Los Angeles - October 27, 1995

General Robert L. Rutherford
Commander-in-Chief
U.S. Transportation Command
Los Angeles AFA Symposium
October 27, 1995

Lift -- Credible Power Projection

I am always pleased to have the opportunity to return to this forum.

I would ask for you to stop for a second and think back to about 1988 and where we stood in the world. Who would have thought that by 1989 the Berlin Wall would have been down and within a year we would be fighting a war with Saddam Hussein; and within the next four years, the Air Force would be about 40 percent smaller. My point, of course, is that we are not very good at predicting the future. I am not sure how we will deal with the challenges ahead if our visions are so short. Nevertheless, we must try. In the case of the United States, we ve answered the rapid changing environment by adopting a National Security Strategy that calls on our leadership to look at engagement and enlargement throughout the world. It is a strategy that seeks to promote democracy abroad and bolster economic growth with the overall goal of enhancing American security. To be effective at this strategy, it presumes a continued U.S. involvement in international affairs. In fact, it states that American leadership has never been more essential.

As an active participant on the foreign affairs playing field, this strategic vision has demanded major changes in U.S. military thinking. In essence, the strategy boils down to one major challenge for the military: Provide our national leadership with the military forces and options required to remain effectively engaged in the international order. The keystone for successfully meeting this defense challenge and in turn supporting our national strategy is a robust and responsive lift and power projection capability. It is that power projection capability that I would like to discuss with you today.

Lift is essential because it provides credible power projection and through that projection, capable deterrence. Should deterrence fail, lift is the critical factor in delivering forces and providing war fighting capability. While our military forces are realigning to CONUS, lift capability becomes even more vital. Even the most advanced weapons systems, which we discussed at lunch today, and highly trained personnel are of no use to us unless we can get them to the war. I am very fond of telling my fellow compatriots you can t leave home without us. Without sufficient lift, forces can t deploy to the theater in time to fight, and they cannot be sustained. The result is reduced military effectiveness and ultimately the cost to our nation to be well measured not only in treasure but in blood.

To understand the lift forces we need, let s look at the requirement. We in the transportation world deal with two types of requirements. The first is the day-to-day business of serving U.S. interests around the globe. The second is the wartime surge capability to support two major regional contingencies. In suporting the day-to-day requirement, TRANSCOM has people deployed around the world. In a typical peacetime week, AMC [Air Mobility Command] operates 1,000 missions and over 3,000 sorties into 40 countries. Our Military Sealift Command has 75 ships underway, visiting 20 ports in 13 countries. Our ground component, the Military Traffic Management Command, manages about 200 major shipments in 27 ports in 13 countries.

This past year we have supported humanitarian relief operations, military exercises and operational deployments on every continent of the earth. In fact, we have operated into all but seven nations. Our wartime lift requirement is detailed in the recently approved Mobility Requirements Study Bottom Up Review Update [MRS/BURU].

This study set the requirement for sealift, prepositioning and air mobility to support two major regional contingencies at a moderate level of risk. I underline moderate level of risk. In TRANSCOM we are responsible for bringing those three modes that I talked about earlier together. I d like to touch a little on the PREPO and sealift business before moving to air mobility.

When it comes to moving large volumes of heavy equipment and supplies, we rely on sealift. While airlift provides the capability for a swift response to the needs of a theater CINC, it is largely limited by weight and bulk. Airlift provides speed for transporting people and high priority, high value equipment. But it is sealift that is the backbone of any major deployment. The Mobility Requirements Study validated a basic requirement of 10 million square feet of surge sealift capability. I realize that some of you may not be familiar with these terms. So, let me just talk a little bit about surge sealift and what 10 million square feet means.

Surge sealift is the lift required in the first few days of a conflict, while sustainment is the follow-on sustaining forces and supplies. Surge sealift is designed to rapidly place a credible military presence on theground and then build up the force. During the Cold War, a primary concern was a rapid Soviet strike across the German plains. We had a large standing force in Europe. Our need for surge sealift was small because our halting force was largely in place. Now, many of you will remember the days of Desert Shield. We saw CNN showing us the pictures of lightly armored troops, the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions spreading out across that desert. Those troops were ill-equipped to stop an Iraqi armored attack. We needed heavy equipment, but we couldn t get it there because we had not planned for surge sealift.

