Department of the Army Historical Summary: FY 1987

6

Mobilizing, Deploying, and Sustaining the Army

The success of the Army in staffing, training, and equipping combat and support forces to the high degree of proficiency needed to deter or to defeat potential enemies must be matched by the Army's ability to mobilize, deploy, and sustain those forces in the field. The following discussion describes briefly the Army's progress in mobilizing, deploying, and sustaining its troops during this fiscal year.

Mobilizing for war or national emergency involves planning and continually refining the policies and procedures to ensure that adequate manpower and logistics arrive in theater at the required place and the proper time. Included in the mobilization process are the obligation to support and provide adequate manpower through the use of the augmentation and preassignment programs as well as the Retiree Mobilization Preassignment and Recall Program (recall program); participating in and preparing for mobilization exercises; and improving mobilization and training bases.

A major mobilization concern continues to be the availability of trained active and reserve Army units in sufficient quantities which will fulfill Army requirements during the early days of deployment. The U.S. Army retiree, the IRR, and IMA program are key elements in satisfying this requirement.

Army retirees (Regular Army, Army of the United States, USAR, ARNG) are assigned to three categories. Category I consists of persons (nondisability) under age 60 (62 for warrant officers) who have been retired for less than five years. Category II consists of persons with the same qualifications as Category I who have been retired longer than five years. Category III includes persons who retired as a result of a physical disability as well as retirees who are unqualified for either Category I or II. Of the more than 532,000 retirees, over 232,000 are assigned to categories I and II and are eligible to receive involuntary mobilization preassignment (hip pocket) orders under the recall program. These preassignment orders tell the retirees when and where they are to report for active duty during a national emergency and a mobilization of the

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forces. The selection of retirees to receive hip pocket orders is based on the grade and skill requirements at the 56 mobilization stations in the United States. Not all eligible retirees receive orders, as there are more retirees than there are requirements at the installations. The program also allows the retiree to volunteer for assignment to an installation of his or her choice, provided there is a suitable vacancy at the installation. Of the more than 232,000 retiree assets, over 122,000 have been issued preassignment orders. This figure includes more than 6,700 volunteers from all three categories and over 3,400 retirees who reside overseas and are assigned to reporting stations in Europe and Korea.

To evaluate the health and measure the proficiency of its Retiree Recall Program, the Army conducted its third annual test of the group during October and November 1986. This examination, Exercise CERTAIN SAGE 87, tested the readiness of approximately 1,000 retirees at 18 installations and activities within CONUS. During the exercise, retirees were processed into the Army, physically examined, and assigned to duty positions where they worked and were evaluated for 3 to 12 days in a job compatible to their MOS and comparable to a job in which they would be assigned during an actual emergency. Basing their evaluation on their performance, the Army updated the personnel files to reflect changes in retirees' job skills and availability. Other objectives of CERTAIN SAGE were to allow participating installations internal evaluation of their management of the retiree recall program; rate the in-processing procedures at the installation level; test the post-mobilization training of recalled retiree; and assess the medical condition of the recalled retirees. FORSCOM participants in this exercise included 180 retirees and 10 installations that included First U.S. Army and Fort Meade, Maryland; Second U.S. Army and Fort Gillem, Georgia; Fourth U.S. Army and Fort Sheridan, Illinois; Sixth U.S. Army and the Presidio of San Francisco, California; and such separate installations as Fort Hood, Texas; Fort McPherson, Georgia; Fort Ord, California; and Fort Polk, Louisiana.

The IRR is the largest source of trained manpower that the Army expects to mobilize during an emergency. This year, the Army screened its 287,459 IRR members to determine their availability and readiness. In the first mandatory mobilization tests of this group, the Army required personnel to report to the nearest of approximately 2,000 recruiting stations across the country for one day of testing, during the birth month of the individual member. Before the IRR screen, participants were obligated to inform the Army only about changes in their address or status. Three categories were exempted: (1) members within 120 days of ending

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their service obligation, (2) members living overseas, and (3) members who lived more than 100 miles from the nearest recruiting station. By the end of this year, more than 105,000 IRR soldiers were tested and their records revised to reflect additional civilian education or changes in their job skills. Of those examined, more than 95 percent or 99,750 of the 105,000 met medical standards.

The third and final group of military trained reserves who will be mobilized during an emergency are Selected Reserve members in the IMA. The program developed from the old Mobilization Designation Program in October 1981 when IRR members were reassigned to the Selected Reserve. As Selected Reservists, members were subject to be recalled to active duty by the president during a national emergency or declared war. Plans for recalling these persons or IMA participants to active duty require their incorporation into the various active component organizations much like the Selective Service System and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

In the meantime, IMA members are preassigned to AC units and organizations. Participants also receive professional development training to develop or increase their proficiency. This year, IMA membership showed a slight increase from 13,060 in 1986 to 13,139.

