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Despite record levels of funding for new weapons and personnel for the Army in recent years, the service soon couldface a serious budget crunch, according to recent reports by government and congressional investigators.

Shouldering the burden of simultaneously fighting two wars that are wearing down equipment, the Army is also in the midst of modernizing its entire helicopter fleet, expanding its ranks by 74,200 personnel, and buying a suite of new armored vehicles, sensors and computerized battle command networks under the Future Combat Systems program.

This week, the Government Accountability Office reported (GAO-08-145) that the Army's plan to convert its division-based force structure into smaller "modular" units is proving more costly than planned.

The Army originally estimated that fully staffing and equipping new brigades under the modular system would cost $52 billion through 2011. But the service now says it will need more money for the planned conversion and that it won't be complete until 2019. GAO said the Army has not identified how much additional funding it will need.

The Army also is adding 74,200 personnel to its ranks by 2013. The planned expansion means more equipment will have to be bought for the six additional combat brigades that will be created, along with an indeterminate number of support units. The service estimates that effort will cost $70.2 billion between 2007 and 2013. But it has not said whether that figure includes all equipment costs for the new units.

In addition, the service has begun to equip National Guard brigades with equipment comparable to that in active brigades. This decision was driven in part because Guard units showed up in Iraq with much older equipment, causing maintenance headaches. Of the $52 billion the Army allotted for conversion, $21 billion was to go the Guard. It now says the Guard will need $37 billion for new equipment.

The bill for Army efforts to refurbish and replace war-worn equipment, a program it calls "reset," also continues to climb. In 2007, the service received $17 billion for equipment reset, a significant jump from the $8.6 billion it got in 2006. Army officials have said they will need $12 billion to $13 billion per year for reset efforts as long as combat continues in Iraq, and up to two years after troops are withdrawn.

The Army also plans either to replace or significantly upgrade nearly every one of the 3,500 helicopters in its current fleet at a projected cost of $61 billion between 2008 and 2025, according to a November Congressional Budget Office report.

Meanwhile, the service is pursuing its Future Combat Systems modernization, which is projected to cost upwards of $200 billion. A 2006 CBO report estimated that FCS will cost $8 billion to $10 billion a year beginning in 2015 and continuing through at least 2025. The Army has indicated that it may stretch out FCS procurement, which could reduce annual expenditures.

COMMENTS

• Department of Army has excessive redundancy in ranks, and exceesive bases. The porkbarreling of the past has created a huge Cost of Ownership regarding bases. Bases need to be sold. Department of Army needs a reduction on force. Bring back the Graham-Ruddman Act. Paul Sitzer Posted January 22, 2008 4:07 PM
• The Army has way too many defense contractors working in advisory (SETA), staff, acquisition, and other areas that should just be let go. The Army has too many layers of command for administrative related activities. They have way too many different commands in their technical research and development community with so much overlap. They need to consolidate their technical community and get rid of all the contractors and minimize their staffs to a 1:20 - 1:30 ratio (1 supv to 20-30 technical personnel), and minimize the numbers in "program management". They have way too many facilities run by contractors who are incentivized to keep the operations going and "reinvent" themselves when they become obsolete. They have way too many "test and evaluation" organizations full of idle contractors that can be consolidated as well. In short, they can start by flattening their organization and getting rid of contractor staffing. Frank Posted December 29, 2007 8:40 AM
• We pay for the munitions to blow something up. Then we pay to rebuild what we blew up in the first place. Mark Gibson Posted December 26, 2007 7:05 AM