This is the accessible text file for GAO report number GAO-03-484R 
entitled 'Army Stryker Brigades: Assessment of External Logistics 
Support Should Be Documented for the Congressionally Mandated Review of 
the Army's Operational Evaluation Plan' which was released on March 25, 
2003.



This text file was formatted by the U.S. General Accounting Office 

(GAO) to be accessible to users with visual impairments, as part of a 

longer term project to improve GAO products’ accessibility. Every 

attempt has been made to maintain the structural and data integrity of 

the original printed product. Accessibility features, such as text 

descriptions of tables, consecutively numbered footnotes placed at the 

end of the file, and the text of agency comment letters, are provided 

but may not exactly duplicate the presentation or format of the printed 

version. The portable document format (PDF) file is an exact electronic 

replica of the printed version. We welcome your feedback. Please E-mail 

your comments regarding the contents or accessibility features of this 

document to Webmaster@gao.gov.



March 28, 2003:



The Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld

Secretary of Defense:



Subject: Army Stryker Brigades: Assessment of External Logistics 

Support Should Be Documented for the Congressionally Mandated Review of 

the Army’s Operational Evaluation Plan:



Dear Mr. Secretary:



We are reviewing the Army’s plans for deploying and sustaining Stryker 

brigades. We plan to complete our review and report the results in June 

2003. In the meantime, the Army will be conducting an operational 

evaluation of the first Stryker brigade from late April through May 

2003 as required by law. The purpose of this letter is to bring to your 

attention issues concerning the adequacy of the Army’s proposed 

operational evaluation plan.



The operational evaluation is intended to facilitate an understanding 

of the initial brigade’s overall capabilities. The evaluation was first 

directed by the conference report accompanying the 2001 defense 

authorization act.[Footnote 1] Subsequently, Congress included the 

requirement in Section 113 of the National Defense Authorization Act 

for fiscal year 2002,[Footnote 2] which provides that:



the Secretary of the Army is to evaluate the brigade’s execution of 

combat missions across the full spectrum of potential threats and 

operational scenarios,



the Department of Defense’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation 

(DOT&E) must approve the Army’s operational evaluation plan before the 

evaluation may be conducted, and:



the Secretary of Defense is to certify to Congress that the results of 

the operational evaluation indicate that the Stryker brigade’s design 

is operationally effective and operationally suitable.[Footnote 3]



In this letter, we address the adequacy of the Army’s operational 

evaluation plans for assessing the Stryker brigades’ external logistics 

support--that is, the personnel, equipment, and services that will 

augment these brigades.[Footnote 4] As you know, Stryker brigades are 

organized and equipped to deploy rapidly and to execute early-entry 

operations immediately on arrival--potentially, into remote areas of 

the world. By design, Stryker brigades do not have the capability to 

sustain operations in this type of environment beyond several days or 

to perform other than minor vehicle repair and equipment maintenance. 

Thus, the brigades require the assistance of external logistics support 

for essential supply and maintenance services. Integrating external 

logistical support with the brigades’ limited support structure is 

therefore a key concept of the Stryker brigades’ organizational and 

operational design and is essential to effectively supporting and 

sustaining these brigades in combat.



Because the Army is ready to go forward with its plans for the 

operational evaluation and because of your requirement to certify the 

results, we are sending this letter to you with recommendations for 

DOT&E.



Results in Brief:



According to the Army’s plans, external logistical support will not be 

formally assessed during the operational evaluation. Instead, the Army 

is planning to conduct separate, informal assessments of some external 

support concepts, but information about the scope and methodology for 

these assessments is not included in the operational evaluation plan 

that the Army will be submitting to DOT&E for its required review and 

approval. As a result, DOT&E will not have all of the information it 

needs from the Army to determine whether the operational evaluation 

will be conducted in a way that demonstrates that the brigades’ design 

is both operationally effective and operationally suitable. 

Specifically, DOT&E will not be in a position to know whether the first 

brigade will be sufficiently assessed during the operational evaluation 

nor will it be able to determine whether the results can provide a 

complete understanding of the brigade’s overall capabilities. This lack 

of information could hamper your ability to certify the results of the 

operational evaluation. The Army does not believe that external support 

should be included as a formal part of the operational evaluation 

because the people and processes that provide it are not a part of the 

brigade’s organization.



Accordingly, we are making recommendations to the Director of 

Operational Test and Evaluation regarding documentation of Army plans 

for assessing external logistics support during the operational 

evaluation and reporting on results of the external support assessment.



In commenting on a draft of this report, the Department of Defense 

generally concurred with our assessment and recommendations and 

outlined actions to address the concerns named in the report.



Background:



The operational evaluation is to be accomplished through observation of 

several training events and exercises that the brigade will undergo. 