In accordance with the Total Army force structure, the Army also expects to continue to rely on the ARNG during emergencies. The pool of 452,000 citizen-soldiers is becoming increasingly more valuable to the Total Army effort. Currently they provide the following proportions of the Army's total force: (1) combat divisions: 36 percent; (2) separate brigades: 67 percent; (3) engineer battalions: 41 percent; (4) special forces groups: 25 percent; (5) infantry battalions: 50 percent; (6)armored battalions: 44 percent; (7) armored cavalry regiments: 57 percent; (8) field artillery battalions: 50 percent; (9) air defense artillery battalions: 20 percent; and (10) attack helicopter battalions: 39 percent.

As an integral part of the Army, the ARNG has been participating in a multifaceted mobilization and deployment exercise program since 1978. This year's funds provided for over 700 mobilization and deployment exercises in which ARNG units were tested and evaluated on mobilization preparedness.

Deployment Capabilities

To counter the Warsaw Pact's growing ability to launch simulta neous offensives in Europe, Southwest Asia, and the Pacific, the United States' national long-term goal is the concurrent deployment of adequate forces to those three regions using air, sea, and

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rail transportation as necessary to move the force. For such occasions, the U.S. military services plan calling for mutual assistance to achieve strategic mobility and thus to deploy well-equipped and well-trained troops to the scene of battle. Memorandums of Agreement among the services embody these arrangements. As a result of these joint efforts, the Navy is fielding fast sealift ships, flatracks and seashed, the auxiliary crane ships, and the heavy lift pre-positioning and expanding the Ready Reserve force shortfalls, which the Army is programming discharge capability to match the Navy's delivery profile and satisfy the minimum logistics-over-the shore (LOTS) requirement. The Army program includes modernization and upgrading of the Army's watercraft and tugboat fleet and the joint acquisition with Navy of causeway systems designed to make watercraft more useful in those areas of the world where shallow beach gradients limit LOTS operations. Despite these coordinated efforts, progress in resolving the insufficient strategic lift capability remains slow, complicated, and expensive. U.S. Army efforts are further compounded by the continuing decline in the capability of the civil sector, primarily the U.S. Merchant Marine, to support wartime needs.

Adequate strategic airlift is most critical in the early days of a war or crisis. Chart 1 illustrates projected strategic airlift program capabilities through FY 1991, expressed in millions of ton miles per day (MTM/D).

Chart 1 - Intertheater Airlift
Source: The Posture of the United States Army for Fiscal Year 1987.

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The FY 1991 program will result in approximately 48 MTM/D of capability against a recognized extended requirement of 66 MTM/D. The resulting shortfall of approximately 18 MTM/D will be reduced significantly by fielding the G17 aircraft which is scheduled for initial operating capability in FY 1992. In addition to reducing the overall strategic airlift capability, the aircraft will provide essential airlift capability, reduce the intratheater airlift shortfall, provide a needed replacement for the 6141, and augment the 6130 fleet. Future airlift capability will be improved by rewinging the C-5A fleet; acquiring 48 C-511s and 44 additional KC-10s; improving wartime aircraft utilization rates; extending the service life of existing aircraft; and limiting enhancement capabilities of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet.

Strategic sealift is critical to the deployment of Army forces and sustaining resupply of these forces. The decline of the Merchant Marine fleet, and the industry's trend toward containerization and away from more militarily useful roll-on/roll-off (RO/RO) and breakbulk shipping, require that the Army reevaluate the strategic sealift programs. Chart 2 illustrates the decreased and diminished capacity of the Merchant Marine's militarily useful general cargo ship capacity from 1970 to 1987, with projections for subsequent years. With the Army's support, the Navy is responding to the Merchant Marine's quandary by using a combination of programmed

Chart 2 - Trends in U.S. Flag Fleet Military Useful Dry Cargo Ships
Source: The Posture of the United States Army for Fiscal Year 1987.

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increases for the Ready Reserve and enhancement programs which will allow container ships to modify and move unit equipment.

Chart 3 illustrates the potential impact of these programs on shipping by FY 1991. Two significant points must be noted. First, the Army is incapable of meeting its total surge requirement. Second, unless the Merchant Marine fleet's demise is halted, reversed, or new ideas are developed, the Army's capability will decline further.

Chart 3 - Sealift
Source: The Posture of the United States Army for Fiscal Year 1987.

Army programs are also intended to have a positive effect on overall mobility requirements. Most important in this category is the light division initiative. The light divisions are designed to be air deployable in fewer G-141B sorties than the standard infantry division design. Their rapid deployability and high combat-to-support ratio are characteristics that may permit the service to avoid deploying a larger, more expensive force in later years. The Army is aware also of the need to consider ease of transportability as a critical factor in new equipment design. Modernized equipment, regardless of its capabilities, is ineffective unless it can be transported efficiently to the necessary locations.