We have to fix this problem and we are working on that right now. To give you an idea of the magnitude of the task we are talking about to move 10 million square feet, that s the equivalent of 126,000 Ford escorts. We are talking about getting them to the theater in a matter of weeks less than a month. Today we are in the process of acquiring 19 large, medium-speed, roll on, roll off ships to meet this requirement.

While sealift can move large quantities of equipment and supplies, an obvious drawback is its slow speed. This can be a major drawback if the nature of the conflict is such that you can t trade territory for time. In 1973, during the Yom Kippur war in the Middle East, the Military Airlift Command flew operation Nickel Grass. The first flights were arriving in Israel in less than 48 hours. Subsequently, over the next 30 days, MAC flew 537 sorties and delivered 22,300 tons of equipment. n contrast, the first ship arriving in Israel delivered 25,000 tons. The problem is, it arrived 20 days after hostilities started and 12 days after the cease fire. It was a case of a whole lot, but a little late.

In order to compensate for sealift s relative lack of speed, we have prepositioned some supplies and equipment in and near our theaters. This prepositioning takes two forms afloat and ashore. One problem with land based prepositioning is you need to guess correctly where you are going to need it. Once in place, land based prepositioning is the least flexible logistics option. If you guess wrong, you ll need to move it, and you ll have to strain an already stressed transportation system to do that. Also, if you don t move troops rapidly to protect ground based equipment, you could lose it.

To ensure some flexibility in prepositioning, we have decided to put some of it afloat. We currently have 34 ships in the Mediterranean, the Pacific and the Indian Oceans. Such prepositioning gives the flexibility to swing east/west, and can reduce closure times by about half if you do that, but this enhanced flexibility doesn t come cheap. As a matter of fact, it costs us approximately $60-70 thousand dollars a day per ship to put it in the afloat prepositioning mode. Additionally, the equipment aboard these ships must be duplicated. In order to train the troops, you must have equipment ashore as well as that aboard the ships. Currently, we are in fairly decent shape because as we have gone through the drawdown, we have ended up with excess equipment to put on those ships. As we modernize our equipment, we face a bill for duplicate equipment for ashore and afloat prepositioning.

Prepositioning and sealift provide a majority of the equipment and supplies necessary for a contingency. But they must be married up with the necessary personnel and high value and sophisticated equipment that is not suitable for prepositioning. Helicopters and communications gear are good examples. They don t sit well in the bottom of ships or out in the desert without a lot of care. Those high valued equipment and people will be delivered by air.

I know this audience is interested in the air side of the house so let me move there quite rapidly. MRS/BURU, again, identified an airlift requirement of 49.4 to 51.8 million ton-miles per day as the requirement to meet two MRCs [Major Regional Contigencies] with moderate risk. About this time you are saying, "What is this million ton-mile per day thing?" A million ton-miles per day can be moving one million tons one mile in one day or moving one ton a million miles in one day. I d like to see the airplane that is going to do the latter. The Space Shuttle might be able to handle that, although I don t know. The C-17 might, too, I d have to see.

Let me illustrate this concept a little bit more clearly. Being a proud Texan, when we talk about 49 to 52 million ton miles per day, how much are we talking about? The city of Austin, Texas, is about 450,000 people. If you took those 450,000 people and their personal effects and you applied 50 million ton-miles per day, you could move all those people and all their effects in about 90 days, actually a little less than that.

That s the airlift capacity necessary to support two MRCs. The current air mobility force can theoretically move about 48 million ton-miles per day at maximum effort. In order to meet future requirements, we are focusing our efforts on three areas. We are aggressively working to maintain a strong and healthy CRAF [Civil Reserve Air Fleet] program. We are modernizing our existing airlift fleet to increase its life span. And we are pushing the acquisition of an aircraft to replace the C-141.

The CRAF serves as the foundation of our air mobility fleet. Currently, the Civil Reserve Air Fleet contributes over 260 wide-bodied aircraft, which provide over a third of our cargo airlift capability and 90 percent of our passenger lift capability. CRAF is a great deal for both Americans and the airlines. The commitment of our civil carriers allows the nation to enjoy major cost savings by depending upon the commercial sector for a large share of the airlift capability. At the same time, we provide our CRAF carriers with business and revenue to help them remain competitive and healthy.

As an incentive to maintain the level of CRAF commitment, we offer $1.4 billion in DoD and government business each year to participants. Additionally, we are in the final stages of instituting a program that will permit CRAF carriers to use DoD facilities. CRAF provides a lot of capability, but it cannot do it all.

