Army Acquisition

The Army's plan to extend the acquisition schedule for replacing its medium tactical trucks from 15 to 30 years will make it hard to meet important program and fleet management goals and expectations, such as significantly reducing the average age of the fleet and lowering the fleet's operation and support costs. The acquisition strategy also raises operational concerns. For example, the Army doubts whether enough new trucks will be purchased to eliminate the battlefield deficiencies of the existing truck fleet until after 2012. In developing its medium truck replacement program, the Army considered several alternatives. The Army's analysis, however, considered only a limited range of alternatives, was based on incorrect data, and assumed a 15-year procurement, not the current 30-year program. GAO identified several alternatives to the current program that could result in more cost-effective truck purchases. One promising alternative is to buy more of the Army's current 5-ton trucks--the M939A2--instead of the 5-ton replacement truck. The Army has so far purchased thousands of the M939A2 trucks and has been pleased with their performance and reliability.

GAO found that: (1) the Army will have difficulty meeting FMTV program and fleet management goals, since it extended its acquisition strategy due to funding limitations; (2) the Army will have to modify its FMTV acquisition plans, since automotive advances will make new vehicles obsolete; (3) the Army's acquisition strategy may hamper field operations, since the aging medium truck fleet will not be replaced until 2012; (4) the Army will have to replace the initial FMTV trucks procured, since their economic useful life will be exceeded before the program's end; (5) the Army has not included the costs of replacing the initial FMTV trucks in its total FMTV program cost estimate; (6) the Army's original assessment of program alternatives was limited due to incorrect cost and weight data and its failure to consider several lower cost alternatives; and (7) expected force structure changes and reductions could significantly reduce the Army's FMTV 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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