The Army’s Aviation Aviation Restructure Initiative (ARI) continues to be a bone of contention as far as moving National Guard AH-64 Apache helicopters to the active component, an issue pursued in Thursday’s House Appropriations Committee defense panel.
Photo: U.S. Army
Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) had a fast exchange with Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno on the Apache issue. Boeing [BA] is the prime contractor for Apache.
“The guard has been doing this mission for quite a while, have they done a remarkable job,” Womack asked.
Odierno said, “They have, as well as the three combat aviation active brigades that we’ve taken out.”
“Has the guard ever failed in their mission,” quickly asked the 30-year Army National Guard member.
Odierno came back just as quickly, “neither have the three aviation brigades we’re taking out, either.”
The Army’s top military officer said, “The issue is, because of the complexity of the training for the Apaches and because of the fact that we’re going from 37 shooting battalions to 20, I need them in the active component to meet our requirements of today. They’re going to have to constantly deploy and they have to be ready at a very high readiness level.”
It’s not whether the guard has failed, Odierno said, it’s that when they get a mission they’ve had plenty of time to train for it. “Because of the reductions we’re taking we don’t have the luxury of being able to do that any more,” he said.
Running out of his allotted time, Womack took a shot at failed acquisition programs, noting two reconnaissance platforms were scrapped: the RAH-66 Comanche and armed aerial scout program.
“I don’t know how much money that we have spent that we have–and I hesitate to use the word–wasted. We never got the platforms,” Womack said. “And now, after this committee has given a significant amount of money for the upgrades for the Apache for the National Guard, we’re going to hand them right back over to the active component. Got a problem with it.”
However, the hearing did get some good acquisition news from Army officials, on BAE Systems’ Paladin Integrated Management (PIM) program and the Engineering Change Proposal (ECP) work for the General Dynamics [GD] Abrams tank.
The Paladin PIM program is going very well, Odierno said. “We’ve just done a prototype which is very important as the next step. We’re in the process now of competing the full-rate production.
Paladin is key for future fire support, he said. “The PIM provides us potentially with more alternatives as to how we use our artillery pieces in the future.”
For the Army, it’s “absolutely essential.” So far it is moving forward on time and going well. The Army is “very pleased” with the program.
BAE is about to deliver the first of the low-rate production vehicles.
The land force also is moving ahead quickly on modernizing the Abrams tank. Odierno said, “we’ve got to start now putting new changes to current tank, M1A2 SEP, we are beginning to do that we are accelerating that to maybe the ’16-‘17 time frame.” The work will be done in Lima, Ohio.
Army Secretary John McHugh said, “We tried to respond to the challenges, at Lima, because…we were concerned with problems with respect to skilled workers.”
The ECP program was originally going to be in 2019. Congress provided an additional $120 million in FY 2015 that will help reduce risk as the land service transitions from the A2 tank program to the ECP 1.