am. You do share the challenge that we 

have inside the Department of Defense right now. 

Because we had such large procurements, we did have the industry invest their own IR&D [industry research and development], 

recognizing that they had an opportunity to have a large procurement to balance that investment that they have made. 

What we are trying to do right now is bundle all of our 

sustainment contracts together under the Defense Logistics Agency 

between the Marines, the Army, Air Force and other services, to 

ensure while we are working through this action of, do we have a 

research and development line dedicated to soldier protection 

items, that we at least maintain that industrial base. 

So, if we wanted to go and contract with them for a research and 

development future activities, they will still be in the business of 

wanting to do this. 

At the same time, we are still working those S&T [science and 

technology] endeavors. When we had the question about the enhanced combat helmet, for example, that technology actually started in the MRAP and other heavy armor combat vehicles. It was 

part of the add-on armor that we were using that new technology. 

We are now taking it and trying to conform it into a new helmet 

design, and that is where we are having some challenges. It works 

great in flat sheets; it does not work as well when we conform it. 

So, those S&T efforts, I think, will continue to move forward. We 

still are investing in that arena, and we might see some future efforts coming out of that. 

But I recognize, we do need to look at a dedicated research and 

development line. We are going to work with the other services and 
35 

the Department of Defense to articulate what exactly is in that 

line, and how much is in that line. And while we are doing it, we 

are going to try to maintain that industrial base through bundling 

all our contracts to keep them viable. 

Ms. TSONGAS. General Brogan. 

General BROGAN. Congresswoman, what I would add is that, at 

least one of the vendors that you mentioned is one of the five largest defense contractors in the United States. It is kind of difficult 

for me to believe that they do not have any IR&D. They may not 

place it here, because they do not see the largest return on investment as compared to some of their other efforts. 

As General Fuller said, we do have to have S&T dollars to look 

for the breakthrough. It’s not, I think, valuable for us to continue 

to buy ceramic plates in large excess of what we need, just to keep 

the industrial base doing plates. Because, if we find that breakthrough in technology, we are going to want to buy that next best 

thing, and we will have created an obsolete item that we spent the 

taxpayers’ money on. So, it is a challenge how to adequately balance it. 

I think we need significant communication between us and industry, as opposed to lobbyists and you all. Them talking with us 

would be valuable. And we have provided them in our public communication for the desires of what it is we need, so that we can 

help them target those IR&D funds. 

The other not often used research and development tool is something called a CRADA—a cooperative research and development activity—where the U.S. government and industry cooperatively develop a piece of the equipment. And I think we probably need to 

explore that in this area. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Thank you both for your testimony. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Coffman. And I 

would remind the gentleman that there are about 6 minutes left 

on this vote. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I have just one quick question. And that is, sometimes there is 

an IED, a blast, where it is not a catastrophic kill for the vehicle. 

But because of the over-pressure, it causes casualties, if I understand it right. Have we been able to make any gains in terms of 

force protection relative to the over-pressure from a blast? 

General BROGAN. That most likely happens in an up-armored 

High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle [UAH], where the 

survivability capsule is, in fact, perforated. And unfortunately, as 

we know, the UAH is often a catastrophic kill. What we find most 

often in MRAP is that we keep the blast over-pressure outside of 

the survivability capsule. 

Now, injuries are the result of acceleration, not blast over-pressure. So, first, the vehicle is accelerated up into the air by the force 

of the blast. That happens very rapidly and causes compression injuries of the spinal column and of the lower back. 

And then, second, that vehicle impacts the ground, which is a 

slower event relatively speaking, similar to an automotive crash. 

And we have energy-absorbing seats to try to deal with that. 

The unfortunate thing, and I think what you are getting at, Mr. 

Coffman, is traumatic brain injuries. Those are not normally 
36 

caused by blast over-pressure. It is that acceleration event that 

causes the head to rapidly twist, and so, either shearing the curves 

inside the brain, or the brain moves slower than the skull. The 

skull stops. The brain then impacts the skull causing bruising, 

swelling, or, if it happens to the central cortex, loss of consciousness. 

No helmet is able to protect against that. And because our occupants of the vehicles need to be able to scan, use the windows, we 

cannot tether their head like they would in a NASCAR. So, what 

we are looking for are ways to improve the seating and restraint 

system to help decouple the acceleration experienced by the vehicle 

from that which is delivered to the occupants. 

General FULLER. Sir, also in light of that, the Army is fielding 

a helmet sensor. We had a generation alone that we fielded. And 

what we are trying to do is measure what is happening to that individual when they do have any type of traumatic event, so we can 

capture that data, provide it back to the medical community. 

So, as General Brogan was talking specifically about the medical 

conditions that are happening while you are going through this 

traumatic event, we want to be able to provide that data back to 

the Army medical community, so they can assist in understanding 

what is actually happening. And we are measuring it through a 

new helmet sensor that we will have that will measure what is 

happening, and then are full axis to the soldier’s head via their helmet when the event is going on. 

And we are getting ready to field that capability. We had an initial capability out there. Now we are getting ready to field an upgraded one—longer battery life. You do not have to go up there and 

touch every helmet to get the data off it. We can do it remotely. 

And it also can measure more axis of movement, really what 

your head is really doing inside that helmet—six degrees of freedom, sir. 

Mr. COFFMAN. I would appreciate it, if you have a written description of what you just mentioned, I would appreciate if you 

could get that to myself and maybe other members of the committee. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

[The information referred to was not available at the time of 

printing.] 

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Bartlett, there are about 4 minutes left, but I 

am going to verbally honor Ms. Sandra Day O’Connor. I do not 

think I have to—— 

Mr. BARTLETT. I have a very quick comment. I think it is unlikely that we are going to be purchasing body armor from some 

big industry that has the capacity, the capital to invest in R&D [research and development], which is why we need the dedicated R&D 

line, because I think the creativity and innovation is going to be 

in small business. And they just do not have the capital to do that. 

We need to help. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Gentlemen, I thank each and every one of you for 

what you do, for your service in theater, for your service back here 

stateside. 

I think it has been one of the better hearings that we have had. 

I thank you very, very much for being straightforward with us. 
37 

General Brogan, thanks as always for the phenomenal job of— 

your life-saving-job—on the MRAP program. 

And with that, if there are no further questions, this subcommittee hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:13 p.m., the subcommittees were adjourned.] 

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MARCH 17, 2010 

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