Obsolescence: The Enemy the American Military Can’t Defeat : Modern Weapons Hard to Come By Despite President’s Plans, Promises

Huddled against the biting winter wind, Spec. 4 Kevin Jackson and his company climbed into their tanks and personnel carriers and gunned the motors, ready for a day of field exercises. Engines growled, thick black smoke spewed across the icy knoll--and nothing moved. The fleet of hulking machines was glued to the frozen muck.

“If there was a war in Kansas, we’d be stuck on this hill,” Jackson muttered as he used a hammer and screwdriver to chip clumps of frozen mud from the metal tracks of an aging M113 armored personnel carrier.

Six years after President Reagan announced a $2-trillion modernization of the nation’s armed forces--with special emphasis on equipment and weapons--many soldiers say they’ve only read about the promised hardware in magazines or seen it in television commercials that promote Army careers.

The Army, which had estimated that the modernization program would be at its peak by 1987, has completed about a third of its upgrading and now expects it to continue well into the next decade. The much-publicized modernization also is behind schedule in the Air Force, the Navy and the Marine Corps, officials said. Military leaders also said that the changes will fall short of initial expectations in all of the services.

Human Element Improved

Although the armed forces have improved the quality of their troops by upgrading pay and benefits, and have increased military readiness in some areas--especially the front-line units in West Germany--much of the modernization has not reached Army posts, naval stations or air bases.

In many cases the weapons and other basic military hardware in use today are more representative of the battlefields of Vietnam than the combat arena of the future.

Ft. Riley’s 1st Division, which would be one of the first Army units deployed to Europe in a crisis, was scheduled to complete most of its modernization by 1988. As of early January, Ft. Riley had about 8% of the new equipment it was promised. Some battalions will not get their equipment or weapons for several years.

“From a firepower standpoint, we’re where we were in 1975 or ’76 --that’s the reality,” said John Denning, director of Ft. Riley’s forces modernization office.

It is in the Army, perhaps, that the problems are most visible. It was allocated $415 billion from 1980 to 1986 for improvement programs. The Congressional Budget Office has reported that the Army has fallen short of its goals in many areas, even with 10% annual budget increases in the early years of the Reagan buildup.

Ft. Riley Example

Army officials describe Ft. Riley, which occupies more than 97,000 acres of treeless hills in eastern Kansas, as an accurate snapshot of Army modernization. Home to mechanized infantry and armored battalions that periodically rotate to duty in West Germany, Ft. Riley is about midway in the program’s priorities.

Ft. Riley began receiving the first of its major new weapons systems, the M1 Abrams tanks, in January, almost two years after post officials said they were first told they would get them. The powerful, sophisticated tanks, which will not be assigned to companies until the end of this month, will replace the M60 tanks in use since the early 1960s.

Many of the soldiers at Ft. Riley are assigned to tanks, personnel carriers, helicopters and other equipment that was put into service long before they were born. Some said they were trained on the newer, more sophisticated equipment during their initial Army training or during rotations to West Germany, only to be retrained on aging, less capable equipment at Ft. Riley.

“These are dinosaurs,” Lt. Tom James groused as he clambered aboard the M60 tank he had just run through a practice maneuver.

Minutes earlier, his company commander, Capt. William Kelso, stood in a tower squinting through binoculars at an M60 that had just broken down on the snow-dusted practice range because of a hydraulics problem. “They’re chomping at the bit” for the new tanks, Kelso said. “These are at least a generation old. . . . The wires only last so long before you start having electrical problems.”

Tanks, Carriers Overdue

In addition to delays in receiving the M1 tank fleet, which will not be fully operational for 18 more months, Ft. Riley is not scheduled to get the Bradley Fighting Vehicle to replace its old M113 armored personnel carriers until 1991, and some post officials are skeptical about that date.

The M1 tank and the Bradley, which is faster, more powerful and technologically more advanced than the smaller M113, are considered the cornerstones of the Army’s modernization. In many battalion-level units, modernization can hinge on one of those major systems.

For Lt. Col. Joseph G. Terry Jr.’s 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry--a mechanized infantry unit--that essential system is the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. “When I’ll get it, I don’t know,” said Terry, who took over the battalion 11 months ago. “First it was ‘87, then ‘88, ’89. . . . We have (noncommissioned officers) and officers coming out of school ready to train with the Bradley, but we don’t have it.”

Not only have some equipment allotments been delayed, others have been cut sharply. Ft. Riley will receive about a quarter of the Blackhawk utility helicopters originally planned for delivery, according to forces modernization chief Denning. In a few cases, the cuts will be slightly offset by other new weapons systems, such as the Apache attack helicopter now scheduled for delivery to Ft. Riley between 1991 and 1993, according to Denning.

The delays and juggling of equipment are the results of budget cuts made by Congress, continuing changes in the way the Pentagon deploys weapons and soldiers, and unexpected problems with some of the new equipment.

Budget Cuts Blamed

Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger is quick to blame Congress for slashing his original budget requests: “If we had more, we could do better. . . . We’d like to order at more economic rates of production--840 tanks instead of 600. We’d like to get more of the Bradleys, more ammunition. When you have the totals reduced, you have to satisfy as many of the urgent needs as you can.”

In its report, the Congressional Budget Office noted: “The Army would be unable to meet all of its goals--or even come near meeting them--if its budget does not increase in real terms.”

‘Star Wars’ Priority

Defense Department officials concede that the problems are far more complex than money alone. Reagan’s military priorities have changed significantly over the last six years. His Strategic Defense Initiative did not exist when the military’s modernization plans were drafted six years ago. Now the SDI, or “Star Wars” project, consumes billions of dollars each year.

