Department of the Army Historical Summary: FY 1975

III.

Force Development

Historically, the United States has relied upon citizen soldiers for national defense. The effectiveness of these soldiers has been, and remains, a product of organization, leadership, training, and the judicious blending of Regular Army professionals, members of the reserve components, and individuals entering military service directly from civilian life. In the current environment of constrained defense resources, it is essential that all components of the Army be both spartan and capable of carrying out prescribed missions.

The force structure is based largely on the annual Total Force Analysis, a process that defines the minimum essential force for performing Army missions and the proportioning of the force among the various components. The analysis, which supports the Army's Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System, begins with a scenario provided by the Secretary of Defense. The Army staff determines the major combat forces required to deal with the crisis conditions outlined and conducts war games. The results of the war games provide a rationale for determining the minimum number of combat and combat support units for the peacetime force structure. Since any proposed course begins on the first day of mobilization and continues for a prolonged period, the time phasing of requirements is a basis for establishing programming priorities.

Because of congressional concern over rising manpower costs, a Department of Defense decision to reduce Army officer strength to 98,125 by fiscal year 1976, and the goal of a sixteen-division active Army, the Chief of Staff in November 1974 directed a thorough review of all Army tables of distribution and allowances (TDA) to identify officer positions for elimination or downgrading. The first phase of the review, completed on 15 January 1975, resulted in the elimination of 3,179 officer positions and the downgrading of 924 others.

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As a follow on to this review of officer positions, the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Manpower and Reserve Affairs), called for a study to achieve a balanced noncombat support structure with minimum staffing and grades for enlisted and civilian positions. Designated SASTAR (Support Activities Staffing Review), it will also examine grade imbalance and grade constraints for enlisted positions set by Congress and the Department of Defense. The review is being conducted in three phases; Phase I, which sought to avoid duplication of effort, involved identification of projects started since 30 June 1974 by Army staff agencies and major commands that resulted in the elimination of enlisted or civilian positions. Completed in May 1975, Phase I identified approximately 45,000 enlisted and civilian positions that have been or will be eliminated by the end of fiscal year 1977. Approximately 28,000 were military positions and could be reallocated to the sixteen-division force. Phase II of SASTAR is a review by major commands of enlisted and civilian positions (excluding those identified in Phase I) in TDA and modified TOE units to determine which enlisted positions could be eliminated, downgraded, or converted to civilian positions, and which civilian positions could be eliminated. Begun in April 1975, Phase II should be completed by 30 September 1975. Phase III of the review will identify GS-12 to GS-15 nonsupervisory civilian positions in major commands that can be regraded.

In August 1973 the Secretary of Defense initiated the Total Force Study, a major examination that covered all aspects of the role of the guard and reserve in the total force. The study concentrated on identifying functions and missions that could be shifted from active to reserve forces, reserve component activities that could be eliminated or converted to more useful

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Based on the study findings, on 3 June 1975 the Secretary of Defense issued comprehensive instructions. He directed the General Counsel to prepare a legislative proposal that would impose a Ready Reserve obligation through age twenty-eight for people entering military service and would eliminate the requirement that after five years reservists be transferred to the Standby Reserve upon request. In addition, the legislation would require each Individual Ready Reservist to notify his service of any change in address, job, or physical condition. Addressing the military services, the secretary instructed them to assign only those mobilization requirements to the reserve components for which there was a demonstrable need and for which they could train in peacetime.

The Army should identify Individual Ready Reserve manpower in the grades and skills required to bring it to wartime strength in the event of full mobilization. The secretary also wanted to know how the Army planned to fill unmanned units after mobilization and the extent to which Ready Reservists who also filled key civilian positions constituted a problem. He directed the Army to prepare a revised division forces accounting system that would include separate brigades as front-line combat organizations in manpower and logistics planning, reduce requirements for U.S. support forces through greater dependence on allies, and develop reporting procedures on equipment and manning status. The secretary also asked the Army to examine the integration of active and reserve forces beyond the current affiliation program. Specifically, the Army was called upon to develop and evaluate a plan that uses the wartime chain of command for supervising peacetime training, readiness, and operational planning for active and reserve units scheduled for early deployment. The effects of the Secretary of Defense's instructions on force development are likely to be far-reaching, and without question these instructions will be the subject of much attention during the coming year.

