Force Structure

Army Needs To Further Test the Light Infantry Division Gao ID: NSIAD-88-115 April 12, 1988

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined the Army's assessment of its light infantry division operational concept and organizational design, focusing on the: (1) standards the Army used; (2) deficiencies it identified; (3) solutions it proposed; (4) Army's plans to resolve remaining deficiencies; and (5) implications of the evaluation results for light infantry divisions.

GAO found that the Army evaluation: (1) covered combat, combat-support, and combat service-support operations; (2) identified 27 significant deficiencies involving equipment needs, organizational structure, weapons, doctrine, and training; (3) recommended about 4,000 changes to the division's equipment and personnel; (4) did not test the support demands placed on non-divisional units or the capability of newly formed non-divisional units to meet the division's requirements; and (5) did not test the deployment capability of divisions partially or totally composed of reservists. GAO also found that the Army: (1) accepted about 2,000 of the evaluation recommendations and rejected the rest as inappropriate or unrealistic; (2) plans to test the division changes during regular training and testing programs; and (3) is currently unable to equip all five of its light infantry divisions in accordance with the approved design because of equipment shortages.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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