Two US Army leaders said today a
A year-long continuing resolution would spell major cuts to big programs like helicopters and vehicles, two US Army leaders said Tuesday.
Congress passed a short-term funding measure in lieu of approving a fiscal year 2016 budget that will end on Dec. 11. The resolution sets the budget at the previous year's levels and if Congress can't agree on a budget, a longer continuing resolution could be coming.
"I think my biggest fear is a lot of critical major programs, we really are going to buy a lot less quantity," Heidi Shyu, the Army's acquisition chief said at the Association of the US Army, and this would mean buying half of the AH-64E attack helicopters the Army is planning to buy in 2016 and half of its new-build CH-47F Chinook cargo helicopters.
The Army would also be unable to start begin 75 of its new start science and technology programs. "We won't be able to start these small projects we are planning to initiate," Shyu said.
Timelines would also stretch out. Shyu noted the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle design effort was supposed to ramp up in fiscal year 2016. Fiscal year 2015 funding was much lower for the program than is required this fiscal year, she said. "The second year was supposed to bring up funding but we won't be able to under CR."
Overall a year-long CR would affect over more than 400 programs worth $6.1 billion and Shyu said she has "a binder yea thick" of how programs across her portfolio could take hits from the smallest to the largest.
Gen. Dennis Via, US Army Materiel Command.
Photo Credit: Dan Gross/For Defense News
Gen. Dennis Via, commander of Army Materiel Command, added that a CR would affect readiness. "We have systems that if we don't refurbish, aviation helicopters, Abrams tanks, Bradleys, Strykers going down in reset ... it will stretch out those programs being able to reset."
That delay subsequently slows units' ability to train, which then ripples down to affecting soldiers' readiness to deploy, at a time when the Army has a presence on every continent, Via said.
The inability to quickly reset equipment also drives cost up at facilities that do the reset, decreases the workload and "in that case you end up having to release personnel and that is not where we want to be," he added.
"Brig. Gen. David Bassett, the program executive officer for Ground Combat Systems, also said on Tuesday at AUSA that his office has a way to manage the current CR, but if it extends beyond December, the situation "could go as far as stopping work on some of our efforts," he said.
In addition to AMPV, Bassett said "the biggest obvious challenge" is going to be upgrading Stryker combat vehicles with more lethality.
The fiscal 2016 FY16 National Defense Authorization Act plussed-up the Army’s Stryker funding $411 million above the president’s budget request for lethality upgrades for 81 of the vehicles. This was based on a request from US Army Europe to field upgraded Strykers to the 2nd Cavalry Regiment as security concerns rise due to Russia’s continued incursions in Ukraine.
If a year-long CR happens, the authorized funding for the upgrades won't be appropriated "so as a result, other than some initial money that was reprogrammed above threshold into the Stryker line to kick off that effort, the lethality effort is entirely contingent upon the approval of the FY16 budget," Bassett said.
The Army has enough money to start the turret competition, led by Stryker manufacturer General Dynamics Land Systems, "which we think is critical to the success of this effort," Bassett said, but "when that 9.8 [million] runs out we are out of Sschlitz until we get that '16 budget."
mail: jjudson@defensnews.com
The AH-64 Apache is a twin-engine, four bladed, multimission attack helicopter designed as a highly stable aerial weapons-delivery platform.
Photo Credit: US Army
Jen Judson is an award-winning journalist covering land warfare for Defense News. She has also worked for Politico and Inside Defense. She holds a Master of Science degree in journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kenyon College.
