Let’s Ask The Questions And Then Go Where The Answers Are
From an annonymous high-level Army Official
In
recent weeks and months, the Army’s Stryker selection for the Brigade Combat
Team has once again come under additional scrutiny. The Army, as is its wont,
has strenuously defended the selection. But, we still have questions.
The
original solicitation was to be an “Off The Shelf/NDI” selection of an existing
vehicle to meet the Army’s immediate need for a lighter, more deployable combat
vehicle. The entire acquisition was tainted from the start by the Chief of
Staff’s October 1999 AUSA convention speech. To quote the words that were later
to be taken as gospel by those in the requirements and acquisition community,
the Chief said: “Can we, in time go to an all wheel fleet where even the
follow-on to today’s armored vehicles can come in at 5O% - 70% less tonnage? I
think the answer is yes, and we’re going to ask the questions and then go where
the answers are” [Ref 1]. Apparently this was interpreted as a blanket
mandate from the Chief for the selection of a wheeled vehicle. The Chief also
stated that he would challenge the acquisition community to actually acquire
the vehicle in record time, measured against the normal acquisition time lines
of years.
The
Training and Doctrine Command was a willing participant to give the Chief what
he supposedly wanted. TRADOC is responsible for developing the requirements for
the Army. They are required to look at changes in training, organization,
leadership and other factors before they settle on a materiel solution. If a
materiel solution is deemed the only way to satisfy the deficiency, TRADOC is
supposed to define the performance requirements in operational terms and embed
them in the Operational Requirements Document. In this case, they diverted from
their role of developing requirements and putting them out for industry to
determine what they could deliver. In the development of the final ORD for the
IAVs TRADOC sponsored a Platform Performance Demonstration (PPD) at Ft. Knox.
Prospective vehicles were allowed to demonstrate their existing capabilities in
a variety of environments to include an obstacle course, by maneuvering through
Ft. Knox’s Urban Warfare training area and to demonstrate their swimming
capability. At the PPD many vehicles demonstrated performances that exceeded
some of the requirements that TRADOC had initially established. As a result of
this demonstration process, however, TRADOC lowered many performance
parameters, allegedly in the interest of fostering competition [Ref 2]. The
final ORD requirements ignored the existence of excess Soviet-era tanks now in
many third world hands as a threat to the BCT and prescribed that the Mobile
Gun System merely be a “bunker busting” weapon system. Since when has
competition become a primary parameter in determining the performance of
equipment that will be provided to troops to fight an armed opponent?
Meanwhile, TRADOC arranged to lease Canadian LAVs as “surrogate”
vehicles, yet no light or medium weight tracked vehicles, although already
available at Ft. Lewis, were used to develop potential new tactics, techniques
and procedures. Coupling these facts and making an analogy to military law,
these elements were clearly demonstrative of an overt “Command Influence”
that was exerted on the overall process leading to the release of the
solicitation.
The acquisition system takes some lime, and there are valid reasons for that time to be expended. Initial Operational Test and Evaluation and Live Fire Testing are mandatory requirements of the acquisition system designed to ensure that the equipment delivered to soldiers is up to its intended task. The item’s performance in its intended role and its safety must be assured. This testing is still to be performed in the case of the Stryker.
The
acquisition system is also structured to insure that the equipment being
procured also fills the void in operational capability that has mandated its
acquisition. One of the relatively few Key Performance Parameters (KPPs) that
the Interim Armored Vehicle had to meet was C-130 transportability. The exact
KPP was: The ICV shall have the capability of entering, being transportable
in, and exiting a C-130 aircraft under its own power and be capable of
immediate combat operations (does not require a full basic load, but is desired).