There exists unique military capabilities that are required of our airlift aircraft capacity for oversized and outsized military equipment, air drop delivery of troops and equipment, and operations into austere, remote airfields. These capabilities only exist in military aircraft specifically designed for those functions.

To help maintain a robust, organic capability, the second program for meeting future requirements is the modernization of the existing organic fleet. The last C-141 will retire in 2006. But in the meantime, we are managing the fleet by tail number, investing in upgrades to avionics and defensive systems and transferring some of the older airframes into the unit-equipped Air Reserve Forces to extend their life. Upgrades for the C-5 and the KC-135 are focused primarily on the avionics systems. But they also include engines and landing gear modifications for the C-5 to improve its reliability, and rollers for the KC-135 to improve its cargo carrying capability. The avionics upgrades are vital to ensure our older air frames will be able to operate in the air transportation system of the future.

Future requirements for navigation on international routes demand that our aircraft be GPS [Global Positioning System] equipped as well as carry equipment for terminal collision avoidance and direct data links for reporting along routes with reduced vertical separation. In Europe, thre is an especially urgent need to modernize if we plan on remaining capable of operating under the strict flow control procedures which are just now going into effect. Some route restrictions are with us today and others are scheduled for trial periods beginning in January 1997. The future viability of our Global Reach concept is dependent upon timely investments to ensure our military fleet can operate efficiently in the world air traffic control system.

In addition to completing upgrades for our existing organic fleet, we must acquire modern aircraft to meet projected airlift requirements. As I mentioned, we need to replace the C-141. The high Optempo of Desert Shield/Desert Storm only intensified this need. The C-141 was originally built in the 1960s; it was stretched in the 70s; and flown hard in the 80s and 90s. Its average age is 28 years old older than the crews that fly it today, on average. And the service life has already been extended from 30,000 to 45,000 hours. The fleet currently averages 37,000 hours, and we ve already started to retire some of the older aircraft. In 1981, the Air Force selected the C-17 as the winning design to replace the C-141. Acquisition was delayed in the mid-1980s to accommodate a buy of C-5Bs and KC-10s. From the program s inception, changing requirements, funding cuts, program delays and manufacturing difficulties caused program turbulence. By 1993, aircraft were being delivered late and costs were high. The program was in trouble and on the brink of cancellation.

The Air Force, DoD and Congress agreed to give the contractor time to improve performance and in the meantime capped the initial buy at 40 aircraft. Since then, McDonnell Douglas has made significant progress. Today we have 22 aircraft and the last 10 deliveries have been ahead of schedule. We have seen dramatic improvements in quality, costs are in line and under control. The C-17 achieved initial operationcapability in January of this year, and since then it has performed superbly, both in evaluations and during operational missions. The aircraft holds 22 world records and this year McDonnell Douglas and the U.S. Air Force received both the Collier Trophy and the Schilling Award in recognition of recent work that they ve done in the C-17.

In July, we conducted the 30-day reliability, maintainability and availability evaluation of the C-17. The GAO and the press watched closely as the C-17 achieved a remarkable 99.2 percent departure reliability rate and averaged nearly 17 flying hours per aircraft per day during a test of wartime utilization rates. By any measure, the C-17 surpassed our most optimistic expectations. As a result, we have tremendous confidence in the performance of this aircraft.

Recently, we used the C-17 in the humanitarian relief mission associated with Hurricane Marilyn. During the course of this effort, we were requested to move large trucks and communication vans to St. Thomas Island. The equipment was too large for the C-130 or the C-141. The taxiways would not handle the C-5. Had we not had the C-17, we would have been forced to use sealift, and it would have taken many days to have met the requirement.

That is not the total story. In 1993, When the C-17 was in deep trouble, we were forced to look at other alternatives. That review led to the Non-Developmental Airlift Aircraft program or the NDAA. Two candidates emerged the Lockheed C-5D and the Boeing 747-400. We said w would consider the C-5D if we stopped the C-17 program at 40. We also said we would look at a mix of C-17s , 747-400s and possibly C-5Ds at a cost effectiveness trade off.

