Hearing of the House Armed Services Committee-Army Transformation

Federal News Service

July 21, 2004 Wednesday

HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

SUBJECT: ARMY TRANSFORMATION

CHAIRED: REPRESENTATIVE DUNCAN HUNTER (R-CA)

WITNESSES: GENERAL PETER SCHOOMAKER, U.S. ARMY CHIEF OF STAFF LIEUTENANT GENERAL BENJAMIN S. GRIFFIN, U.S. ARMY, DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF FOR FORCE DEVELOPMENT; LIEUTENANT GENERAL JOHN M. CURRAN, U.S. ARMY, DEPUTY COMMANDING GENERAL FUTURES, TRAINING AND DOCTRINE COMMAND

LOCATION: 2118 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.

BODY:

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Ms. Sanchez.

REP. LORETTA SANCHEZ (D-CA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you gentlemen for being before us today again.

I'm glad that Mr. Reyes brought up the issue of joint training, because obviously the Army is and always will be part of the joint force. But there are certain aspects of the transformation which still seem to lag behind improvements in joint operations. For example, OIF dramatically demonstrated our advances in recon strike and close air support to ground combat forces during the past decade. These improved air capabilities allowed our ground forces to go into Iraq with less artillery support than the Army doctrine would require. As the Army looks at the future force structure, don't these improved air capabilities suggest that maybe we can reduce organic cannon and rocket artillery forces, especially at the corps level, and do the transformation plans achieve those reductions? Why, why not? What do you have as far as that?

GEN. SCHOOMAKER: We are reducing in the artillery about, I think, 49 battalions of artillery that are creating the MPs and the civil affairs, and the transport, that's part of the base that we're using to transform. Joint fires is an integral part of the brigade combat team unit of action, that's why we put the joint fires battalion in there, and we're working with General Jumper, my counterpart in the Air Force, Chief of Staff of the Air Force, with battlefield airmen, they call them, increasing the numbers of enlisted tactical air controllers within our formation, so that we can get them down to company level, and connect the joint fires. We're training what we call FSTers, our fire support teams in a broader array of joint fires possibilities, especially with our precision fires, and so that's one of the most powerful elements of the unit of action formation is to be able to do that. And, of course, the network I described is the means by which you can integrate that.

See, without that network, you don't have access at that level. You have to rely on division to integrate those things for you, and provide them. Where now what we're doing is pulling them down into the lower tactical formation. So, these formations that we're putting together right now give us huge potential in the integration of joint capability.

REP. SANCHEZ: And you said that reduction was the 49 battalions, and you're moving them more into military police, civil affairs, et cetera, to reflect the types of situations we'll find ourselves in? I would just like to know if there's a document, or where we would find that information so that I can read through it and ask more detailed questions.

GEN. SCHOOMAKER: I can be more specific on that, I think. Well, I don't have the numbers on here, but what we are decreasing are field artillery battalions, air defense battalions, engineer battalions, armor battalions and ordinance battalions. What we are increasing is military police, transportation, POL water distribution, civil affairs, psyops and bids companies in that transformation. It's over 100,000 structural changes that we're making to do that. Now, that still leaves us 107 battalions of artillery. That's how rich we were in that in the Cold War period and, of course, that artillery we're talking about now, we're much more precise with that artillery, so we can decrease the logistics that feeds the cannon and the rocket, and the rest of it.

REP. SANCHEZ: My last question, has to do with, one of the guiding principles of the Army Transformation Strategy is to enhance the strategic and operational agility of the Army mechanized forces. One of the results, I think, in reading through things was a design requirement on future combat systems of 16 to 18 ton weight limits, which would allow airlift by C-130 aircraft or a future heavy lift rotary wing or tilt wing aircraft. This so-called "air mechanization" concept would give the Army a mechanized vertical capability. However, experience from Vietnam, Kosovo, clearly Afghanistan and Iraq recently demonstrates how difficult it is to suppress even an unsophisticated low altitude air defense threat to a slow moving tactical aircraft. But the Navy and the Air Force have concluded that air strike and ground support operations should be conducted above 10,000 feet. So is the concept of air mechanization really feasible in light, in particular, of what we saw in Iraq in the earlier part of this year with low altitude ground to air threats, and can you give me some scenarios where the employment of the capability would be undertaken with acceptable risks?

GEN. SCHOOMAKER: Well, I can give you appropriate --

REP. HAYES: If the gentlemen would yield just a moment, we're down to five minutes, so Congressman Skelton --

REP. SANCHEZ: If he could just answer that, that's my last question, then I'll run over.

GEN. SCHOOMAKER: I can give a 60 second answer to it or even less.

REP. HAYES: Okay, please, because we've got to go.

GEN. SCHOOMAKER: Northern Iraq, good example, Northern Iraq, we parachuted the 173rd Airborne Brigade into Northern Iraq, and then we had to heavy lift tanks and Brads in there. Had we had Striker available, or the Future Combat System available to us at the time that we did that, we would have been able to rapidly reinforce them and seriously change the dynamics up there. Fundamentally what we ended up with was dismounted infantry with no mobility on the ground. So there's a good example that was totally doable.

REP. SANCHEZ: So, that's an acceptable risk with respect to low flying --

GEN. SCHOOMAKER: We landed C-17s with tanks from up there and didn't lose any of them.

REP. SANCHEZ: That's before they figured out maybe that's a way they could get us.

REP. HAYES: We are going to have to recess, and Congressman Skelton has asked that you please come back. We'll get here as quickly as we can, grab a quick bite for lunch, and we'll go from there.

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