Highlights

Mission Capable Rates Trends for Selected Army and Marine Corps Ground Vehicles

Five of six selected Army ground combat vehicles did not meet mission capable goals in any fiscal year (FY) during the time frame of GAO’s review. In the same time frame, selected Army ground support vehicles achieved mission capable goals about 20 percent of the time. The Marine Corps does not have a mission capable goal for its ground vehicles, though two of seven selected vehicles achieved positive changes in mission capable rates when comparing fiscal years 2015 and 2024.

Number of Years That Army Ground Vehicles Met Mission Capable Goals in Fiscal Years 2015 through 2024

Sustainment Challenges Affecting Army and Marine Corps Ground Vehicles

Nine sustainment challenges have affected the ground vehicle fleets as shown in the figure on the next page. According to Army and Marine Corps officials, two challenges affected all 18 ground vehicles in this review: a lack of parts and materiel and not having current technical data or drawings.

HOW THE FUCK DO YOU NOT HAVE THE TECHNICAL DATA?!

Further, other sustainment challenges that affected many ground vehicles included a shortage of trained or skilled maintainers, service-life issues, and unplanned maintenance. GAO found that the number of overhauls performed by Army depots dropped from 1,278 in FY 2015 to 12 in FY 2024.

fucking TWELVE for the entire vehicle fleet?! literally a hundred-fold decrease

A senior Army official stated that the Army accepted the risk from the decision to reduce funding for overhauls. Army officials also said reducing overhauls negatively affected the mission capable rates of most vehicles. Further, the Army partially mitigated declining overhauls by harvesting parts from vehicles being phased out of service. Also, the Marine Corps reduced the number of depot overhauls from 725 in FY 2015 to 163 in FY 2024. Marine Corps officials said they have not begun performing overhauls on two recently fielded vehicles and stopped performing overhauls on two others it is phasing out of service.

Army and Marine Corps Identified Sustainment Challenges Affecting Selected Ground Vehicles

Even as mission capable rates and depot overhauls have declined, the cost of maintaining Army and Marine Corps vehicles has gone up for most selected ground vehicles. Since FY 2015, GAO found the Army’s maintenance costs increased for 9 of the 11 ground vehicles in GAO’s review. For example, when comparing FY 2015 to FY 2023, the Abrams experienced a fleet-wide increase in maintenance costs of $181.3 million and per-vehicle maintenance costs nearly doubled. Meanwhile, availability rates were below the Army’s goal. The Marine Corps’ fleet-wide maintenance costs decreased, although its per-vehicle maintenance costs increased for four of seven vehicles in GAO’s review.

full report: https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-25-108679.pdf

some other selected excerpts from the full thing:

Change in Mission Capable Rates for Army Ground Vehicles Comparing Fiscal Year 2024 to Fiscal Year 2015

Officials from both services identified sustainment challenges with parts and materiel for all 18 selected ground vehicles. Both services’ officials identified multiple issues affecting parts and materiel availability including:

• Diminishing manufacturing sources,
• Long lead time for production,
• Obsolete parts,
• Single-source suppliers, and
• Competing between vehicle fleets for manufacturers’ capacity to produce parts.

Single-source suppliers also contributed to shortages. This includes when only a single manufacturer supplies certain parts or materiel for a fleet of vehicles. For example, Army officials reported that the Bradley program had more than 40 backordered fuel tanks due to long lead times of 7 months to 9 months for new orders. According to these officials, the Army relies on a single supplier for fuel tanks across multiple fleets of vehicles, putting them in competition with each other for that manufacturer’s capacity to produce parts and materiel.

lol. lmao. I thought capitalism, being the most efficient system, was supposed to be all about competition between different firms trying to offer the best service, thus ensuring this exact scenario never happens, hmm...

Army officials reported that for the Abrams, Bradley, and Stryker, depot maintainers send various maintenance and repair work to manufacturers due to the proprietary nature of some of the technical data instead of performing the work at Army depots. Specifically, Army officials stated that for the Abrams separate manufacturers own the technical data for the vehicle, engine, and transmission. These officials said that the Army sends repair work to original equipment manufacturers that depot maintainers could perform themselves if they had access to the technical data. Finally, Army officials also described that even when the technical data has been purchased, getting the data updated by the manufacturer when a new version of an engine or transmission is produced is time consuming and delays the performance of maintenance.

PAY YOUR SUBSCRIPTION FEE TO GET THE LATEST DOCUMENTATION, PEASANT

most cucked military in the world istg. in any civilized country the executive of an arms-manufacturing company that refuses to hand over the blueprints would be shot on the spot for treason, fuckin' hell

Shortages of trained or skilled maintainers affected 15 of 18 Army and Marine Corps ground vehicles. Army officials told us that maintainers’ skills have deteriorated because the Army extended the intervals between maintenance service for both FMTV and MRAP. Army officials told us that reductions in the frequency and complexity of Abrams depot overhauls have affected maintainers’ ability to retain their skill levels because this work does not require full disassembly. Additionally, Army officials reported that most field level maintainers and operators are not trained to maintain the APC and that this lack of training leads to high rates of failure for the vehicle. Army officials also reported that the Bradley faced the challenge of reallocating or releasing skilled maintainers due to decreases in the number of overhauls, which led to a loss of experienced maintainers and created critical skill gaps.

For example, ground vehicles that are well into their expected service lives—such as both services’ HMMWVs or the Army’s APC, which has operated since the 1960s—face common challenges with diminished manufacturing sources and obsolete parts. More recently fielded types of vehicles also face parts and materiel challenges because they are competing with vehicles currently being produced for the same components. For example, both services’ officials reported that their JLTVs are competing for the same parts and materiel as the manufacturer producing new JLTVs. Army officials told us they experience similar challenges with the HEMTT and Paladin, which are both still in production.

the old shit doesn't have parts... and the new shit doesn't have parts either!

Since FY 2015, the Army’s fleet-wide ground vehicle maintenance costs have increased by about 50 percent ...