Photo By Megan Gully | Lt. Gen. Chris Mohan, deputy commanding general and acting commander of Army Materiel...... read more read more
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WASHINGTON -- Army senior leaders highlighted the capabilities of the Organic Industrial Base at the Association of the United States Army’s 2024 Annual Meeting and Exposition Oct. 16, calling the OIB the nation’s surge capacity.
“You never know when a war is going to start and when we, or our allies, are going to suddenly need things like millions of rounds of ammunition or hundreds of armored vehicles,” said Lt. Gen. Chris Mohan, deputy commanding general and acting commander of Army Materiel Command. “If our Army is not ready, we could potentially lose the first fight and we cannot allow that to happen.”
Mohan provided opening comments at the Contemporary Military Forum on “Bringing the OIB to the Tactical Edge” and discussed the complexity of theaters around the world, saying the Army needs to be dynamic in the way it provides support all the way to the tactical edge. He said the entire sustainment enterprise is working together to address the possibility that the Army could need to respond to conflict in one, two or three parts of the world simultaneously.
“Our OIB is not static, it is expeditionary,” he said. “At any given time, there are about 600 to 1,000 OIB artisans, our teammates, that are operating around the world in more than 30 different countries … We have projected that capability forward to the tactical edge, which not only helps our Soldiers learn but saves the Army a lot of money and time.”
Panelist, Maj. Gen. Michael Lalor, commanding general of U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command, said the command pushes every day to bring additional capabilities to the tactical edge. He said TACOM on any given day has about 60 teams forward across the Indo-Pacific, Central and European Commands.
“The whole team is doing maintenance around the world, at the point of attack every day,” said Lalor. “To deliver effects you have to bring those effects to where the units are, where people need them, and where people can take the best advantage of them. It does us no good to have our solutions sitting in Warren, Michigan … If you ask and we can deliver, we will get it there.”
Maj. Gen. Ronald Ragin, commanding general for 21st Theater Sustainment Command, highlighted the work his command is executing across Europe, saying they are moving equipment at a scale and scope that has not been seen this century. As well, he said the 21st TSC is taking lessons learned from the war in Ukraine and it is requiring immediate transformation in the way the Army will fight.
“We are in a rapid race to transform how we fight, what we fight with … and how we sustain,” said Ragin. “Technologies like autonomous vehicles, robotics, drones, artificial intelligence and quantum computing will change the next conflict. Innovations and investments that we fail to make today will be adaptations that we will be forced to make under fire.”
Ragin said the Army must make investments to be prepared for the challenges of the future battlefield, saying the Army cannot guarantee the free movement of equipment into theatre and back for repair.
“We must evolve and think about sustainment through all phases of the operation,” said Ragin. “Our success will not only be determined on the tactical edge but it’s going to start here in the homeland with the OIB in the depots, arsenals and ammunition plants and the thread that ties them all the way to the forward tactical edge.”
| Date Taken: | 10.04.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 10.21.2024 16:41 |
| Story ID: | 483598 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 18 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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