An Analysis of the Army's Transformation Programs and Possible Alternatives

In the past decade, the Army initiated two programs designed to dramatically alter the way its combat forces are equipped and organized. The Modularity Initiative would reorganize the Army's warfighting forces from divisions containing 12,000 to 17,000 or more soldiers to a larger number of smaller, interchangeable, and independent brigade combat teams (BCTs) of 3,000 to 4,000 soldiers. Before changes in the program were made on the basis of Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates's announcement in April 2009, the Future Combat Systems (FCS) program would have, among other things, replaced the Army's heavy tracked armored vehicles developed in the 1960s and 1970s with lighter and more mobile combat vehicles that would be equally as survivable. (See Summary Box 1.) Army leaders have contended that together those two programs would yield an Army that could respond to crises around the world more quickly and that would be more mobile and technically sophisticated-and, hence, more effective-once it arrived.
CBO Study