While most folks were at the beach or on family road trips in the run up to Labor Day, the U.S. Army was activating its Army Futures Command (AFC) in Austin, Texas. The new Army headquarters will lead the service’s multi-billion dollar modernization effort, pulling together the various Army elements traditionally involved in the acquisition process in order to link “operational concepts to requirements to acquisition to fielding.”
The AFC’s initial focus will be ensuring that the Army’s top six modernization efforts—long-range precision fires, next generation combat vehicles, future vehicle lift (helicopters), command and control networks, air and missile defense, and soldier lethality—come to fruition and do so as quickly as possible. Each of the six is seen as necessary to address a potential tactical overmatch in the case of a conflict with the Russian military. Extremely tight budgets and a focus on the wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan have left the Army in the precarious position vis-a-vis near-peer conventional military competitors. The AFC, not unreasonably, is the Army’s bureaucratic answer to an existing acquisition system that is seen as too unwieldy and bureaucratic.
But catching up after two decades of neglect and fits and starts in modernization is not an easy thing to do. Even with the increase in its budget this past year and in the coming year, the Army openly admits that it needs $2 billion to $3 billion more per annum to fund its Big Six priorities in the coming years. This comes on top of the fact that the president’s own budget estimates for the Pentagon in 2020 and beyond show no growth. In short, a crunch is coming. To square the circle, Army Secretary Mark Esper has stated that he, along with Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, are committed to “bringing money from current programs by either slowing them or killing them . . . to free up money for those other higher priorities.”
One program apparently on the chopping block is the Army’s plan to improve and upgrade the existing fleet of CH-47F (Chinook) heavy-lift helicopters. This would be a reversal from the Army’s position just two years ago when the upgrade to the Chinooks used by both regular and special operation forces was deemed an Army priority and the service stated that it had the resources to carry out the upgrade. What is at stake is the continued utility of a helicopter that has been an Army workhorse in recent military campaigns. Not “sexy” by any means, the Chinook fleet is nevertheless a key component in getting soldiers and equipment where they need to be in theater and in places where planes cannot go.
Like much of the equipment used in the recent campaigns, the Chinooks have been utilized far more than expected. Also, with add-ons for protecting the helicopters themselves, the addition of new flight equipment, and the increase in weight in what the typical soldier now carries operationally, the Chinook’s effective lift capacity has decreased. The “Chinook Block II” upgrade program was supposed to address both problems with new rotor blades, a new fuel system, and improvements to the helicopter’s drivetrain and airframe. The new Chinooks were supposed to be able to carry more, carry it further, and carry it more safely in high, hot altitudes—including in terrain where landing during dust-induced “brownouts” are not uncommon.
The Army’s decision to reverse course might make sense if the next generation of heavy-lift helicopters were just around the corner. However, as the Army itself admits, the priority within the future vertical lift modernization program is a new scout helicopter and then a medium-lift helicopter. And among the Big Six programs, air and missile defenses, command and control networks, and long-range firepower will get the vast majority of funding in the next few years. The reason why is that they are not only needed urgently in the field but also because the technologies involved in each are nearly off-the-shelf. In these instances, the Army Future Command might just as well be called the “Army In-The-Not-So-Distant Future Command,” which, frankly, is all to the good if the new headquarters can deliver on the timelines desired. However this cannot be said about a next generation, heavy-lift helicopter.
Using the monies previously directed to upgrade the Chinooks as a bill payer for Army modernization is robbing Peter to pay Paul. Absent upgrades, the CH-47s will be less useful and, with continuing deployments, far more costly to maintain operationally. Indeed, whatever savings on paper are gained by cutting the program are likely to diminish when a more realistic cost-benefit analysis is conducted in which the Army doesn’t assume that it will be operating in more favorable climates and terrains—and will require less lift—in the years ahead.
It’s an assumption about the future that the Army’s Future Command shouldn’t make.