Based on recommendations of a 1971 Defense study group, the Army undertook a test and evaluation program to improve the reserve components. Field testing extended over three years and involved sixteen battalions, four brigades, one maneuver area command, and six divisions of all components. The test, completed this year, identified ways to improve

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The growing need for electronic warfare capability has prompted the Army to expand Army Security Agency support of combat forces. Sufficient signal intelligence/electronic warfare units have been activated to support ten divisions in combat. Plans provide for supporting thirteen divisions by the end of fiscal year 1976 and sixteen divisions three years later. Work also began on an advanced development model for a corps-level control and analysis center, the Aircraft Electronic Warfare Self-Protection Equipment program made good progress, and systems were chosen for continued development under triservice coordination of missile detectors for all military aircraft. Work on systems to detect and jam the electromagnetic signals of enemy antiaircraft weapons continued: advanced development of one system was completed and engineering development of another. Procurement of the AN/APR-39 Radar Warning Receiver was started, as well.

Tactical nuclear warfare emphasis during fiscal year 1975 shifted from formulating general policy to developing doctrine. The Training and Doctrine Command pursued the task of converting broad policy concepts into detailed doctrine suitable for field manuals, while the Concepts Analysis Agency and Engineer Studies Group reviewed and refined existing methods for determining tactical nuclear requirements to support new policy and employment concepts. Both agencies completed their studies in December 1974.

The Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) program made significant progress in several areas. Limited operations began on 1 April 1975 at the nation's only BMD site near Grand Forks, North Dakota. The site, designated on 1 October 1974 as the Stanley R. Mickelson Safeguard Complex, is expected to be fully operational in October 1975.

The Safeguard System Test Program, which began at Kwajalein Missile Range in 1970, was completed in August 1974 with the successful tracking of an ICBM target nose cone by the missile site radar. Of the fifty-four tests conducted, forty-seven achieved test objectives, two were partially success-

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At congressional direction emphasis on the Site Defense Program was reoriented from prototype demonstration to the technological development of subsystems and components such as sensors, missiles, and software. Major changes resulting from the reorientation were: cancellation of the program's equipment readiness date; elimination of all effort on tactical deployment and production planning; cancellation of interceptor flight tests; and elimination of software programs that do not contribute to solutions of key technical issues. Work on the site defense radar and data processor, which will form the core of a BMD systems technology test bed at Kwajalein Missile Range, continued on schedule. Construction of a single facility to house the radar, data processing, and essential support equipment began in December 1974 on Meck Island at the Kwajalein Missile Range and is scheduled to be completed in the spring of 1976.

A number of advances marked the BMD Advanced Technology Program in fiscal year 1975. In data processing, the development of the first version of an automated system for producing engagement software was completed; this may reduce software costs and development time. The design of a parallel element processing ensemble that can perform computations was also completed.

The last flight of the Fly-Along Infrared (FAIR) series was conducted in October 1974. FAIR was a joint Army and Air Force program to obtain exoatmospheric optical signatures of various types of reentry vehicles and other objects from a typical ICBM complex. The experiments included gathering data on the earth background and moon and starshine that the optical sensor would record in a space environment and on the effects of missile exhaust plumes on optical sensors. In the Special Targets Program, Athena rockets fired from Wake Island boosted reentry vehicles and decoys to altitudes and velocities associated with sea launched ballistic missiles (SLBM). Data obtained by radars at Kwajalein has helped to fill an important gap in the knowledge of signatures of bodies reentering the atmosphere at typical SLBM velocities. A program to gather radar and optical data on booster tanks purposely fragmented in the exoatmosphere was completed in January 1975. Real time experiments to identify the reentry vehicle among the tank fragments were conducted, but results

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Designs were completed for a new digital signal processor. If it can be economically produced, this device will be a valuable contribution in solving the bulk filter problem.

Tests on the Dome antenna model proved the feasibility of providing hemispherical coverage with a single planar array. A Dome antenna requires only about one-third as many components as a conventional four-faced radar, and is therefore more reliable and less costly.

