TRADOC OFFICIAL: AFFORDABILITY TO PLAY MAJOR ROLE IN ARMY MOD PLANS
475 words
21 September 2009
Inside the Army
IARMY
Vol. 21, No. 37
English
Copyright © 2009, Inside Washington Publishers. All rights reserved. Also available in print and online as part of InsideDefense.com.
The Army's plans for modernizing legacy vehicles, including the Abrams tank, will depend heavily on funding, according to a service official.
Gregory Skaff, deputy Training and Doctrine Command capability manager for the Heavy Brigade Combat Team, said last week that HBCT leaders are waiting for word from the Army that will lay out the future for older vehicles.
Indications of the service's plans could come at the annual Association of the U.S. Army conference in early October, Skaff said Sept. 15 at a heavy vehicles summit in Vienna, VA, sponsored by the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement.
"We're waiting just like everybody else," Skaff said.
In the meantime, he told the audience, the Army has undertaken a number of sweeping studies, including Task Force 120's effort to define the new ground combat vehicle and a space, weight and power study on integrating the Joint Tactical Radio System. Also under way are program objective memorandum drills for the fiscal year 2012 to 2017 time period.
Skaff said the studies have begun coming together and that work will continue into the fall, providing the "underpinning that needs to go with" the Army's modernization plans.
He cited Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the Army vice chief of staff, who spoke earlier this month on the GCV initiative. In that breakfast presentation, Chiarelli said the Army plans to reset and modernize the Stryker, the Abrams tank and the Paladin.
"The theme of all that was it is funding-dependent," Skaff said last week.
In the case of the Abrams tank, Inside the Army reported in July that the Army was readying for a materiel development decision on the M1E3, as the new tank upgrade effort is known (ITA, July 13, p1).
An outline of the program reviewed at the time by ITA said potential priorities included force protection, energy efficiency and net-ready capabilities, and that the upgrade would incorporate lessons learned from operations in Iraq.
Last week, Skaff said the survivability of the tank is good enough, but the upgrade will seek to maintain baseline survivability and lethality while reducing the weight. The goal, he said, is to bring the tank's weight down to 58 to 60 tons.
However, he stressed the need for affordability.
"There are a lot of systems . . . that are all looking to modernize at the same time," Skaff said, adding that "affordability is a big piece of what's going on."
He noted that requirements officials once ignored cost, seeking only to describe what the Army needed. Now, he said, cost considerations are part of writing the requirements.
Additionally, Skaff said the service is increasingly focusing on commonality among systems to determine whether technological improvements intended for one vehicle might also be useful on others. -- Marjorie Censer
M1E3 ruszył! Ciekawy jestem kiedy pojawią się pierwsze wozy, zresztą zapewne modernizację obejmą najpierw te M1, M1IP i M1A1 które wciąż czekają na modernizację, hmmm to daje ciekawe możliwości, jednostki liniowe mogłyby być uzbrojone całkowicie w M1A2SEP i M1A3 a ARNG w M1A1SA, zobaczymy co z tego wyjdzie.
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