At Ease - Wisconsin National Guard Department of Military Affairs

And who’s going to pay for all this?
Last fall the equipping working group began working
through these questions with three states: Minnesota, which
has a large Army Guard and combat units; Missouri, which has
a medium-sized Guard presence; and Alabama, whose Army
Guard is dominated by combat support and combat service
support units.
Experience with those three states will help set procedures
for dealing with equipment flowing into the rest of the states and
territories, Billman said.
So what’s coming? Everything.
Unmanned aerial vehicles; M-1 tanks with digital
command and control suites; Win-T high-speed, high-capacity
communications gear; the Army Battle Command System,
Prophet battlefield electronics surveillance systems; digital
topographic support systems for computerized terrain analysis
and map-making.
It’s not all about high technology, though.
Army Guard units will also be receiving fire trucks, medium
and heavy tactical vehicles, tactical trailers, armored security
vehicles, helicopters, field hospitals, field kitchens, SINCGARS
(Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System) radios,
generators, M-4 rifles, pistols and more.
Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, who stepped down as chief of the
National Guard Bureau in November, said the Army has to agree
on 342 line items of equipment that the Guard will receive.
The goal is to provide Guard units with at least 77 percent
of their authorized equipment by 2013.
That compares to the Guard’s 75-percent equipment level
prior to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Over the next seven years
as more Guard units went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq,
equipment levels fell dramatically, leaving some states with as
little as 40 percent of their required gear.
Ultimately, the Guard hopes to equip its units to 100 percent
of authorized levels, and the Army has agreed to that goal,
said Col. Michael Fortune, the Army Guard’s chief of materiel
operations at the Guard Bureau.
But reaching 100 percent won’t be easy. “Requirements
continue to grow, equipment becomes obsolete, there will be
battle losses and damage,” Fortune said. In addition, the Guard
is likely to have to leave some equipment behind in Iraq as U.S.
forces withdraw in 2009, 2010 and possibly later.
“So even though we’ll have all this money pouring in,
we’ll still be fighting a battle” to ensure that equipment arrivals
outpace losses, Fortune said.
Maj. Jim Jones, a member of Guard Bureau’s equipping
working group, said the plan is to have all maneuver brigade
combat teams fully equipped by 2015 and all support brigades
fully equipped by 2019.
But even Blum’s vision of an Army Guard with 77 percent
of its authorized equipment by 2013 would be an enormous
improvement.
In early 2007, Blum warned the House Armed Services
Committee that some states had as little as 40 percent of the
equipment needed to respond to domestic emergencies and 49
percent of what was required for war.
A year later the picture had improved substantially.
In April 2008 Blum testified to Congress that Guard units
on average had 61 percent of the equipment they needed, and
would have about 65 percent by the end of the year.
“Real, tangible money was authorized and appropriated,”
explained Blum, who has since been assigned as deputy
commander of the U.S. Northern Command.
In 2005 the Army Guard received just $1.7 billion for
equipment. In 2006 that sum jumped to $4.1 billion. By 2007 it
was $7 billion. Funding for 2008 dropped back to $4.2 billion
in the regular defense budget, but at least $2.7 billion more for
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