The principal events include a deployment of the brigade from its home 

station at Fort Lewis, Washington, in late April 2003, to the Army’s 

Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana, and 

surrounding areas, where the brigade will undergo combat exercises 

through the end of May 2003. The brigade will conduct multiple combat 

missions and operations during these exercises that will be evaluated 

to determine its operational readiness and combat effectiveness.



The brigade that is undergoing the operational evaluation is the first 

of six Stryker brigades the Army plans to form through 2008. Organizing 

and equipping Stryker brigades is the first phase of the Army’s plans 

to transform all of its forces into a more strategically responsive 

force that could more rapidly deploy and effectively operate in all 

types of military operations.



Army Not Evaluating External Support 

as Part of the Operational Evaluation:



The Army is not planning to evaluate external support as a formal part 

of the operational evaluation. The Stryker brigades’ support structure 

is limited by design and lacks the capability to sustain combat 

operations beyond several days. After that, the brigade is totally 

dependent upon augmentation in the form of external logistics support 

for replenishment of supplies and much of the vehicle and equipment 

maintenance for the brigade. The Army plans to informally assess some 

of these external support organizations and processes; but its plans 

for informally assessing external support are not documented for DOT&E 

review.



Stryker Brigades Are Designed to Have Limited 

Internal Support Capabilities:



Integrating external logistical support with the brigades’ limited 

internal capabilities is essential to effectively supporting and 

sustaining Stryker brigades. Rapid deployability and sustainability are 

core operational capabilities the Army envisions:



for Stryker brigades. To achieve the envisioned rapid deployability and 

to be adequately sustained in an early entry, austere environment, the 

brigades are dependent upon external supporting organizations for 

replenishment after its initial supplies are exhausted. The brigades--

by design--do not have the level of supply and transportation support 

personnel or the necessary equipment to move and distribute the fuel, 

water, and other materiel it would need for extended operations. 

Instead of stockpiling inventories of ammunition, spare parts, and 

other supplies--as a heavy mechanized brigade would do--Stryker 

brigades are to sustain themselves in extended combat operations by 

having these items delivered from numerous locations, such as Army 

depots and theater support bases, where they will be stored and 

configured for rapid shipment and distribution to the brigade. External 

logistics support personnel and equipment are needed to configure, 

transport, and distribute these supplies to the brigades.



External logistics support is also needed to enhance the brigades’ 

limited ability to perform essential support functions such as 

maintenance, supply, and transportation services. The brigades’ support 

battalion, as currently designed, has only about one third of the 

maintenance support capability of the current support structure of an 

Army heavy brigade. It does not have sufficient numbers of maintenance 

personnel or the capability to sustain operations without the 

assistance of external support organizations and resources.



The brigades are also heavily reliant upon external support provided by 

contractors to service and maintain its newly fielded Stryker medium-

armored vehicles and complex digital command, control, communications, 

and computer equipment. Contractor logistics support will be needed to 

support the Stryker vehicles and digital systems at least until these 

systems are fully fielded. Because of their importance to the brigades 

in combat operations, the Army, through contractor logistics support, 

must be able to adequately maintain and support these systems anywhere 

in the world. External support personnel and management processes are 

needed to coordinate the work of the numerous contractor personnel that 

will be supporting the brigades.



Assessment of First Stryker Brigade’s External Support

Will Be Informal and Separate from the Operational Evaluation:



The Army’s draft plan for the operational evaluation lists the 

augmentation forces--including external logistical support--that are 

necessary “enablers” for the brigade, but the draft plan states that 

these enablers will not be assessed during the operational evaluation. 

Army officials told us that current plans are to replicate and 

informally assess--to the extent possible--the processes and 

organizations that will provide external logistical support to the 

brigade; however, these plans are not documented and will not be 

available to DOT&E for its review. Officials responsible for preparing 

the Army’s operational evaluation plan told us that external support 

should not be evaluated as a formal part of the operational evaluation 

because the personnel and processes that provide it are not a part of a 

Stryker brigade’s organization.



Without information about the Army’s plans for assessing external 

logistical support, DOT&E will not be able to determine whether the 

brigade will be sufficiently assessed during the operational 

evaluation. For example, without knowing the scope and the methodology 

the Army plans to use for informally assessing external support, DOT&E 

would not be able to determine whether the operational evaluation 

results can be used to draw sound conclusions about the brigades’ 

overall capabilities. The effectiveness of the brigades cannot be 

understood apart from their external logistical support because the 

brigades’ organizational design and concepts of operations are reliant 

upon the effectiveness of the external organizations and processes that 

are needed to support the brigades. If external support is not 

thoroughly evaluated, the results from the operational evaluation will 

not provide a complete understanding of the first brigade’s overall 

capabilities and not confirm that the brigade’s design is operationally 

effective and operationally suitable. These results would form the 

basis of the Secretary of Defense’s certification.



