Ammo Shortages Undermine Navy, Marine Corps Training.

Navy and Marine Corps tactical aviation units do not have enough ordnance to meet their training and exercise requirements, according to a report by a government watchdog agency.

The General Accounting Office said that Navy units are experiencing shortages in inert laser guided training rounds and guided bombs, while the Marines are short on supplies of both advanced training ordnance and common ordnance, such as live bombs. The agency's report was released in July.

A former Navy ammunition program manager, who spoke under condition of anonymity, said that these shortfalls in ammunition could be attributed in part to high-level decisions by the Navy to shift funds from ammo accounts to shore up force-protection initiatives.

The demands for naval force protection increased dramatically since the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen. Top officials at the Pentagon are "extremely interested in force protection, as rightly they should be," said the source. But the source cautioned that the money to pay for the additional force protection may have cut too deeply into other priorities, such as ammunition. "That results in not buying training rounds and combat rounds," the source said.

In its report, GAO noted that the Navy assigned a low funding priority to ordnance, but also pointed out two other reasons that led to the aviation munitions shortage--an ineffective process for determining annual ordnance needs and an allocation system that does not put the ordnance where it is needed for training.

A 1997 Defense Department directive, entitled "Capability-Based Munition Requirements Process," gave guidance to the military services on developing their ammunition requirements. The undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics has the responsibility for implementing the directive, which aims to ensure that ordnance requirements address the operational objectives of the regional commanders in chief.

According to the Pentagon's policy, the calculation of the total munitions requirement is not supposed to be shaped by anticipated funding shortfalls.

Last May, the House Armed Services Committee asked the service chiefs to provide a list of their unfunded priorities. The list, which was submitted in July, did not include aviation ordnance, said Richard Palaschek, head of the munitions industrial base task force, which represents ammunition manufacturers. The Navy did, however, ask for $123 million for live-fire training ordnance and another $213 million for war-reserve, precision-guided ammunition.

According to GAO, many Navy and Marine ordnance requests submitted between fiscal years 1998 and 2001--particularly requests for inert laser-guided training rounds and guided bombs--were well below training requirements. "This occurs because Navy ordnance managers are not provided sufficient guidance to determine training ordnance requirements, including ordnance for Navy exercises," said the report.

For some types of live ordnance, Navy stockpiles are currently at about 40 to 65 percent of the Navy's requirement, according to GAO.

For Navy ground training, said the former Navy program manager, two types of ammuntion, particularly, are running low, the 5-inch 54-caliber rounds and the 76 mm ammunition. Given the expected closing of the live-firing range on Vieques Island, in Puerto Rico, the Navy could "squeeze off some more 5-inch 54 ammunition," the source said.

The Navy's training organizations had to buy training ammunition with money that was recouped from sales of ammunition to foreign countries, said the source. The reason was, "because resource sponsors at the Pentagon did not put enough money in the budget."

The Navy, the source said, could completely run out of the two main types of ground training ammunition by 2005. But the source said mechanisms are in place to avoid running entirely out of ammo. "There is a healing process that causes the system to not become totally broken. If year after year, the fleet cannot get issued to them enough ammunition, then the issue goes to [regional commanders] CINCs who will put pressure on the Pentagon. And if there is enough pressure, they [the Pentagon] will put money in the budget."

Once the money is allocated in the budget, it takes another two to two and a half years to get the ordnance, the source said. "There is a period of time when things get very scary."

The Navy comptroller generally does not allow long-term advance purchases of ammunition, except in special circumstances, such as when a manufacturer is going out of business. The source explained that the acquisition office works under a funded-delivery period, which allows for acquisition lead-time, plus the lead-time for the production of the ordered ammunition. Delivery usually takes an additional 12 months, said the source.

Pentagon resource sponsors also have allowed "procurement holidays," said the source, when they would only buy ammunition every other year. "You would have producers of ammunition who would get cold for a year, and then their products would get more expensive."

The GAO report also noted that the Navy's training ordnance allocation process does not make the most efficient use of the available training munitions. "Marine units normally maintain a higher year-round readiness than comparable Navy units," GAO reported. "[They] have higher training ordnance requirements. However, the Marine Corps is not allocated any additional ordnance to reflect this higher requirement."

Also, GAO said it identified instances when the Atlantic Naval Air Forces received more ordnance than they needed, while the Pacific Naval Air Forces received less than they needed of the same ordnance required to meet their training needs.