The military’s internal priorities also change from year to year, and weapons allotments can become a chess game. The Pentagon’s first priority in the modernization is its front line in Western Europe. Units in the continental United States generally have been modernized in the order in which they would be deployed in the event of an emergency overseas. In some instances, that means a reserve unit coupled with an early deployment active-duty unit will be upgraded long before some active-duty units farther down in the order of deployment.

“We outfit our units generally with the rule that the first to fight are the first to be equipped,” said Lt. Gen. Louis C. Wagner Jr., the Defense Department’s deputy chief of staff for research, development and acquisition.

Design, Testing Problems

Some delays, however, have been due to faulty equipment, inadequate testing or production problems. Early problems in the development of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle and the M1 tanks contributed to initial delays in fielding the equipment, according to Wagner. Officials withheld the Patriot air defense missile for a year because “it was less reliable than we thought it should have been,” he said.

The SINCGARS radio system, expected to provide for dramatic improvement of battlefield communications, has been plagued by problems, Wagner said. That could push back even further the delivery of the equipment to Ft. Riley, now set for 1991-93, according to officials.

Soldiers in the field often receive little explanation of why they don’t have the weapons and equipment they heard about or used before they were assigned to posts such as Ft. Riley.

“They have been training to fix a certain piece of equipment,” Denning said, adding that if that equipment is not in use at Ft. Riley, the soldier eventually will have to “have a refresher course to bring him back up to speed from two years ago.”

Such delays hurt military readiness and hamper the Army’s new air-land war plans, which concentrate on training for coordination between air and land forces. The rate of modernization also affects a battalion’s readiness rating, the measure of its competence to fight and win.

Uneven Results

The statistics for Lt. Col. Terry’s 2nd Battalion point to the uneven results of the modernization.

Although the battalion’s personnel strength and some supplies have been increased, there has been a decline in equipment readiness and percentages of senior-level officers. Other areas, such as the number of qualified specialists assigned to the unit, have shown little or no change with the increased funds.

The most dramatic and consistent improvement in the Army since 1980 has been the quality of U.S. soldiers. Today’s recruits are better educated, better behaved, more easily trained and more committed than their counterparts of six years ago, according to Pentagon statistics as well as field commanders.

Military leaders attribute the improvement to a combination of better pay and education benefits, a dimming of the anti-military sentiment that followed the Vietnam War and rapid swings in the economy.

“Johnny is a cut above the Johnny that came in in 1980,” said Col. Mike Shaller, Ft. Riley’s chief of staff.

In Terry’s battalion, 91% of all soldiers have high school diplomas, a mirror of the Army average today and almost double the Army average of 54% in 1980.

The improvement in the education level of the soldier has been critical to meeting the increasing demands of more complicated equipment. Although modern equipment often requires far more training and knowledge of an operator, Army officials said the better-educated recruits have kept it from having to lengthen training periods dramatically.

Army officials said that they are far from satisfied, however. Army education levels still lag behind those in the other services. Last year, 28% of the soldiers in Terry’s battalion were rated deficient in reading and were recommended for basic English courses.

Now a Family Army

The improved education level, coupled with a shift in the composition of personnel, from mostly bachelors to a predominance of married men and women, also has contributed to better discipline and lower crime rates, according to officials.

At the same time, these married and better-educated soldiers expect more from the Army and its leaders. On the training field, soldiers are more aggressive and demanding of commanders, and military officials are more careful in choosing the men and women who will lead squads and platoons and companies.

“Young men and women today want to know more the ‘why’ than they used to,” Shaller said. “Be prepared to explain the big picture. In training, expect a lot of questions.”

The soldiers are no less demanding when it comes to quality of life. They want more regular working hours, improved housing and better services and benefits. Those expectations are greatest among the married troops. Young military families are taxing day-care and family services as never before.

The Army has addressed some of these demands through changes in leadership attitudes and superficial improvements in housing and services, but many of the concerns have been barely touched by the modernization efforts.

Child Care Inadequate

The Ft. Riley child-care center’s capacity, 176, has not changed in six years. In December, there were 143 names on the waiting list.

At any time, at least 1,400 families are awaiting assignment to base housing, according to Ft. Riley officials. The delays can last from one to 12 months, depending on the soldier’s rank. Almost half of the families waiting for Army housing in December were living in substandard conditions, or too distant from Ft. Riley, according to the post’s housing office.

Ft. Riley has built no new housing for married soldiers since the Reagan modernization effort began. The primary contribution of the modernization has been to upgrade some housing and to start a program that gives civilian landlords incentives to improve their property for military tenants.

“It’s just as difficult for them to find housing this year as in 1980,” one housing official said. “The difference is, better housing is available.”

The post has 1,059 vacancies in its bachelors’ quarters because of the decline in the numbers of single soldiers living on post since 1980, when those units were packed. Of the bachelor units still in use, however, 242 have inadequate bathroom facilities or other major deficiencies, according to Lt. Col. Steven Whitfield, director of Ft. Riley’s engineering and housing office.

Commander’s Philosophy

There have been substantial changes in the approach of military leaders toward their soldiers. Lt. Col. Terry, who assumed command of the 2nd Battalion a year ago, issued an unusual “philosophy of command” shortly after he arrived. It said, in part: “I am not a workaholic. Mission comes first, but you will never be evaluated on how long you work. How much you do is much more important. . . . I will take leave and time off; so will you.”

Still, both soldiers and officers express continuing frustration over what many of them consider the most important aspects of military life: the equipment they spend their days shooting or driving or flying or repairing.