Combat Air Power

During the next six years, the military plans to spend more than $10 billion on aircraft and other weapons to bolster its already formidable close support capabilities. This effort, however, comes at a time of shrinking defense budgets, defense downsizing, and increasing questions about the affordability of defense modernization. This report (1) discusses the overall capabilities of the military services to provide close support and the extent to which those capabilities continue to be modernized and enhanced and (2) evaluates the processes that the Defense Department uses to assess mission needs, capabilities, and modernization proposals for the close support mission.

GAO found that: (1) over the next 6 years, the Army plans to spend nearly $5.5 billion to develop and field more modern target acquisition systems, the Marine Corps plans to spend $3.2 billion to remanufacture AV-8B aircraft, and the Air Force plans to spend over $547 million to upgrade its target acquisition and night operations capabilities; (2) DOD has not determined the appropriate number and type of weapons needed for the joint close support mission; (3) the services have taken actions to enhance their close support capabilities without adequately considering the capabilities of other weapons systems; (4) although DOD instituted a joint warfighting capabilities assessment process in 1994, a separate assessment of the close support mission has not yet been made; and (5) without a comprehensive assessment of joint mission needs, DOD cannot decide which modernization proposals should be funded.

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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