Army Had Difficulty Providing Support During the Persian Gulf War During the Persian Gulf War, a single regional conflict, the Army deployed virtually all of some types of non-divisional support units and ran out of some other types of units, even though it deployed only a portion of its total active combat force-about 8 of 18 divisions. As we reported in 1992, [5] the specific types of units affected included quartermaster units, such as water, graves registration, and pipeline and terminal operation companies; transportation units, such as heavy and medium truck companies; and military police units, such as companies that handle enemy prisoners of war. DOD, for several reasons, was able to mitigate the potential adverse impact of shortfalls; for example, (1) U.S. forces had a long lead time to deploy before conducting a counteroffensive against Iraqi forces and the counteroffensive was of short duration; (2) Saudi Arabia provided extensive host nation support, such as transportation and water, and (3) no second conflict developed at the same time requiring a U.S. response. In a two-conflict situation, the Army may face even greater challenges than it encountered during the Gulf War. As envisioned in the bottom-up review, the Army, with little warning, may need to simultaneously support at least 10 active divisions deployed to two major conflicts in two different regions. Army Lacks Units to Support Total Combat Force and Specific Regional Conflict Plans The Army does not have sufficient non-divisional. support units to support its current active combat force. Based on its most recent Total Army Analysis, the Army decided not to allocate resources to 838 non-divisional units required to support 12 active divisions (see table 1). Although these 838 units are a small portion of the total non-divisional support requirement, they represent important capabilities required to support combat operations. Table 1: Type and Number of Unresourced Non-divisional Units Type of unit : Number of units Aviation : 1 Chemical : 6 Engineering : 54 Medical : 31 Ordnance : 100 Quartermaster : 210 Signal : 12 Adjutant General : 26 Finance : 10 Chaplain : 12 Military Police : 1 Military Law : 32 Psychological Operations : 10 Military Intelligence : 3 Maintenance : 84 Headquarters * : 16 Transportation : 230 Total : 838 * These units consist of personnel that would be assigned to augment command organizations in wartime. Army officials participating in the ongoing Total Army Analysis anticipate that the Army, because of competing priorities, will probably not allocate resources to all of the non-divisional support units required to support the bottom-up review combat force and the two-conflict strategy. While the bottom-up review combat force includes two fewer active divisions than the current 12-division force, the two-conflict situation described in the bottom-up review is similar to the war-fighting scenario used in the 1993 analysis. In addition, mandated reductions in personnel will leave the Army with fewer personnel available to allocate to required non-divisional support units. We analyzed the non-divisional. support requirements in two U.S. plans for responding to regional conflicts for 17 types of units that were unresourced in the 1993 analysis. These plans were developed by two separate war-fighting commands, and each plan covered a specific regional conflict We found that the Army is short 238 units for one of the two plans (see app. 1). The largest shortfall--a total of 206 units--consisted of five types--medical, engineer, quartermaster, transportation, and military police units. In analyzing the combined requirements of the two plans for these five types of units, we found that the shortfall would increase from 206 to 338 units (see app. II). We also found that 654 of the same types of nondivisional support units were assigned to both of the regional conflict plans--dual-tasked to support combat operations in both conflicts (see app. III). [6] Like the shortfalls previously mentioned, the largest number of dual-tasked units--a total of 464 units--consisted of medical, engineer, quartermaster, transportation, and military police units. Footnotes [5] Operation Desert Storm Army had Difficulty Providing Adequate Active and Reserve Support Forces (GAO/NSIAD-92-67, Mar. 10, 1992). [6] These 654 units relate to only the 17 types of units covered in our analysis of the single plan and, therefore, do not equal the total number of units dual-tasked to both plans. Back to Table of Contents Force Structure US Army Back to GAO List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1995 by US GAO. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com