DOD's Mobility Requirements

Alternative Assumptions Could Affect Recommended Acquisition Plan Gao ID: NSIAD-93-103 April 22, 1993

In the event of a crisis overseas, the U.S. military needs to be able to transport personnel, equipment, and supplies quickly. The first volume of the Defense Department's (DOD) Mobility Requirements Study, issued in January 1992, concluded that by 1999 the United States will lack sufficient mobility capacity in several areas. To counter this projected shortfall, the report recommended that the United States acquire 20 large sealift ships, continue buying C-17 transport aircraft, and boost the number and readiness of ships in the Ready Reserve Force. GAO reviewed the key assumptions in the study affecting sealift and airlift to determine whether they support the conclusions and recommendations. This unclassified version of two classified reports summarizes GAO's findings on the key assumptions used and discusses the implications if these assumptions were changed.

GAO found that: (1) DOD ability to move U.S. forces abroad is dependent upon key assumptions regarding the extent of the enemy threat and the amount of advanced warning; (2) increases in the amount of enemy threat have increased the amount of mobility forces required, while warning time assumptions have achieved a moderate-risk outcome; (3) the DOD mobility requirements study has understated U.S. sealift capabilities and is based on questionable future ship procurements; (4) the DOD sealift mobility study has failed to account for the use of foreign, commercial container, and Marine Corps prepositioning ships; (5) the DOD airlift mobility study has overstated U.S. airlift cargo capabilities and is based on unrealistic procurement, delivery schedule, and foreign air base availability assumptions; and (6) additional testing of key assumptions is needed to justify DOD mobility asset requirements.

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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