Reserve Forces

Although Army Reserve and National Guard units are much better equipped than they were a decade ago, substantial equipment shortages persist. Shortages of major equipment items totaling $13.7 billion remain, including some items considered essential to the reserves' wartime missions. Some shortages are especially widespread. Major shortages surfaced in preparing reserve support units to deploy to the Gulf War and, in some cases, harmed the ability of these units to carry out their missions. This report discusses in detail the (1) progress made in equipping the reserves, (2) aspects of the Army's equipping strategy that account for continuing shortages, (3) impact that additional separate funding for reserve equipment has had on the reserves' equipment posture, and (4) extent that equipment freed from force reductions might alleviate existing shortages.

GAO found that: (1) the Army and National Guard have improved equipment readiness, in both absolute terms and the dollar value of ready major equipment items; (2) shortages of some transportation and communications equipment are particularly widespread and affect unit readiness; (3) the shortages posed difficulties during the mobilization for the Gulf War and impaired mission performance during the war; (4) the Army has emphasized modernization over readiness in its procurement and distribution activities; (5) the Army frequently deviates from the Master Priority List, which is supposed to ensure that critical equipment goes to those units most likely to be involved in combat; (6) the Army equips some active combat forces less likely to fight before equipping certain support units likely to fully deploy during the early stages of a conflict; (7) the Dedicated Procurement Program, a congressionally sponsored program designed to help reserve units overcome some of the limitations imposed by the Army's procurement and distribution priorities, has directed funding to planned purchases for reserve units and helped improve the reserves' equipment posture; (8) Congress has directed that some program funds be used for items not identified as high-priority requirements; and (9) reserve units may not benefit as much as they could from equipment that will become excess as a result of Army downsizing.

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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