Force Structure

Army National Guard Divisions Could Augment Wartime Support Capability Gao ID: NSIAD-95-80 March 2, 1995

The Army would be hard-pressed to provide enough nondivisional support units for two nearly simultaneous major regional conflicts. The Army had difficulty providing such units during the Persian Gulf War--a single regional conflict. One option for augmenting the Army's nondivisional support capability is to use existing support capability--units, personnel, and equipment--in the eight National Guard divisions that DOD did not include in the combat force for executing the two-conflict strategy. These divisions contain several support units that are similar or identical to nondivisional support units that were not allocated resources during the 1993 Total Army Analysis. These divisions have many of the same types of skilled personnel and equipment that the nondivisional support units have.

GAO found that: (1) the Army would have difficulties supplying certain types of nondivisional support units for two major regional conflicts; (2) some support could be made available from National Guard divisions with similarly skilled personnel and equipment; (3) shortfalls were avoided during the Persian Gulf War because U.S. forces had ample preparation time before launching a counteroffensive; (4) Saudi Arabia provided extensive host nation support to U.S. forces during the Persian Gulf War; and (5) the Army could face potentially greater difficulties in a two-conflict situation than those encountered in the Gulf War.

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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