Conclusions:



If evaluation plans for the external support concepts embodied in the 

brigades’ organizational design are not documented, DOT&E will have 

incomplete information to determine the sufficiency of the Army’s plans 

for the operational evaluation. Lacking credible results from the 

operational evaluation, the Secretary of Defense would have 

insufficient information, we believe, with which to reach judgments 

regarding the operational effectiveness and the operational suitability 

of the brigades’ design.



Recommendations for Executive Action:



We recommend that the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation not 

approve the Army’s operational evaluation plan until the Army provides 

DOT&E with 

(1) documentation of how it will assess external logistics support 

during the operational evaluation, to include the methodology that will 

be used for the assessment and (2) assurance that the results of the 

assessment will be included in the Army’s final report on the 

operational evaluation.



Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:



In commenting on a draft of this report, the Department of Defense 

generally concurred with our assessment and recommendations and 

outlined actions to address the concerns named in the report. 

Additionally, the Army briefed us on its plans to address our concerns.



In responding to our recommendation that the Director of Operational 

Test and Evaluation not approve the Army’s operational evaluation plan 

until the Army provides his office with documentation of how it will 

assess external logistics support, the Department concurred and noted 

that the operational evaluation plan must include details on the 

evaluation of external, reach-back logistics. The Department stated 

that both the operational evaluation plan and the operational execution 

plan will be reviewed for adequacy once received.



The Department also concurred with our recommendation that the Army’s 

final operational evaluation report should include results from the 

evaluation of logistics reach-back. The Department said that the 

Director of Operational Test and Evaluation would have personnel on-

site during the execution of the operational evaluation who will be 

prepared to provide comment on the Army’s final report.



Department of Army officials briefed us on their plans to assess 

external logistics support, including the data collection and analysis 

methodology it will use. Army officials also told us that they will 

submit the plan to DOT&E for its review and approval. Further, the 

officials assured us that the results of the assessment will be 

included in the Army’s final report on the operational evaluation. If 

the Army executes its plan as now envisioned, it will meet the intent 

of our recommendations.



Enclosure II contains the full text of the Department’s comments.



Scope and Methodology:



To obtain information on plans for evaluating the first Stryker 

brigade’s external support concepts, we interviewed officials from the 

Army’s Forces Command responsible for the operational evaluation; I 

Corps officials at Fort Lewis, Washington, responsible for planning and 

executing the operational evaluation; DOD’s Office of the Director, 

Operational Test and Evaluation, which is required by law to review the 

Army’s operational evaluation plan; and the Office of the Deputy Under 

Secretary of the Army for Operations Research, the Army’s lead agent 

for the operational evaluation.



We analyzed Army information on the organizational design and 

operational concepts for Stryker brigades to gain an understanding of 

the logistics challenges of supporting and sustaining the brigades. We 

reviewed documents and interviewed officials from the Army’s staff 

elements responsible for operations and plans, logistics, and force 

development. We also met with representatives and reviewed documents 

from the Army’s Tank-automotive and Armaments Command and Combined Arms 

Support Command to learn about support and sustainment options for the 

Stryker brigades. In addition, we interviewed staff from the Army 

Training and Doctrine Command’s Brigade Coordination Cell and garrison 

commands at Fort Lewis for information relating to support and 

sustainment plans for the first two Stryker brigades.



Our review was conducted from May 2002 through February 2003 in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.



:



We are sending copies of this report to the Chairmen and Ranking 

Members of the Senate Committee on Armed Services; Subcommittee on 

Defense, Senate Committee on Appropriations; House Committee on Armed 

Services; and Subcommittee on Defense, House Committee on 

Appropriations. It will also be available at no charge on GAO’s Web 

site at http://www.gao.gov. If you or your staff have any questions on 

the matters discussed in this letter, please contact me at (202) 512-

8365, or my Assistant Director, Lee Furr, at (202) 512-5426. Key 

contributors to this report are listed in enclosure III.



Sincerely yours,



William M. Solis, Director, Defense Capabilities and Management:



Signed by William M. Solis:



Enclosures:



Enclosure I:



SECTION 113 PUBLIC LAW 107-107 PROVISIONS:



PERTAINING TO OPERATIONAL EVALUATION:



“(h) OPERATIONAL EVALUATION.--(1) The Secretary of the Army shall 

conduct an operational evaluation of the initial interim brigade combat 

team. The evaluation shall include deployment of the team to the 

evaluation site and team execution of combat missions across the full 

spectrum of potential threats and operational scenarios.



“(2) The operational evaluation under paragraph (1) may not be 

conducted until the plan for such evaluation is approved by the 

Director of Operational Test and Evaluation of the Department of 

Defense.



