With this year’s budget request out, the defense committees are already hard at work scheduling hearings and grilling defense officials on their decisions. In this report, we take a look at four joint or multi-service programs to see how they will fare if the Pentagon gets its way this year…
Cloudy future for JTRS — The Joint Tactical Radio System Handheld, Manpack, Small-Form-Fit (JTRS HMS) program got hammered in the fiscal 2015 budget proposal, both this year and through the Future Years Defense Plan (FYDP). Last year, the Pentagon had planned to purchase 10,509 units in fiscal 2015 — now, the Defense Department is only asking for 2,674. The Pentagon also wants to cut orders from 10,607 to 4,499 in 2016, from 10,537 to 6,993 in 2017, and from 11,362 to 6,971 in 2018.
However, in fiscal 2019, orders will ramp up again, with the Pentagon hoping to buy 15,753 units — more than double called for the year before. As to the reasoning behind the cut, it likely has largely to do with current fiscal realities, as multiple top programs are seeing buys pushed to the right in order for the Pentagon brass to find ways to make ends meet. Still, the program is under some scrutiny. Earlier this year, officials had to settle on a new procurement strategy for the radios as it remains mired in low-rate initial production, and the fiscal 2014 appropriations bill passed earlier this year demanded that the Pentagon review JTRS within 90 days to ensure that the program would have adequate competition going forward.
JLTV stability at issue — This budget marks the first year that the Pentagon will seek to begin buying the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, a big moment for a program that has struggled in the last decade. Under the budget proposal, the Army would buy 176 vehicles and the Marines would buy seven, before ramping up to buying more than 3,000 vehicles total by fiscal 2019.
As we noted in a previous report, it remains to be seen how Congress will respond to such an aggressive ramp given the program’s history. However, the program has shown signs of stability. We reported in December that competitors Lockheed Martin, AM General, and Oshkosh had all announced that they had successfully completed the government’s JLTV Manufacturing Readiness Assessment (MRA) in advance of vehicle production.
JSOW on hold? — The Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) will see its buys end after fiscal 2016 according to the current budget proposal — yet, curiously, the budget justification sheet states that the Pentagon still expects to procure more than 4,000 missiles to complete the program. This could simply indicate a hiatus in the program to deal with budget realities, as the proposal represents a stark contrast to last year’s request, which called for a steady ramp to a peak of 496 buys in fiscal 2018. Instead, the Pentagon is only asking for 200 missiles this year and 200 next year.
MQ-1 buys restored … for now — The Army has decided it wants back the Gray Eagles that Congress took from them two years ago. The Army had asked for 19 MQ-1s in fiscal 2013 before ramping down to 15 buys in 2014 and 2015 (and ending the program after that), but Congress cut $104 million and four aircraft from the request when the continuing resolution was passed, attributing the move to schedule delays and prior-year unobligated balances. The Army didn’t ask for them back in fiscal 2014, but it is in this year’s budget, increasing the buy to 19 aircraft but still ending the program this year.