By decreasing the overall quantity of materiel requiring shipment, the Army's land- and sea-based pre-positioning program helps reduce the service's lift requirement. Pre-positioning combat

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service support equipment afloat in Southwest Asia was identified in a 1984 DOD Sealift Study as the only practical means for reducing early strategic lift requirements. Some of the afloat pre-positioning equipment will be configured to unload early arriving equipment and supplies being delivered by ships pre-positioned in the Indian Ocean as well as from ships arriving from CONUS. Most of this capability is provided by large, heavy equipment that is difficult to transport and therefore is pre-loaded on a heavy lift pre-positioning vessel. Such pre-positioned equipment provides a prompt LOTS necessary to unload materials in areas where port facilities are limited or nonexistent. The foregoing is designed to improve Army readiness to meet force closure requirements in the Southwest Asia region.

Finally, working under the auspices of an Army/Navy Memorandum of Agreement (MOA), programs to balance Navy strategic sealift and Army/Navy offload and discharge systems are well under way. Navy fielding of fast sealift ships, flatracks and seasheds, the auxiliary crane ships, the heavy lift pre-positioning ship, and the expansion of the Ready Reserve force have contributed to reducing strategic sealift shortfalls. These joint efforts produce efficient systems economically.

Failure to fund strategic mobility programs and cargo offload systems will restrict the United States' ability to meet its global commitments in a timely manner. Without significant strategic lift, Army effectiveness, as an instrument of national security policy, is greatly inhibited.

In addition to POMCUS, which has been described previously, the Army expects to use the joint Deployment System (IDS) during a crisis. JDS is a crisis execution system specifically designed to support coordinated, time-sensitive deployment planning and execution. It has been developed in response to critical deficiencies identified in 1978 during major mobilization and deployment exercises that focused on the need for centralized deployment management.

The baseline JDS was released worldwide in September 1985. This marked the transition of JDS from a prototype to an operational system, and concluded a four-year developmental effort. Fielding the operational JDS provides the military with a powerful new capability to control and monitor the deployment of military forces. However, it also places additional manpower demands on commands and agencies involved in deployment planning and execution. Future demands for additional resources are expected as experience in JDS increases.

A major challenge exists to maximize peacetime, mobilization, and wartime transportation automation capabilities. As a result, a

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number of new transportation systems have been developed. Recent progress has seen the successful testing of the Transportation Coordinator Automated Command and Control Information System (TCACCIS) prototype, the Software Acceptance Test for the DA Standard Port System-Enhanced (DASPS-E), the initial capability for the Installation Transportation Office (ITO) and Military Transportation Management Command (MTMC) interface module of the MTMC's Crisis Action Management System (CAMS), and the beginning development of the Container Management System.

Fiscal year 1987 initiatives will focus on systems that will generate timely, critical management information and will reduce manpower requirements within the logistics arena. Both objectives will be served by the continued development of the TCACCIS, the Army standard version of the Automated Air Load Planning System (AALPS), the deployment of the Container Management System, the fielding of MTMC's Computerized Deployment System, the completion of the remaining modules of MTMC's CAMS, and the development of the DA Movements Management System-Redesign (DAMMS-R). Full funding of these programs during their development is critical to ensure continuity and timely fielding.

Sustainment

Sustainment is the Army's ability to marshal, transport, and distribute large quantities of materiel and equipment to maintain units engaged in hostilities. The ability of the Army to sustain combat operations depends on various factors that encompass multiservice and international obligations. These include commitment of national war reserves; host nation support (HNS); distribution of bulk petroleum; and depot maintenance.

War Reserves

The United States has established its war reserve stocks in strategic locations around the world to provide its NATO allies with an immediate supply of munitions, fuel, and other essential equipment and items that are necessary to wage a war during the initial days of battle when resupply can be arranged from CONUS. Although war reserve stockpiles have increased by almost 50 percent during the last few years, funding constraints coupled with a growth in requirements have prevented the Army from meeting its war reserve goals.

Army modernization and changes to the Army force structure require constant monitoring and adjustment of war reserve stock

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levels. Modernization provides newer, more effective equipment that enhances the weapons arsenal, but the changing equipment causes a need for a different variety of support items. The collection of new weapons, the maintenance of older equipment, and the need to sustain support items for both demand additional resources. Recent funding constraints, coupled with increasing and changing requirements, have prevented the Army from meeting its goal despite an improved war reserve posture.

One additional day of war reserve stocks costs about $1 billion. To achieve total war reserve stockage objectives based on funding alone, an overall investment of more than fifteen times the current funding is required. Such an outlay is clearly impossible without reductions throughout the rest of the force.