Let me stop here and say the 747 is a highly capable aircraft. It has tremendous range and payload capacity and its sticker price is less than that of the C-17. It can carry large amounts of bulk cargo and some oversized and outsized equipment. On the other hand, it was not designed to operate out of austere airfields, it does not have drive on, drive off capability, it is not air refuelable and you cannot air drop troops or equipment from it. Our task in recent months has been to quantify those various attributes of the various competitors and analyze them for the Defense Acquisition Board. The DAB will meet to make a decision on the future of the C-17 program and the NDAA next week. As you know, it is chaired by the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and its charter is to determine the appropriate strategic airlift fleet to meet the nation s defense needs for the 21st century. I am not going to speculate on that decision, but I am sure I ll get some questions.

I would like to briefly discuss the information we ve gathered and the analysis performed to support that decision. In understanding any analysis, one must have a full appreciation for the assumptions. MRS/BURU, which forms the baseline for our analysis, has a number of assumptions regarding factors such as warning times, CRAF call up and Reserve Component activation, all of which have an important impact on the ultimate results of the study. In gathering the information that support the DAB decision, our first effort was a Strategic Airlift Force Mix Analysis, which has become commonly known as SAFMA. Before I lose you, we have SAFMA, evaluating MRS/BURU requirements. Aren't these acronyms great? Using a Cray computer and a very sophisticated airlift model, which has been blessed by Institution for Defense Analysis or IDA, and OSD PA&E [Program, Analysis and Evaluation], we ve analyzed various fleet mixes of C-17s and NDAA to see if they met the MRS/BURU requirement. We ve then provided these results to industry for their review. Next we sat down with industry and negotiated ready to sign contracts for the C-17 and NDAA. We then used the cost data from those cost contracts to computer 25 year life-cycle costs which were provided by the Air Force Cost Analysis Investment Group, AFCAIG, and validated by the OSD CAIG. Finally, we did sensitivity analysis on the results based upon the assumptions I mentioned earlier. As a result, we have been able to provide the DAB a very good feel for the requirements and costs associated with the MRS/BURU requirement. But MRS/BURU is not the total story.

It does not address the unique military airlift requirements involved in lesser regional contingencies, smaller military operations, humanitarian relief, strategic brigade airdrop, special operations and intra theater lift. An OSD team has led a study to capture the factors necessary to determine the right mix to meet these requirements. Also, DoD conducted a utilization rate analysis which examined the inherent capability ofthe C-17 and the NDAA competitors to meet target utilization rates, that is, flight hours per aircraft per day, which ultimately translates to through-put capacity.

The studies and analyses I have just mentioned have taken many months to complete. This information, along with the DT&E reports, the OT&E reports, the contracor costs and performance data and results from the RM&A evaluations will all be available to the DAB. As someone recently said, the weight of the paperwork finally equals the weight of the airplane, so it must be time to make a decision and get on with the program. I would only add that after 14 years, it is about time.

Now let me wrap this up with some final thoughts. The transportation needs of this nation are framed by our commitment to remain engaged in events throughout the world. Our future requirements have been defined through studies and analysis. To meet these requirements, we have a diverse transportation system utilizing sealift, prepositioning and air mobility. In a few days, we will make a major decision on the airlift portion of that system. Think back to the way I started this presentation by talking about 1988 and what we saw in 1990 and 1991. How many of your are willing to predict the exact force structure that we are going to need in 2010, 2020 or beyond 2020, remembering that the airlift force that we are about to select will take us well beyond that year 2020?

The studies and analyses we use today provide the best tools for us to express our assumptions and plans for the future. They are a good starting part for planning, but I want all of you to remember that the forces we acquire today will be serving this nation far into the future. Flexibility is hard to quantify and model. Yet, it is essential if we are to maintain our ability to protect America s interests around the world. New challenges in a different world will face the generations that follow us. We must provide them with the tools that are flexible and adaptable if we expect them to keep this nation free in the future.

Thanks very much, I'll take your questions.

GENERAL SHAUD: Skip, we have some questions for you as predicted. The first question deals with you being CINCTRANS and the Air Mobility Command, Military Traffic Management Command and Military Sealift Command. It sounds as though there is one military command and the others are primarily civilian commands. How does all that work?

GENERAL RUTHERFORD: Sometimes it works extremely well. In the transportation business, we are highly dependent upon the civilian sector to get our job done. We have a reasonable amount of organic airlift capability. A major portion of our airlift capability exists on the Guard and Reserve side and in the CRAF. The CRAF represents, as I mentioned earlier, more than one third of our total cargo capability and almost 90 percent of our passenger capability, and is heavily dependent upon civilians.