"These disparate allocations occur, because fleet ordnance requests are not validated against training requirements at the Department of Navy level," said the report.

Ordnance Requirements

Overall, GAO noted, Naval Air Forces Atlantic requested less ordnance than required to meet training requirements for 25 percent of its requests during the period between 1998 and 2001. "Most notably, it requested less than 50 percent of its required laser-guided training rounds and less than 15 percent of its flare requirement in fiscal years 1998 to 2000," the report said.

GAO said that some units told investigators that they did not know how to use the training instructions to determine their annual needs, because the instructions did not provide enough guidance. Other units said there were times when they did not request ordnance, because they believed it was either in short supply, or because they were not confident they could use it during the year.

"The result was often the use of current and previous year's expenditures--which were usually well below requirements--as the basis for future year's requirements," the report explained.

GAO pointed out that the most significant shortcoming in the Navy's guidance is that it does not include ordnance requirements for exercises.

Training ordnance for the Navy includes a variety of live and practice non-guided general-purpose bombs, live and practice precision guided ordnance, cartridges, missiles, chaff and flares. There are two basic types of training ammo. One is totally inert and has the same aerodynamics as a combat round, so troops can train for accuracy. When it hits its target it just sticks in the dirt. The other type is a projectile with a color-burst unit that serves as a simulated explosive.

The most common general-purpose bombs are the MK-80 series weapons, which weigh between 500 and 2,000 pounds.

Precision-guided ordnance includes laser-guided bombs, which require an operator to illuminate a target with a laser designator and then the munition is guided to a spot of laser energy reflected from the target. Television-guided or infrared-guided systems have a data link in the bomb's tail section that sends guidance updates to a control aircraft. An operator guides the bomb by remote control to the target.

Retired Navy Adm. Donald Pilling said that the Navy should make the real munitions more available for training. "Every air crew should have dropped laser-guided weapons in training before they go [into combat]," said Pilling. "But the Navy historically has not funded that requirement." He said that this becomes a problem when commanders have to decide who in the squadron gets to train with a laser-guided missile.

Based on his experience, said Pilling, in a squadron of 15 aviators, only three would get to train with missiles. "So the new pilots in the squadron would get to drop it, whereas ideally every one in the squadron should get to drop it," said Pilling. The training laser-guided bomb has all the devices to help the aircrew go through the process of launching the bomb, but it does not give them the feeling of what it is like to actually drop it, said Pilling.

But Pilling also conceded that laser-guided bombs are expensive and using them for training could stress the Navy financially. "If every year, every pilot gets to train with them, we are talking about expenditures of tens of millions of dollars," said Pilling.

The GAO made a series of recommendations to the Navy, to help avoid a deterioration in training as a result of the ammunition shortages. One of the recommendations is for the service to update both the Navy and the Marine Corps training readiness instructions, so that they are comprehensive and identify the ordnance needed for pre-deployment exercises.

The Defense Department responded to the recommendations and agreed with the suggestion that the requirements should include ordnance needed for collective pre-deployment exercises. However, the Defense Department said that, "since each battle group and readiness group has a unique training cycle, there must be sufficient flexibility in the exercise ordnance requirement determination and allocation process to preclude perpetual revision of training instruction."

The Pentagon did not agree with the GAO's recommendation to develop a standardized methodology for determining training ordnance requirements. A letter signed by then acting deputy undersecretary of defense for readiness, Joseph J. Angello Jr., said, "The Navy and Marine Corps training and readiness instructions provide perhaps the best examples in the Department of Defense of well-defined event based training programs. These instructions include training ordnance requirements that are fleet driven and validated by Fleet Type Commanders."

The secretary of the Navy, GAO said, should require Marine and Navy carrier wings to detail the reasons for requests that differ substantially from the ordnance requirements identified in the training instructions.

According to the Defense Department, efforts to more accurately measure the readiness of Marine Corps air wings and Navy battle groups across the Inter-Deployment Training Cycle are already underway. "One expected outcome is better visibility into the unique training and resource requirements for each Marine Corps air wing/group and Navy battle group," wrote Angello.

The Defense Department agreed with several other GAO recommendations that include suggestions to have the secretary of the Navy allocate ordnance on the basis of the documented training requirements identified in the Navy and Marine Corps instructions.

The Navy and Marine Corps should identify the amount of ordnance requested for the war reserve stockpile and the amount that would go for training, said GAO. If the amount requested for training is less than the training requirement, both services should explain how training readiness would be maintained without the specific munitions. CV