S. HRG. 113–465, PT. 4 DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION FOR APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2015 AND THE FUTURE YEARS DEFENSE PROGRAM HEARINGS BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION ON S. 2410 TO AUTHORIZE APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2015 FOR MILITARY ACTIVITIES OF THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, FOR MILITARY CON- STRUCTION, AND FOR DEFENSE ACTIVITIES OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, TO PRESCRIBE MILITARY PERSONNEL STRENGTHS FOR SUCH FISCAL YEAR, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES PART 4 AIRLAND APRIL 8 AND 9, 2014 ( Printed for the use of the Committee on Armed Services VerDate Nov 24 2008 10:38 Jan 21, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6011 Sfmt 6011 Z:\DOCS\91189.TXT JUNE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION FOR APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2015 AND THE FUTURE YEARS DEFENSE PROGRAM—Part 4 AIRLAND VerDate Nov 24 2008 10:38 Jan 21, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6019 Sfmt 6019 Z:\DOCS\91189.TXT JUNE S. HRG. 113–465, PT. 4 DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION FOR APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2015 AND THE FUTURE YEARS DEFENSE PROGRAM HEARINGS BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION ON S. 2410 TO AUTHORIZE APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2015 FOR MILITARY ACTIVITIES OF THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, FOR MILITARY CON- STRUCTION, AND FOR DEFENSE ACTIVITIES OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, TO PRESCRIBE MILITARY PERSONNEL STRENGTHS FOR SUCH FISCAL YEAR, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES PART 4 AIRLAND APRIL 8 AND 9, 2014 Printed for the use of the Committee on Armed Services ( Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov/ U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 91–189 PDF WASHINGTON : 2015 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001 VerDate Nov 24 2008 10:38 Jan 21, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 5011 Sfmt 5011 Z:\DOCS\91189.TXT JUNE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES CARL LEVIN, Michigan, Chairman JACK REED, Rhode Island JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma BILL NELSON, Florida JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama MARK UDALL, Colorado SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia KAY R. HAGAN, North Carolina ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire DEB FISCHER, Nebraska KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut DAVID VITTER, Louisiana JOE DONNELLY, Indiana ROY BLUNT, Missouri MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii MIKE LEE, Utah TIM KAINE, Virginia TED CRUZ, Texas ANGUS KING, Maine PETER K. LEVINE, Staff Director JOHN A. BONSELL, Minority Staff Director SUBCOMMITTEE ON AIRLAND RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut, Chairman BILL NELSON, Florida ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi CLAIRE MCCASKILL, MissourI JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia JOE DONNELLY, Indiana ROY BLUNT, Missouri (II) VerDate Nov 24 2008 10:38 Jan 21, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 0486 Sfmt 0486 Z:\DOCS\91189.TXT JUNE C O N T E N T S APRIL 8, 2014 Page TACTICAL AIRCRAFT PROGRAMS ............................................................................... 1 Bogdan, Lt. Gen. Christopher C., USAF, Program Executive Officer, F–35 Lightning II Joint Program Office ...................................................................... 5 Davis, Lt. Gen. Charles R., USAF, Military Deputy to the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition ........................................................................... 15 Grosklags, VADM Paul A., USN, Principal Military Deputy to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition; Accom- panied by LtGen Robert E. Schmidle, Jr., USMC, Deputy Commandant for Aviation ........................................................................................................... 24 Questions for the Record ......................................................................................... 52 APRIL 9, 2014 ARMY MODERNIZATION ............................................................................................. 55 Campbell, GEN John F., USA, Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Army; Accompanied by LTG James O. Barclay III, USA, Deputy Chief of Staff, G–8, U.S. Army; and LTG Michael E. Williamson, USA, Military Deputy and Director, Army Acquisition Corps, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology ......................................................... 60 Questions for the Record ......................................................................................... 