However, there was another IAV performance parameter that reflected an
operational impact on C-130 transport, and that was the weight. “The ICV
combat capable deployment weight must not exceed 38,000 pounds gross vehicle
weight to allow (C-130 transport of 1,000 nautical miles without requiring a
USAF waiver for maximum aircraft weight on fixed runways” [Ref
3-3.1.1.1.1.1; 3.1.1.1.1.2] Two other complimentary performance requirements
stated for the DXV were: “The combat loaded ICV shall be capable of carrying an
Infantry squad (9 soldiers with individual equipment), equipped for any season
clothing (cold weather).” and “ICV shall provide space for each squad member, 2
sets of NBC protective clothing and food/water for 72 hours” [Ref 3-3,1,1 .2,2;
3.1.1.2.2.1]. The latter requirement was specified for the crew also. It is
clear from these performance requirements that the crew and the squad were to
be able to be deployed, with their equipment, on the same C-130 as the vehicle.
For the Army to demonstrate the deployment of a Stryker with less than that
load to congressional staffers and others is disingenuous. These deployability
requirements were designed to demonstrate that the Army was still “relevant” as
a part of the country’s defense structure, meeting the deployability profile
that became the Army’s benchmark for the BCT. The Chief has often stated the
“relevancy” of the Army has been enhanced by the procurement of the Stryker,
yet the deployability was the key element of the argument.
Words,
however, have a way of changing with the passing of time and with the demands
of the moment. A review of the acquisition documents is perhaps appropriate at
this juncture in the Stryker debate.
One
of the primary elements of the procurement was timeliness. “A critical program
objective is to achieve the earliest possible Brigade First Unit Equipped
(FUE)/Initial Operational Capability (ICC) of capable IAVs. The Government does
not intend to engage in extended variant/configuration development programs.
Extended development is considered to be efforts requiring approximately 24
months or longer of development, including Government Test Activity, to
complete EMD. Such a development effort would be inconsistent with the RFP’s
emphasis on (a) early Brigade Fielding, (b) RDTE funding profiles and (c) the
overall program objective to quickly achieve a capable interim force” [Ref
4-M.1.13]. While the basic ICV variant maybe meeting these criteria, others
clearly are not. The Engineer Squad vehicle, NBC Recon vehicle, Mortar
Carrier,
Medical Evacuation vehicle and the Mobile Gun System are still in development
and there are rumors that some of the variants may not be moved into
production. The Mobile Gun System will now not enter IOT&E until FY05. The
original development funding set aside for the IAVs in the solicitation was
$362M spread over FY01 to FY03, when developmental funding ended [Ref 5]. In
the FY03 budget submission, the Army requested a total of $565M in
developmental funding for the IAVs through FY06 [Ref 6]. While the budget
detail includes government support funding as well as training devices, this
amounts to a cost growth of 56% in R&D funding alone and such a cost growth
should merit a review of the problems that are responsible for the growth. If
this were a stand-alone development program not subsumed by the overall $6B
program value of the lAV program it would be in a Nunn-McCurdy breach,
reportable to Congress.
Again,
the Executive Summary of the solicitation was also clear in the need for a
quick program execution, stating that: “The Program Objective may be achieved
through the acquisition of off-the-shelf equipment, non-developmental items,
non-developmental items with integration of components, traditional
development, systems’ integration (multiple ground combat vehicles with
sustainment solutions or vehicles with non-vehicle solutions), a mix of the
aforementioned staggered over time and across variants, or other solutions.”
The Executive Summary also specified that: “The Army does not anticipate a lengthy
development program and considers extensive development of solutions to be
counter to the thrust of this acquisition due to the time, cost and risk
associated with such an approach [Ref 7]. This raises the question of where
exactly the program is in regard to complying with these execution requirements
stressed so directly in the acquisition? It would appear that the program is
more in the mode of traditional development than of an “off-the-shelf’ or NDI
procurement. A review of the program’s performance should be undertaken to
compare it to the “urgent need” the Army professed in its original
solicitation to industry.