Host Nation Support

Sustainment is an important aspect of HNS, which includes much of the sealift needed to offset the continued decline in U.S. commercial sealift assets. To alleviate an extreme crisis in resupply during an emergency, NATO members have promised the United States a maximum of 600 ships for use in the rapid reinforcement of Europe. The Republic of Korea (ROK) has pledged to provide an additional forty-five ships to meet sustainment obligations on that peninsula.

Illustrative of HNS is the U.S./German wartime support arrangement that the two nations continued to develop in accordance with the implementation of a military technical agreement of 13 June 1986. As a result of this agreement, the Germans are activating their reserve units on schedule and will complete activation of 86 of the 100 reserve units or 43,662 of the approximately 50,000 mobilized personnel agreed upon by 1 January 1988. The U.S. Army also purchased several major weapons and equipment for the German units: 1,448 machine guns (7.62) with accessories, 21,071 camouflage systems, and most essential unit equipment sets to support activations through FY 1988. To date, the U.S. Army has spent $181.1 million on the agreement.

In the late 1970s, analysis of the evolving threat to Europe's Central Region concluded that NORTHAG would be defending against the most probable main attack of the Warsaw Pact. As a result, the United States agreed to reinforce this area outside the traditional U.S. area of operations. Concurrently, we made a national commitment to develop the capability to reinforce NATO with ten divisions within ten days. The Reichel Logistics Facility is ideally lo-

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cated and suited to provide a cost-effective logistical support coordination center necessary to accomplish reinforcement objectives in the NORTHAG region.

Congress has appropriated funds to transport and pre-position war materiel in the NORTHAG area and has authorized purchase of the Reichel facility. However, approval for obligation of funds has been withheld until completion of a study to determine the feasibility of closing or consolidating selected overseas facilities. Failure to purchase this facility precludes its full use and impedes the total process of development of the war plan. The Reichel facility also serves as a community support base for approximately 5,000 military personnel and family members in and around the Rheinberg community area. Present community facilities are woefully inadequate and Army personnel are experiencing substantial hardships. This project remains USAREUR's highest priority for military construction funding.

Distribution of Bulk Petroleum

Distribution of bulk petroleum is one of the most critical elements of readiness and sustainment. The Army is responsible for distributing petroleum to all services in every theater. One of the Army's missions related to this function is to maintain a flow of bulk fuels from a combination of offshore and pier-side tanker discharge systems through a network of onshore storage and distribution systems.

Petroleum distribution equipment in the Army Facilities Component System (AFCS) is 30 to 40 years old, labor intensive, and no longer commercially available. The Army is updating the AFCS and has programmed funds to improve petroleum products offload and inland distribution through use of commercially available equipment. The easily installed equipment is expected to increase unit productivity and reduce force structure shortfalls.

An Army-Navy work group has been established to coordinate joint procurement and field a common offshore petroleum discharge system including required documentation, doctrinal development, and integrated logistics support.

Testing of ship-to-shore undersea pipeline and commercially available single anchor leg mooring systems was completed successfully in July 1985. A full system demonstration, including timed test, was completed successfully in October 1985. The Army has budgeted for acquisition of these systems in FY 1986-87.

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Depot Maintenance

Depot maintenance activities provide for materiel overhaul, conversion, modification, repair, and renovation, as well as maintenance engineering, technical assistance, update of publications, and new equipment training for the Army. The unfinanced requirements (backlog) associated with the materiel portion of the program are defined as that portion of the total executable requirement that cannot be funded with available resources. This backlog of the current year is cumulative and becomes an integral part of the following year's requirement. There is no backlog, as such, related to the maintenance support activities portion of the program, which requires the restructuring of its total requirement yearly. The Army has made every effort to bring the depot maintenance activities program to a zero unfinanced requirement. This was achieved for the depot materiel maintenance program in FY 1982 and again in FY 1986. However, constraints in funding have made this goal unaffordable for FY 1987. Through the five-year period to FY 1991 the Army is attempting to achieve a minimum of 93 percent of the executable program requirements throughout these program years. The depot materiel maintenance unfunded requirements are strictly a function of funding versus requirements. There are no backlogs in the FY 1987-91 period generated by manpower shortfalls. The unfinanced requirements consist primarily of major end items. This is done to protect the repair of secondary items. The repair of secondary items provides more near-term readiness by ensuring that major items which can be repaired below depot level do not remain unserviceable for lack of major components. The FY 1987 budget holds the depot materiel maintenance unfinanced requirement at $93 million, 5.4 percent short of total requirement. The maintenance support activities are held at $340 million or 34 percent short of its FY 1987 total requirement. As new and more sophisticated equipment continues to be added to the Army's inventory to increase combat readiness and effectiveness, the total depot maintenance activity requirement continues to grow.

Failure to meet any of these obligations can make the difference between victory and defeat. Thus, to fight effectively with any combination of units, Army forces must field and service a well-operated combat service and support system that can be mobilized and deployed expeditiously and sustained indefinitely.

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