Story ID: BCFutureArmyCommission02012016
Commission Proposes Army National Guard Retain Apaches
By: Bill Carey
Caption: The National Commission on the Future of the Army has recommended that the Army National Guard keep some AH-64 Apache attack helicopters.
Word Count: 640
A high-level commission tasked with studying the size and mixture of forces of the U.S. Army has recommended the Army National Guard keep some AH-64 Apache attack helicopters rather than relinquish its fleet to the regular Army as proposed under an October 2013 aviation restructuring initiative (ARI). The commission’s compromise plan would be more costly than the ARI; to offset those costs it proposes maintaining two instead of four UH-60 Black Hawk battalions in the Guard and reducing annual procurement of UH-60s by five to 10 helicopters.

The National Commission on the Future of the Army released its report on January 28, a year after Congress established it in the Fiscal Year 2015 defense authorization act. The eight commissioners—four appointed by President Obama and four by Congress—met for the first time last April.

It is expected the commission’s report will play a role in upcoming budget debates in Congress. The House Armed Services Committee subcommittee on tactical air and land forces plans to discuss it on February 10, Breaking Defense reported.

The commission was especially asked to evaluate the Army’s proposed ARI, a cost-cutting plan contained within the Fiscal Year 2015 budget proposal that evoked strong protest from the Army National Guard, which is controlled by the states. The ARI proposes that the Army transfer some of its Black Hawks to the Guard; the Guard in turn transfers all of its Apaches to the Army. In response, the National Guard Bureau presented an alternative plan that enables the Guard to keep some Apaches.

While the ARI is a “well-crafted” plan that holds down costs, it “results in a lack of strategic depth, providing for no war-time surge capability in the Army National Guard. It also does not support the Total Force Policy” of unifying the regular Army and its reserve components, the commission found.

The commission recommends maintaining 24 Apache battalions, comprised of 20 regular Army battalions as the ARI proposes, and four Army National Guard battalions. The Army battalions would each be equipped with 24 attack helicopters; the Guard battalions would each have 18.

The plan assumes that 24 additional Boeing-built Apaches will be remanufactured from AH-64D models to E models at a cost of $420 million. Operating costs would increase by $165 million with the added expense of the Guard’s Apache battalions and of retaining a “forward-stationed” combat aviation brigade (CAB) in South Korea. The Army plans to eliminate that 11th CAB and fulfill its requirements in South Korea on a rotational basis.

Additional costs from the commission’s plan would be offset in part through a “modest slowdown” in the annual procurement of Lockheed Martin/Sikorsky-built Black Hawks. The plan does not affect UH-60L to V conversions that provide the Black Hawk with a digital glass cockpit. The Guard would have two Black Hawk battalions instead of four under the ARI, resulting in a 3 percent overall reduction in operational Black Hawks.

The commission did not make recommendations on the ARI’s proposal to retire all Bell OH-58 Kiowa Warrior scout helicopters or the Army’s plan to use the twin-engine Airbus UH-72A Lakota as its helicopter primary trainer.

Some think tanks found the commission’s report to be deficient. The report “is a politically correct document that focused more on trying to paper over serious disputes among the three components of the Total Force—active, National Guard and Reserve—than on doing the right thing,” wrote Daniel Goure of the Lexington Institute. The commission’s “fundamental goal was political in nature: ensuring One Army,” he added. “In this it may have been successful, recommending to keep some number of Apaches in the National Guard. But it did so by dividing up the baby and increasing costs for the Army.”