88 (III) VerDate Nov 24 2008 10:38 Jan 21, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 Z:\DOCS\91189.TXT JUNE VerDate Nov 24 2008 10:38 Jan 21, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 Z:\DOCS\91189.TXT JUNE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2015 AND THE FUTURE YEARS DEFENSE PROGRAM TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 2014 U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON AIRLAND, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC. TACTICAL AIRCRAFT PROGRAMS The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:36 p.m. in room SR–232A, Russell Senate Office Building, Senator Richard Blumenthal (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Committee members present: Senators Blumenthal, Donnelly, McCain, Sessions, and Wicker. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, CHAIRMAN Senator BLUMENTHAL. The subcommittee will come to order. As you can tell, this is my first subcommittee meeting. I am very pleased to be joined by my colleague, Senator McCain, who is pinch hitting temporarily for Senator Wicker. I want to extend a welcome to each of our witnesses. Thank you very much for your service. Thank you for being here today. We are joined by Lieutenant General Christopher C. Bogdan of the U.S. Air Force, Lieutenant General Charles R. Davis of the U.S. Air Force, Vice Admiral Paul A. Grosklags of the U.S. Navy, and Lieutenant General Robert E. Schmidle, Jr., of the U.S. Ma- rine Corps. I want to thank each of you again for representing the men and women of our Armed Forces so ably and for the great job they do around the globe, in the continuing war in Afghanistan, and else- where. We keep them in our thoughts and prayers, as I know you do. Our witnesses this afternoon face really huge challenges as they strive to balance the need to support ongoing operations and sus- tain readiness with the need to modernize and keep the techno- logical edge that is so critical to our military success. These chal- lenges, as you well know, have been made particularly difficult by the spending caps imposed by the Budget Control Act (BCA). Those caps which bedevil us all were modestly relieved for fiscal year 2015 in the Bipartisan Budget Act (BBA) that we enacted earlier (1) VerDate Nov 24 2008 10:38 Jan 21, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Z:\DOCS\91189.TXT JUNE 2 this year, but they are scheduled to resume in full blast in 2016 and beyond. These caps seriously challenge our ability to meet our national security needs and they have already forced military de- partments to make painful tradeoffs. Unless they are modified after fiscal year 2015, they will threaten our long-term national se- curity interests, and no one knows those facts better than the mili- tary leaders who are with us today. Every year we are challenged to make decisions balancing a number of competing demands for resources, including resources for current operations, and investment in future modernization. In this case, we will be assessing plans and programs regarding the current status and future prospects for tactical aviation programs. We meet today to talk about the F–35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) and the other aviation programs. We all know that the JSF pro- gram is important since it has been central to the long-term mod- ernization plans for all the relevant Services—Air Force, Navy, Ma- rine Corps—for more than 15 years now. Given that fact, any change in the cost, schedule, performance of that JSF program sends shock waves literally through the Departmentof Defense (DOD) and raises many questions of achieving that balance be- tween the demands of maintaining readiness in the near future and those of modernizing for tomorrow. For instance, the Govern- ment Accountability Office (GAO) has estimated that extending the service lives of existing F–16 and F–18 aircraft would cost about $5 billion. So today we are going to seek a better understanding of imple- mentation of the corrective actions DOD identified in the JSF pro- gram after Nunn-McCurdy certification 4 years ago and what levels of risk remain in the development and fielding program. I know that a number of you have seen problems in testing since last year, and while we are always concerned anytime we hear about problems during research and development, I understand that you have identified the problems and have mapped a way ahead, a path to deal with these problems to minimize the effect of the problems on testing and development programs. I hope you will discuss these problems very specifically and fully during your testimony. There have also been some other problems. I hope you will discuss those as well. I know you will be very frank and forth- coming with the subcommittee, as you have been customarily. The subcommittee has been following the Department of the Navy’s attempts to reduce the JSF shortfall to manageable levels. Five years ago, the Department of the Navy was estimating that we would be facing a shortfall in 2017 that optimistically would amount of 125 tactical fighters needed to outfit our 10 aircraft car- rier air wings and 3 Marine Corps air wings. Then 3 years ago, based on further analysis, the Navy was estimating the maximum shortfall could be nearly twice that large, or roughly 250 aircraft. But in the past several years, the Navy and the Marine Corps have taken action, such as reducing the squadron size, conducting serv- ice life extensions on some aircraft, and reducing the time aircraft spend in depots.