The Army’s modular force initiative, which has been referred to as the largest Army reorganization in 50 years, encompasses the Army’s total force--active Army, National Guard, and Army Reserve—and directly affects not only the Army’s combat units, but related support and command and control. Restructuring its units is a major undertaking and requires more than just the movement of personnel or equipment from one unit to another. The Army’s new designs are equipped and staffed differently than the units they replace. Therefore, successful implementation of this initiative will require many changes such as new equipment and facilities, a different mix of skills and occupational specialties among Army personnel, and significant changes to training and doctrine. The foundation of Army modularity is the creation of brigade combat teams—brigade-sized units that will have a common organizational design and will increase the pool of available units for deployment. The Army believes a brigade-based force will make it more agile and deployable and better able to meet combatant commander requirements. Not only does the Army expect to produce more combat brigades after its restructuring, it believes the brigades will be capable of independent action by the introduction of key enablers, such as enhanced military intelligence capability and communications, and by embedding various combat support capabilities in the brigade itself instead of at a higher echelon of command. The Army’s goal is for each new modular brigade combat team, which will include about 3000-4000 personnel, to have at least the same combat capability as a brigade under the current division-based force, which ranges from 3000 to 5000 personnel. Since there will be more combat brigades in the force, the Army believes its overall combat capability will be increased as a result of the restructuring, providing added value to combatant commanders. By the end of fiscal year 2006, the Army plans to reorganize its 10 active divisions, expanding from the current 33 to 43 modular, standardized brigade combat teams and creating new types of command headquarters to replace the current division headquarters structure. According to Army officials, this is a very quick pace for a restructuring of this magnitude. The Army has already begun the conversion with 4 divisions: the 3rd Infantry and the 101st Airborne Divisions, which we have visited, the 4th Infantry Division which we plan to visit this spring, and the 10th Mountain Division. The 3rd Infantry Division has redeployed back to Iraq in its new configuration, and the 101st is scheduled to redeploy later this year. The Army’s organizational designs for the brigade combat teams have been tested by its Training and Doctrine Command’s Analysis Center at Fort Leavenworth against a variety of scenarios and the Army has found the new designs to be as effective as the existing brigades in modeling and simulation. During the next few years, the Army plans to collect lessons learned from deployments and major training exercises and make appropriate refinements to its unit designs, equipment requirements, and doctrine. By fiscal years 2009-10, the Army plans to complete the creation of modular, standardized supporting brigades as well as a reorganization of its Corps and theater-level command and support structures. Ninety-two support brigades and five higher echelon headquarters will be included in this initiative—yet another indication of the far-reaching nature of the Army’s modularity plan. Although our work has focused on the active component, restructuring of the reserve component into modular units will also be a major undertaking. The Army plans to convert the National Guard’s existing 38 brigades into 34 modular brigade combat teams by fiscal year 2010. However, the Army is considering accelerating this schedule, according to Army officials. In addition, the Army Reserve will have to realign its support units in accordance with new modular designs. Like the active component, the reserves will have to manage these conversions to the new modular organizations while continuing to provide forces to Iraq. Because of the high degree of complexity associated with establishing a modular force while managing deployments to ongoing operations, the Army has developed a number of plans and processes, such as the Army Campaign Plan and has held periodic meetings within the Army headquarters and its components and major commands, to manage these changes. The Army’s senior leadership is playing a key role in these processes. The Army is likely to face a number of challenges in fully staffing and equipping modular combat brigades as designed. Although somewhat smaller in size, the new modular brigades are expected to be as capable as the Army’s existing brigades because they will have different equipment, such as advanced communications and surveillance equipment, and a different mix of personnel and support assets. Although the Army has an approved and tested design for the new modular brigades, it has also established a modified list of equipment and personnel that it can reasonably expect to provide to units undergoing conversion based on its current inventory of equipment, planned procurement pipelines, and other factors such as expected funding. The Army expects to use this modified list of equipment and personnel to guide the conversion of existing divisions to modular brigades for the foreseeable future. Our preliminary work indicates significant shortfalls in the Army’s