Military Readiness

GAO was asked to assess the condition of key equipment items and to determine if the services have adequate plans for sustaining, modernizing, or replacing them. To address these questions, we selected 25 major equipment items, and determined (1) their current condition, (2) whether the services have mapped out a program strategy for these items, (3) whether current and projected funding is consistent with these strategies, and (4) whether these equipment items are capable of fulfilling their wartime missions.

Many of our assessments of 25 judgmentally selected critical equipment items indicated that the problems or issues we identified were not severe enough to warrant action by the Department of Defense, military services, and/or the Congress within the next 5 years. The condition of the items we reviewed varies widely from very poor for some of the older equipment items like the Marine Corps CH-46E Sea Knight Helicopter to very good for some of the newer equipment items like the Army Stryker vehicle. The problems we identified were largely due to (1) maintenance problems caused by equipment age and a lack of trained and experienced technicians, and (2) spare parts shortages. Although the services have mapped out program strategies for sustaining, modernizing, or replacing most of the equipment items we reviewed, some gaps exist. In some cases, such as the KC-135 Stratotanker and the Tomahawk missile, the services have not fully developed or validated their plans for the sustainment, modernization, or replacement of the items. In other cases, the services' program strategies for sustaining the equipment are hampered by problems or delays in the fielding of replacement equipment or in the vulnerability of the programs to budget cuts. For 15 of the 25 equipment items we reviewed, there appears to be a disconnect between the funding requested by the Department of Defense or projected in the Future Years Defense Program and the services' program strategies to sustain or replace the equipment items. For example, we identified fiscal year 2003 unfunded requirements, as reported by the services, totaling $372.9 million for four major aircraft--the CH-47D helicopter, F-16 fighter aircraft, C-5 transport aircraft, and CH-46E transport helicopter. The 25 equipment items we reviewed appear to be capable of fulfilling their wartime missions. While we were unable to obtain sufficient data to definitively assess wartime capability because of ongoing operations in Iraq, the services, in general, will always ensure equipment is ready to go to war, often through surging their maintenance operations and overcoming other obstacles. Some of the equipment items we reviewed, however, have capability deficiencies that could degrade their wartime performance in the near term.

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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