There
were two other elements of the lAV procurement that separated it from a
traditional procurement. One was the ability to “block-mod” vehicles so that
they could meet all of the required performance parameters. The RFP stated
that: “All Performance Requirements other than KPPs (i.e. Band I, Band 2,
non-Band I and non-Band 2) must be met no later than delivery of the last
vehicle in the 5th Brigade.” Furthermore, “Unless all Performance
Requirements are met at the time of initial delivery, offerors will propose by
variant/configuration, Block Improvement Options which include remaining Band
1, Band 2 and non-Band 1/non-Band 2 Performance Requirements to be incorporated
into production subsequent to Initial Delivery.” Additionally, the government
placed itself in the position of having to exercise an option at a potentially
higher cost to get the performance it had originally advertised for and
supposedly insured by virtue of its selection: “offerors will propose as a
Government option a per variant/configuration price (fixed or ceiling) for
retrofitting all previously produced IAVs to the Block Improvement design” [Ref
8-M. 1.1.10.1 M. 1.1.10.2]. One would question, however, why there would be a
need for any substantive retrofits to meet the stated performance based on the
evaluation criteria and if there were, why would the government wait over a
period of 5 years for the retrofitted capabilities to be provided to the
troops?
The
second, major item that separated this procurement from all previous major
programs was the provision for a final review from an operational point of
view, to whit: “The SSA and the SSAC will, using their best professional and
military judgment and consistent with the results of the proposal evaluation
and the Basis for Award, make an integrated assessment of the capability of the
offerors’ proposals to satisfy the objectives set forth in the BCT
Organizational and Operational (O&O) Concept, considering a Combined Arms
Company Team. In the event this analysis indicates that the BCT O&O Concept
objectives cannot be achieved, the Government reserves the right not to make
any award(s) based on this solicitation and to pursue other ICV and/or MGS
contract actions” [Ref 9]. This procedure changed the procurement system from a
primarily objective system into a purely subjective one. Never before had such
an element been clearly inserted into a formal solicitation. While many would
argue that such an evaluation has likely been made before at some point within
the normal procurement process, this provision ultimately gave the SSA and the
SSAC blanket authority to, if need be in their best professional and military
judgment, overturn or redirect the traditional, weighted evaluation procedures.
This was where the evaluation turned based on the “Operational Road march from
Port to AO” cited in the announcement of the Stryker. The scenario used to
defend this criterion as the ultimate evaluation factor was a scenario much
like the Chief of Staff had endured in Yugoslavia where the Russian wheeled
vehicles beat the U.S. Forces to the airfield at Pristina. Another clear case
of “undue command influence.” The roads from Kabul to Kandahar don’t quite fit
the paved road movement scenario supporting the critically required
intra-theater on-road speed capability of the Stryker.
The
last and most important duty of the acquisition community is to be a smart
buyer for the taxpayer s money. When one looks just a little harder at the
pronouncements made about the selection of the Stryker the expertise of the
acquisition comes into question. The Army has amassed a massive database of
mobility criteria in different types of terrain, validated human factors models
and physics model that should have been able to predict something as basic as
the transport weight of the proposed vehicle. In the briefing accompanying the
selection of the lAV, it is ironic that the neither the media nor anyone else raised
any questions that the transport weight of the Mortar Carrier came within 16 lbs
of the maximum C-130 transport weight and the Mobile Gun System came in at
exactly the 38,000lb limit, [Ref 10] If the internal technical expertise of the
Army was proficient in their specialties and had all the modeling tools at
their fingertips during the selection process, why has any question whatsoever
arisen about the C-130 transportability of the Stryker? The Army in the source
selection process selected a vehicle that, according to the solicitation, was
to be C-ISO transportable without waiver. Current OSD documents reveal that the
Mobile Gun System is currently 3,000 lbs overweight and another $16M in R&D
funding is being devoted to weight reduction that will delay the Mobile Gun
System until FY05 [Ref 11]. What changed from the vehicle analyzed and selected
by the internal experts from the Army that was originally deemed capable of
meeting its needs for the BCT?
In
recent statements, both the Chief of Staff and the Secretary of the Army have
both clearly and unequivocally stated that the decision has been made in the
case of the Stryker and it’s time to move on. In his speech at this year’s AUSA
convention, when he came to the Stryker, the Chief said: “Look at our numbers,
challenge our metrics question our analytics, they’re all on review.” The
bottom line is that that is what we’d like to have done: a thorough examination
of the program execution and the actual capabilities of the Stryker — what’s
been advertised versus what’s being delivered and at what cost. To hearken back
to the Chiefs first AUSA speech, we’d like “to ask the questions and then go
where the answers are.”
hi
S