Over on the sealift side of the house, we are building an organic surge sealift capability, as I tried to address earlier. But today, we are largely dependent upon civil hulls to meet our needs. On the ground transportation side of the house, almost 95 percent of our capability exists on the civil side. Given so much of this capability exists in the civil sector, it is pretty obvious you are going to have people deal with those contractors on a day-to-day basis. To a large degree, MTMC and MSC are largely contract operations. They have a large number of reservists that are committed to them during wartime to open ports and load ships, but on a day-to-day basis it is largely a contract operation.

So more than I would like to, when a major contingency breaks out, I turn to the contracting officer and say, "Would you please get me some force structure so I can fight the war." We have orchestrated that very well, but this nation cannot afford the dollars required to go out and buy an organic capability which we need to do the job. So, we ve got the best of all worlds here, and we are working it very well. I am pleased with the arrangement the way it is.

GENERAL SHAUD: Has the transfer of the C-130s left any disconnects or another complications in the airlift system?

GENERAL RUTHERFORD: There were complications before we changed the MAJCOM managing the assignment of the C-130s. The system is working very well. Primarily, the C-130s were operating intra-theater while we were operating inter-theater. There is a point out there where they must come together. That point is at the AOR [Area of Responsibility], and those air fields. Who is going to land on those air fields? I ve got 1,100 airplanes available to me to support a contingency around the world. There is not an airfield in Southwest Asia or in Korea that can handle 1,100 airplanes. It can t begin to handle that many lift airplanes of that size. We in the theater strategic lift business and in the intra-theater lift business have got to talk about how we are going to use those airfields. And we ve got to talk to the people in theater about how they are going to operate off those airfields with their fighters. It is a very critical issue.

We have worked out good arrangements to work those issues. What we will do is end up with an individual in theater working with the in theater air component commander to figure out how we mesh that together. I don t see any problem with it the way it is working today.

GENERAL SHAUD: The next question has to do with this NDAA, C-33 (747-400). Is the Non-Development Airlift Aircraft program intended in any way to compete with the CRAF?

GENERAL RUTHERFORD: Do you mean is there any friction there between the two? I don t think so. As I said, the CRAF is the first thing I addressed when talking about air mobility. The CRAF is very important to us. I don t want to go buy those 260 airplanes. We need to protect the business base we have for the CRAF arriers. That is what draws them into the program and keeps them in the program. As long as I can maintain a level of business that is attractive, like it is today, then I will be able to keep the CRAF program healthy, regardless of whether I have NDAA or C-17s.

Having said that, as soon as we end up with these civilian airplanes in the organic fleet, we are going to get criticism. Go back and look at the history of the establishment of the NDAA and the organic MAC fleet. Back in the 1950s, they were talking about this same issue. There will obviously be perceptions that we are stealing business from the CRAF, but I don t see it that way. I see us segmenting a portion of the market and devoting it to CRAF.

GENERAL SHAUD: Skip, I have to ask you a personnel question. Has the OPTEMPO of personnel deployment in Air Mobility Command given you a problem with your troops and their quality of life?

GENERAL RUTHERFORD: In Air Mobility Command, we ve always been on the go. That is what we do for our living. To the extent I ve got people out there pushing air lifters around the world, it is not a major problem. Because we ve had situations in Bosnia and Northern and Southern Iraq that we needed to take care of.

There has been a lot of tanker activity. There are quite a few deployments overseas. It is our tanker crews who are pulling high TDY rates and are being impacted by the OPTEMPO, more so than the airlifters. It is a concern, but we are down from last year. We are doing alright there as long as we don t get another big surge.

GENERAL SHAUD: We have one last question. Without prejudging the final decision on the C-17 buy, would you give us your views on the merits of an all C-17 acquisition versus a mixed fleet of C-17s and C-33s.

GENERAL RUTHERFORD: I am not going to try to prejudge the DAB [Defense Acquisition Board] next week. The C-17 is a good airplane. It has come a long way. It offers us a lot of flexibility that we don t see in the 747-400. At the same time, the 747-400 is cheaper, hauls a lot and goes a long way. So, you ve got to consider that.

Ultimately, you must weigh these things and look at requirements and try to figure out what is best for the American taxpayer and make your judgement. Actually, I m glad I don t have to make that decision. Dr. Kaminski [Paul G. Kaminski, USD for Acquisition & Technology] will announce the decision the 3rd of November.

GENERAL SHAUD: Skip, we thank you very much for being with us.

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