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REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. – A year of monumental change to the Army’s structure brought an opportunity for introspection and evolution. For the materiel enterprise, that meant taking an in-depth look at how the Army sustains the force.
“Soldiers cannot win on the battlefield without weapons to shoot, tanks to maneuver, food to eat and the logistics support to ensure those provisions get to the right place at the right time,” Gen. Gus Perna, Army Materiel Command’s commander and the Army’s senior logistician, said. “Without those critical elements of materiel readiness, we lose our strategic advantage.”
AMC’s Deputy Commander, Lt. Gen. Ed Daly, will lead the discussion on “Sustaining the Force” in a Contemporary Military Forum at the Association of the U.S. Army annual meeting and exposition Oct. 9 in Washington, D.C.
“Through innovation and proactive forward thinking, the Army and Army Materiel Command are determining how can we provide the most responsive support and maximize our sustainment capabilities to best support the Soldier,” Daly said.
Daly will be joined by the following leaders: Maj. Gen. Duane Gamble, commander, Army Sustainment Command; Maj. Gen. Dan Mitchell, commander, Tank-automotive and Armaments Command; Maj. Gen. Rodney Fogg, commander, Combined Arms Support Command; Erwin Bieber, BAE Systems’ Platforms and Services Section; and retired Lt. Gen. Jim Pillsbury.
After nearly two decades of counterinsurgency warfare, and amidst the largest change to the Army’s force structure with the establishment of Army Futures Command, the Army’s materiel enterprise has focused efforts on reinvigorating the supply chain to better equip Soldiers.
According to the Army’s multi-domain operations doctrine, the future battlefield will be highly contested and reliance on forward operating bases will diminish, requiring the sustainment
force to be more agile and predictive.
“Training is the foundation, and we build from there,” Daly said. “If we train our sustainment leaders and Soldiers well, then they will enable our Army to dominate the battle space.”
A challenge the Army faces is that many young leaders do not understand the entirety of the materiel enterprise, said Fogg, commander of Combined Arms Support Command.
“We need our sustainers to visualize the battlefield from the front lines all the way back to the Army Materiel Command; that is essential for the sustainment force,” Fogg said.
As the Army undergoes its biggest transformation in decades, Daly said it is important that sustainers and logisticians understand the continued importance of their role.
“The bottom line is as sustainers, we enable readiness and lethality,” Daly said. “If we are doing our jobs right, in any of aspects of large scale combat operations, we reduce operational risk.”
A key enabler of the materiel enterprise is the Army’s Organic Industrial Base – 23 manufacturing arsenals, maintenance depots and ammunition plants.
“From factory and fort to foxhole, when the force needs equipment or parts manufactured, repaired, upgraded or modernized, the Army’s Organic Industrial Base delivers,” Daly said. “We must continue to take a hard look at the output of each installation.”
To ensure Army readiness, the enterprise will continue to focus on its global logistics reach, which includes boosting Equipment on Hand rates by moving millions of pieces of equipment to the right units and strategically located Army Prepositioned Stocks around the world.
“AMC is increasing materiel readiness and supply availability by building the depth, breadth and velocity of the global supply chain,” Daly said. “It’s not just about efficiency; it’s about taking a good introspective look at how we operate in order to get better.”
To increase combat readiness around the world, APS configurations are changing from combat-capable to combat-configured to enable the rapid employment of units drawing APS, said Gamble, commander of Army Sustainment Command.
“Maintaining and configuring APS equipment in a combat-configured state increases readiness and enables deploying units to rapidly draw and employ APS,” Gamble said. “It reduces intratheater distribution requirements, timelines to assemble APS unit sets from storage to issue configuration, and the amount of time the gaining unit spends in the tactical assembly area installing and configuring equipment. This leads to rapid employment of forces once on the ground.”
As the Army undergoes its biggest transformation in decades, Daly said it is important that sustainers and logisticians understand the continued importance of their role.
“The bottom line is as sustainers, we enable readiness and lethality,” he said. “If we are doing our jobs right, in any of aspects of large scale combat operations, we reduce operational risk.”
To stream this Contemporary Military Forum and AUSA 2018 live, visit www.dvidshub.net/feature/AUSA2018.
| Date Taken: | 09.27.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 09.27.2018 13:43 |
| Story ID: | 294637 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 270 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Forum to focus on Army Sustainment, by Megan Gully, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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