Also completed were tests of several small advanced propellant motors (interceptor). The goal is to determine the feasibility of high burn rates for extremely high performance interceptors. Preparations continued for full scale ground tests of the miniature homing interceptor. Design of the test facility was completed, and construction will begin in fiscal year 1976.

Although the Force Development Management Information System supports the force development process at the Army staff level, no automated system in the field encompasses all aspects of force development. Virtually no automated support exists below major command level. This gap in automated support has allowed the generation of misinformation which has adversely affected force-related statements used for personnel and logistic management and development of budgets and materiel acquisition programs. A study to identify and correct specific problems has led to a new management information system concept, the Vertical Force Development Management Information System. This system would be developed around a centralized and integrated data base available to all users through a telecommunications network linking Washington, major commands and their installations, or major subordinate commands. All levels are therefore given the information and tools needed to perform their tasks in the force development process. At the close of the period, the general functional system requirement and the economic analysis for the Vertical Force Development Management Information System were being staffed.

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The 1975 Army Study Program, published in July 1974, covered science and technology, manpower and personnel, concepts and plans, operations and force structure, and logistics and management. The program consisted of 411 studies of which 131 were contract efforts. The contract funding level was $13.7 million. Additionally, 280 in-house studies requiring 1,003 professional man-years of effort were programmed. Members of the Army staff served on an ad hoc committee organized within the Office of the Secretary of Defense; the committee reviewed all Defense Department study programs and conducted a systematic review of the DOD directive that governs studies and analyses.

During the year, reporting of study efforts received emphasis; Army studies in the Defense Documentation Center (DDC) data bank increased almost twofold. Approximately 750 individual studies conducted from 1962 to the present were on file at the end of the fiscal year. The reporting form was modified to include results and probable use information. To provide a link with the DDC, the Army Library installed a computer terminal that makes study information held in the documentation center more accessible. And complete sets of all study summaries within the center were made available in the Army Library.

One-station training of recruits was working well at the six installations that initiated the program late in fiscal year 1974. During the current reporting period a variation of the basic program—one-station unit training—underwent testing at Fort Polk. Through this program, the Army wants to reduce training needed to prepare a recruit for combat to twelve weeks for infantrymen, thirteen weeks for armor personnel, and fourteen weeks for artillerymen and other combat soldiers. As the year closed, the House Appropriations Committee was investigating the programs, particularly in regard to construction costs and training quality.

Unit exchanges with allied countries during the year provided challenge and variety to the participants. From 3 March to 9 April 1975 a company-level unit exchange took place between elements of the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii and Australian armed forces. The 25th Division also exchanged platoons with New Zealand forces from 26 October through 2

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In order to meet 1975 funding limitations, the Training and Doctrine Command in fiscal year 1973 had begun to revise Army courses of instruction; 44 courses were eliminated, 9 were consolidated, and 104 were reduced in length and frequency. Annual savings are estimated at $5.4 million, 91 civilian and 498 military man-years, and 1,270 student man­years. Simulation has been introduced into the unit training environment to maintain quality and reduce costs and energy and ammunition consumption.

The Interservice Training Review Organization, since its inception in 1972, has been responsible for consolidating 164 courses offered separately by the military departments into 104 interservice courses. At the close of the fiscal year this organization was studying the possible consolidation of undergraduate navigator, helicopter, and fixed-wing pilot training for a potentially significant saving.

The Army's efforts to streamline training also resulted in several service school realignments. Consolidation of Defense Language Institute training at the Presidio of Monterey; transfer and consolidation of courses taught at the Signal School, Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, with courses taught at the Southeastern Signal School; and relocation of the Military Police School from Fort Gordon, Georgia, to Fort McClellan, Alabama, were among the major changes.

Following approval of the Enlisted Personnel Management System in August 1974, the Army began restructuring the Noncommissioned Officer Education System to support the required career development objectives. This restructuring should be completed during the coming year. Implementation of the Officer Personnel Management System (OPMS) has also wrought training changes. All basic entry specialties under OPMS have a specific resident training requirement to prepare their respective specialists for company-level command. To meet this requirement the Officer Advanced Course has been reduced in length from thirty-six to twenty-six weeks. The course for chaplains remained thirty-six weeks in length.

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