“(i) LIMITATION ON PROCUREMENT OF INTERIM ARMORED VEHICLES AND 

DEPLOYMENT OF IBCTs.--(1) The actions described in paragraph (2) may 

not be taken until the date that is 30 days after the date on which the 

Secretary of Defense--:



Reports.”(A) submits to Congress a report on the operational evaluation 

carried out under subsection (h); and:



Certification.”(B) certifies to Congress that the results of that 

operational evaluation indicate that the design for the interim brigade 

combat team is operationally effective and operationally suitable.



“(2) The limitation in paragraph (1) applies to the following actions:



“(A) Procurement of interim armored vehicles in addition to those 

necessary for equipping the first three interim brigade combat teams.



“(B) Deployment of any interim brigade combat team outside the United 

States.



“(3) The Secretary of Defense may waive the applicability of paragraph 

(1) to a deployment described in paragraph (2)(B) if the Secretary--:



“(A) determines that the deployment is in the national security 

interests of the United States; and:



“(B) submits to Congress, in writing, a notification of the waiver 

together with a discussion of the reasons for the waiver.”:



[End of section]



Enclosure II:



Comments from the Department of Defense:



DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR LOGISTICS AND MATERIEL READINESS 

3500 DEFENSE PENTAGON WASHINGTON, DC 20301-3500:



MAR 14 2003:



Mr. William M. Solis:



Director, Defense Capabilities and Management U.S. General Accounting 

Office:



Washington, DC 20548:



Dear Mr. Solis,



This is the Department of Defense (DoD) response to the GAO draft 

report, “ARMY STRYKER BRIGADES: Assessment of External Logistics 

Support Should Be Documented for the Congressionally Mandated Review of 

the Army’s Operational Evaluation Plan,” dated February 21, 2003 (GAO 

Code 350323).



The Department generally concurs with the report. Detailed DoD comments 

on the draft GAO recommendations are provided in the enclosure. The DoD 

appreciates the opportunity to comment on the draft report.



Sincerely,



Allen W. Beckett, Principal Assistant:



Signed by Allen W. Beckett:



Attachment As stated:



GAO DRAFT REPORT DATED FEBRUARY 21, 2003 GAO-03-484R/GAO CODE 350323:



“ARMY STRYKER BRIGADES: ASSESSMENT OF EXTERNAL LOGISTICS SUPPORT SHOULD 

BE DOCUMENTED FOR THE CONGRESSIONALLY MANDATED REVIEW OF THE ARMY’S 

OPERATIONAL EVALUATION PLAN”:



DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE COMMENTS TO THE RECOMMENDATIONS:



RECOMMENDATION 1: The GAO recommended that the Director of Operational 

Test and Evaluation not approve the Army’s operational evaluation plan 

until the Army provides his office with documentation of how it will 

assess external logistics support during the operational evaluation, to 

include the methodology that will be used for the assessment. (Page 7/

Draft Report).



DOD RESPONSE: DOD concurs with the GAO assessment that the Operational 

Evaluation (OE) Plan must include details on the evaluation of 

external, reachback logistics. In conditionally approving the Stryker 

Brigade Combat Team Operational Evaluation (OE) Plan submitted by U. S. 

Forces Command (FORSCOM), the Department of the Army noted the “use of 

Reachback ... must be evaluated” to include logistics. DOD fully 

expects the updated Operational Evaluation (OE) Plan will include 

provisions for the assessment of logistics reach-back. Both the OE 

Evaluation Plan and OE Execution Plan will be reviewed for adequacy 

once received in mid-March 2003 timeframe. DOT&E will additionally have 

personnel onsite during the execution of the OE who will be prepared to 

provide comment on the Army’s final report.



RECOMMENDATION 2: The GAO recommended that the Director of Operational 

Test and Evaluation not approve the Army’s operational evaluation plan 

until the Army provides his office with assurance that the results of 

the assessment will be included in the Army’s final report on the 

operational evaluation. (Page 7/Draft Report).



DOD RESPONSE: DOD concurs with GAO that the Army’s final OE report 

should include results from the evaluation of logistics reach-back.



[End of section]



Enclosure III:



GAO STAFF ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:



Acknowledgments Key contributors to this report include, Kevin Handley, 

Karyn Angulo, Pat Seaton, Frank Smith, and Susan Woodward.



[End of section]



FOOTNOTES



[1] House Report 106-945 (Oct. 6, 2000), page 673.







[2] Public Law 107-107 (Dec. 28, 2001). See enclosure I for relevant 

excerpts from Section 113.



[3] Operational effectiveness is generally defined as the overall 

degree of mission accomplishment of an item tested; operational 

suitability is the degree to which an item can be placed in use with 

consideration given to factors that include logistic supportability.



[4] Stryker brigades rely on reach-back operations--a concept of 

reaching in all directions to obtain intelligence, planning and 

sustainment. Reach-back may include obtaining division, corps or 

theater-level logistical support. Reach-back may also include obtaining 

logistical support from contractors, joint or host nation sources.