Army launches pilot aimed at trimming excess equipment

AUSA 2023 — Newly-installed Army Chief Gen. Randy George is on a mission to remove excess equipment from formations, today announcing new details of a pilot project to help determine what capabilities will stay and which can go.

“The goal here is to reduce the complexity for our company commanders and our units,” George told reporters today at the Association of the United States Army conference in Washington, DC.

Army Forces Command head Gen. Andrew Poppas and the commander of Army Materiel Command, Gen. Charles Hamilton, have been given 90 days to complete the initiative. The pair are using a unit from the 82nd Airborne Division and the 3rd Infantry Division to devise recommendations. 

Although this process is still ongoing, George said he anticipates that units will be able to divest of items like obsolete radio or extra vehicles, which will help lighten the logistics burden. 

“In some cases, it will be fairly substantial on the amount of equipment that I think we can reduce,” George said, while noting different formations have different needs. 

George was sworn in as the 41st Army chief of staff last month after serving in an acting capacity for more than a month. During that time, though, he unveiled his four focus areas — warfighting, delivering ready combat power, undergoing continuous transformation and strengthening the profession of arms — and began meeting with four-star commanders and sergeant majors about how to implement an array of changes.

Plans to shed unnecessary equipment is just one of George’s plans to shape the force. He and Army Secretary Christine Wormuth are planning to brief lawmakers on force structure changes prompted, in part, by recruiting woes and the pivot towards large-scale operations. While the duo have remained tight-lipped on specifics, Wormuth confirmed that plan includes a cut to the number of Army special forces, one group that grew over the past two decades because of demand for counter-terrorism and anti-insurgent capabilities.

Army Futures Command head Gen. James Rainey has also been tasked with crafting the service’s next operating concept that spans the 2030 to 2040 timeframe, and that draft is now with George, Rainey told Breaking Defense last month. 

“Our Army is a global Army,” George said. “We have to be able to operate, wherever we’re called, whether it’s in Europe or the Pacific and I think that that has to kind of be a guiding principle for us. And obviously, we’re gonna have different capabilities based on different fights.”