capacity to equip and staff units, even at modified levels. For example, according to Army officials, modular brigade combat teams will require additional soldiers in personnel specialties such as military intelligence, truck drivers, civil affairs, and military police to achieve the planned capability. Military intelligence is one of the most critical of these specialties because military intelligence enables brigade combat teams to conduct 24-hour combat operations, cover highly dispersed battlespaces, and increase force protection. According to Army officials, the Army needs to add 2800 military intelligence specialists by the end of fiscal year 2005 to meet near-term military intelligence shortages. Moreover, the Army needs an additional 6200 military intelligence specialists through fiscal year 2010 to meet modular force requirements. Providing additional military intelligence specialists, particularly at the more senior levels, may take several years because of the extensive training required. At the time of our visit, the 3rd Infantry Division’s four brigade combat teams each had less than 50 percent of their military intelligence positions filled. Although the Army was later able to fill the division’s needs by reassigning military intelligence specialists from other units prior to its deployment to Iraq in January 2005, many of these soldiers were redeployed after just having returned from overseas. Moreover, transferring soldiers from other units may make it more difficult for the Army to fill positions in the remaining divisions scheduled to be restructured. We are continuing to follow up on Army actions to address these shortages. Similarly, modular brigade combat teams require significant increases in the levels of equipment, particularly command, control, and communications equipment; wheeled vehicles; and artillery and mortars. Examples of command, control, and communications equipment that are key enablers for the modular brigade combat teams include advanced radios, Joint Network Node systems, ground sensors such as the Long-Range Advanced Scout Surveillance System, and Blue Force Tracker, among others. This critical equipment makes possible the joint network communications, information superiority, and logistical operations over a large, dispersed battlespace in which modular forces are being designed to effectively operate. Although the Army has some of this equipment on hand, the levels being fielded to brigade combat teams are well below the levels tested by the Training and Doctrine Command. As a result, officials from both divisions we visited expressed concern over their soldiers’ ability to train and become proficient with some of this high-tech equipment because the equipment is not available in sufficient numbers. Moreover, it is not clear yet how the Army plans to bring brigades that have already undergone modular conversion up to Training and Doctrine Command tested levels of personnel and equipment following their deployments. For example, the design requires a division with four modular brigade combat teams to have approximately 28 tactical unmanned aerial vehicle systems. These systems provide surveillance and reconnaissance for soldiers on the battlefield and enable them to more safely carry out their missions. However, because of current shortages, the 3rd Infantry Division and the 101st Airborne Division are only authorized to have 4 systems, and at the time of our visits, the 3rd Infantry Division had 1 and the 101st Airborne had none on hand. The Army requested funding for only 13 of these systems in the fiscal year 2005 supplemental appropriation request to the Congress; thus, it remains unclear as to when the 3rd Infantry Division or the 101st Airborne Divisions will receive their full complement of tactical unmanned aerial vehicle systems. Also, the Army may continue to provide other divisions undergoing conversion with limited quantities that fall short of the design requirement. According to Army modularity plans, the Army is continuing to assess its requirements and may make some key decisions in the future that will affect the size and composition of the modular force as well as its cost. First, the Army’s Campaign Plan calls for a potential decision by fiscal year 2006 on whether to create 5 additional modular brigade combat teams. Adding 5 brigades would provide additional capability to execute the defense strategy but would require additional restructuring of people and equipment. Second, according to the 2004 Army Transformation Roadmap, the Army is evaluating whether to add a third maneuver battalion to brigade combat teams in fiscal year 2007 to prepare for the fielding of the Future Combat Systems Units of Action, which are designed with three maneuver battalions. Additionally, according to the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, early testing demonstrates that brigade combat teams with three maneuver battalions offer distinct advantages over two battalion formations because they provide robust, flexible, full-spectrum capability. The command is conducting additional analysis to assess the value and cost of adding a third combat maneuver battalion to the modular brigade combat teams. If the Army later decides to add a battalion to some or all of the 43 or potentially 48 modular brigade combat teams, it will need to assign thousands of additional soldiers and field additional equipment. The Army also faces a number of decisions in finalizing its plans for creating modular support brigades.