The Army National Guard not only is being forced to give up its AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, but it also does not enough funding to retrain reserve component Apache pilots to fly UH-60 Black Hawks, members of the National Commission on the Future of the Army said during a public meeting July 16 outside Washington, D.C.
The Army already has begun transferring Apaches from the National Guard to active duty units under the aviation restructure initiative (ARI), replacing them with hand-me-down Black Hawks under a plan to save about $12 billion.
As of May, the Guard had transferred 12 of a total 36 AH-64s to the active service. However, in the past five years, only 10 Apache pilots have left the active component and joined the Guard, said NCFA Commissioner Robert Hale, who served as undersecretary of defense from 2009 to 2014.
“Some of that is the pace of war…but we’re losing a lot of skills,” he said.
As chair of the NCFA’s aviation subcommittee, Hale and fellow commissioners have visited active aviation units including one at Fort Hood and a Texas Army National Guard unit that is transitioning from Apaches to Black Hawks as a result of the ARI.
“They are committed to this effort,” Hale said. “They don’t expect to lose a lot of pilots. But they are struggling with funding for school seats to retrain their Apache folks into Black Hawks.”
NCFA Commissioner Gen. Larry Ellis, former head of Army Forces Command, worried the Army was missing an opportunity to capitalize on experienced pilots’ skills as they leave the active service. He asked Debra Wada, assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and reserve affairs, whether it would be possible to match trained pilots in the active service to pilot vacancies in the reserve components and vice versa.
“A good bit of the talk out in the field is that there is a shortage of training funds as it relates to pilots in particular,” Ellis said.
Wada, who was testifying before the commission, acknowledged that the Army is facing a serious readiness and training shortfall, but said conduction a comprehensive survey of specialties and relocating personnel to where they are most needed would “be challenging at best” in the current budget environment.
Hale said the aviation subcommittee is hoping to gain greater understanding from active and reserve component soldiers about the effects the ARI will have on both. He also said the subcommittee was looking at “other options” than the one proposed by Big Army in response to its need for a scout helicopter.
The NCFA as a whole must by Feb. 1 come up with recommendations on a plan to integrate the three Army components in such a way that the lessons and skills learned by soldiers over the past 14 years of war are not lost when the reserve components return to the sidelines. Wada said it was important to focus on preserving skilled soldiers in all specialties, not just aviation.
Congress has mandated that rotorcraft transfers prescribed by the ARI not be completed until after the commission has published its recommendations.
Both the Guard and Reserve have served along the active Army during the past 14 years and two wars. Reserve component soldiers and their leaders now are reluctant to give up their combat role and the funding and equipment that goes along with it, retired Marine Maj. Gen. Arnold Punaro, told the commission.
“The concern in the reserve component is that the active component is trying to take them out of the combat role,” he said. “If the Army had been able to do what it wanted to do with the Kiowa and armed aerial scout, we wouldn’t be talking about the ARI.”
The ARI arose out of the Army’s need for a new scout helicopter to replace the aging and increasingly obsolete OH-58D Kiowa Warrior. Plans to develop a clean-sheet armed aerial scout were shot down for budgetary reasons before a reworked plan to purchase an off-the-shelf helicopter also was canceled. By phasing out the Kiowa and shuffling Black Hawks and Apaches between the active Army and Guard, Army brass figured they could cut $12 billion up front and another $1 billion annually because they would ultimately own about 700 fewer aircraft.
Under the ARI, the Army would completely divest the OH-58D and older A- and C-models used to train pilots while 180 TH-67 Creek helicopters will be sold as military surplus. The active component will lose about 700 total aircraft while about 111 will be moved from reserve to active units.
The NCFA is not tasked with reviewing the ARI comprehensively. It only will report on the most controversial element of the plan, which is the transfer of Apaches from Guard to active units in exchange for used Black hawks. Army leaders believe the attack helicopters, teamed with MQ-9 Gray Eagle unmanned aerial vehicles, can assume the armed aerial scout role formerly performed by the Kiowa Warrior.