Equipment woes: Army to extend 'rapid fielding' effort for war-bound units, domestic needs.

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IN LESS THAN four years, the Army has equipped nearly a million soldiers with modern combat gear.

But that is not nearly enough, officials said. The Army now expects to continue the ramp-up of equipment deliveries for several more years, in order to meet the copious requests from units rotating into Iraq, and to appease critics in Congress who insist that--contrary to Army leaders' assertions--Reserve and National Guard units have yet to be properly outfitted for domestic missions.

The Army's program executive office for soldiers says it plans to expand the "rapid fielding initiative" program that began in late 2003 as an emergency effort to supply essential combat garments and survival gear.

The rapid fielding initiative, or RFI, continues to be managed as a short-term emergency procurement, but now the Army wants to turn it into a permanent acquisition program. "Our mission has changed," said Sam Parrish, deputy director of the rapid fielding initiative at Fort Belvoir, Va. "We were going to end the RFI program in September 2007, after equipping more than a million soldiers in the entire operational Army."

When the Army spearheaded the RFI pro gram in 2004, it did not expect that rotations would continue for so many years. Much of the equipment has had to be frequently replaced because of wear and tear. Units also often leave much of their hardware in Iraq when they return to the United States, which creates additional demands for equipment for training and for homeland defense or natural disaster recovery operations.

"The Army learned that there will always be evolving requirements," Parrish said.

But while the Army decided that the RFI program will keep on going, it has yet to come to grips with how to fund it.

The program executive office for soldiers has an annual budget of $5.4 billion for procurement and development of new gear, but it funds the $1.5 billion-a-year RFI program via war emergency supplemental appropriations.

With Congress likely to turn down funding requests for procurement programs in supplemental war appropriations, the Army is now trying to enlarge its regular budget so it can continue the RFI program without the uncertainty associated with emergency bills, Parrish said.

"We want this to be program dollars," he said.

It costs about $2,000 per soldier to supply the basic "mission essential" RFI gear: helmet, boots, ballistic spectacles, cold weather garments, earplugs, gloves, goggles, first-aid kit, infrared markers, infrared reflective helmet, knee and elbow pads, sleeping bag, T-shirts and undergarments, modular backpack and strap cutter.

That list gets revised periodically, based on the feedback from units in the field, Parrish said.

About 25,000 soldiers receive RFI gear each month. By some Army estimates, it costs the service nearly $20,000 to equip a soldier when higher-end items are included, such as body armor, electronic devices, sensors and weapons. These are not part of the RFI program and are funded under other accounts.

A new RFI list approved for 2008 adds a grenade launcher laser rangefinder--for more accurate shooting--and updated cold weather clothing, said Parrish. There is also a growing need for fire resistant garments, especially gloves.

The RFI also revised the way it allocates equipment. Its goals shifted from just equipping the so-called "operational Army"--the numbered armies, corps, divisions, brigades and battalions that conduct operations around the world.

The main concern now is to equip those who are about to deploy, and, in a departure from previous practice, the first priority is the Reserves and National Guard, Parrish said. "If we are constrained, our priority is the reserve components first, ahead of the active duty force."

As part of the Army "force generation model," the service will take into account disaster relief and domestic missions in its annual equipment requirements, Parrish said. But that new policy is not scheduled to take effect until fiscal year 2010.

Meantime, the Army will have to shift funding within its existing accounts to pay for war equipment, said a recent study by the Congressional Research Service. "Equipping units might appear to be a relatively straight forward exercise, but there are a variety of factors involved. Funding is perhaps the foremost issue, as funding is often limited, requiring the services often to make tradeoffs between equipment needed to sustain operations and equipment for reorganization or modernization efforts."

CRS noted that even if funds are readily available, the equipment might not be. "Army officials maintain that for some systems, it can take up to three years after receiving funding before they can be fielded to units."

The Iraq troop "surge" of five Army brigades and two Marine battalions that began in early 2007 continues to strain the services' ability to supply units, said CRS. "The unforecasted requirement to fully equip these surge forces will likely cause additional strain on already depleted equipment stocks."

In coming years, the Army also will have to contend with the addition of 65,000 soldiers to the active duty ranks. Although specific types and quantities of gear needed for new Army units has not been made publicly available, Army officials have stated that they will require $18 billion during the next five fiscal years to equip these new units.

The Army also must deal with the shortages of supplies in National Guard units, said CRS. National Guard officials have said that the Army National Guard has only 56 percent of its authorized equipment.

"It is not known if the Army has developed plans to replace National Guard and Reserve equipment left in Iraq and if efforts are underway to meet this Defense Department policy," said the report.

The Army has promised to spend $21 billion during the next four years to re-equip the National Guard, but some lawmakers have warned that this equipment will instead be deployed to Iraq to support the surge, according to CRS. "Given these concerns, Congress might decide to examine Army plans to reequip National Guard units."

The Army also has to worry about replenishing stocks of pre-positioned equipment that is held in reserve for contingencies. For the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, both the Army and Marines have drawn extensively from pre-positioned stocks that are stored aboard ships and ashore in Kuwait, Qatar and several locations in Europe, CRS noted. "By depleting these stocks, the Defense Department has assumed near-term operational risks if another large scale conflict breaks out."

The Army estimates that it will cost $2.2 billion to replace pre-positioned equipment that was issued to support the surge.