Not one, but two changes of command took place at the Army’s highest level this past year. Gen. Martin Dempsey measured his time as the Army chief of staff in weeks rather than years before President Obama nominated him to chair the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The transition in the service’s top office proved to be a prominent example of the larger transition the Army experienced in 2011. Rather than surges, the Army is preparing for a major drawdown. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno talks about potential future operations in the Pacific almost as much as actual ongoing ones in the Middle East.

Plenty of challenges lie ahead for the Army in 2012. They include the shrinking defense budget; hopes for a reinvigorated acquisition system; settling on a camouflage pattern; and battling the traumatic brain injuries that continue to ravage the force.

Four months into his term as the Army’s top officer, Odierno has transitioned past the short-lived Dempsey era and is establishing his own style of command. Much as Odierno did in Iraq when he took over for Gen. David Petraeus, the 6-foot-6 commander must replace a media darling and lead the force through the meat-and-potatoes grunt work of an operation in flux.

Army drawdown

On top of Odierno’s list of priorities is the Army’s force structure and figuring out what force mix is right for the post-Iraq, budget apocalypse era of the U.S. Army.

Fears about the budget collapse can sometimes seem like hyperventilation, but the cuts to Odierno’s force will probably be real. Sources inside the Pentagon have said the Army plans on cutting 10 of its 45 active-duty brigade combat teams in the next five years. It’s part of the larger 50,000 reduction of Soldiers over the same time period.

Momentum for the BCT cuts started under Dempsey, who studied reshaping the force mix during his time in charge of Training and Doctrine Command. Today these questions are part of a Total Army Analysis that was set to be completed in December. A general officer heading the analysis said to expect major announcements on the Army’s future force mix as early as January or February.

Certain Army leaders welcome the cuts to BCTs, arguing growth in the remaining BCTs will be a more efficient model at a time when the Army will not need as many to fulfill as many deployments. Growing BCTs into a larger apparatus while shrinking the total number also will lower the number of resulting staffs and bureaucracies, one general said.

Reserve and Guard leaders will look on warily. Service leadership has promised to maintain its commitment to the „total force” concept, but guardsmen and reservists know the reserve component has served as a target for cuts in previous budget drawdowns.

There is some potential that officials could cut five Reserve Brigade Combat Teams, but cutting Reserve force structure versus active-duty force structure doesn’t save the Army as much money, especially as deployments come down and more Reservists come off Title 10 orders.

Camouflage

Whatever Army officials decide on the future force mix, the service’s remaining Soldiers could find themselves in yet another camouflage pattern. In mid-January, the Army is expected to announce the companies that could make the Army’s next family of camouflage uniforms.

Four civilian industry camouflage patterns and one government pattern are expected to be named as the finalists of the fourth and final phase of the Army’s Camouflage Improvement Program.

The camouflage effort was designed to find camouflage patterns best suited for environments such as woodland and jungle; desert; and „mixed terrain.” The new patterns will be field tested, but it’s unclear whether they will replace the Army’s Universal Camouflage Pattern.

The Army launched the camouflage effort in response to a June-2009 inquiry by Pennsylvania’s Democratic Rep. John Murtha, who was then chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense. Murtha pushed the service to look for a better camouflage pattern after receiving complaints from sergeants about the UCP’s poor performance in the warzone.

Murtha, died Feb. 8, 2010, just 11 days before the Army approved its plan to issue new uniforms in the MultiCam pattern to Soldiers in Afghanistan.

Acquisition reform

If Congress plans to save defense dollars by cutting the force, then Army generals warn their Soldiers must have top-of-the-line equipment.

For much of the Army’s leadership, the term „hollow force” serves as a grim reminder of the start of their careers after the Vietnam War. Today’s leaders have vowed not to end their careers on a similar note.

However, the Army must seriously amend a plodding acquisition system that has put future investments in peril. Language in this year’s draft of the national defense bill ripped the Army acquisition system by name for spending $3.3 to $3.8 billion annually on average since 2004 on weapons programs that were eventually cancelled.

Army leaders point to the Network Integration Evaluation held twice annually at Fort Bliss, Texas, and White Sands Missile Range, N.M., as an example of the progress the service is making. There, a brigade of battle hardened Soldiers get to test the Army’s next generation radios and other equipment much earlier in the development process than before.

One big-ticket item has already seen its fate sealed by Soldiers’ reviews at the NIE. Service officials axed the Joint Tactical Radio System’s Ground Mobile Radio after Soldiers roundly criticized it.

And that was in just the second iteration of the evaluation. More over-priced and under-performing programs could be axed as a result of poor performances in the NIE.

Heidi Shyu, the Army’s acting head of acquisition, took over after serving as the deputy last year. She has proven fearless in trying to change the Army’s acquisition culture. Shyu might come off as a pushover with a patented laugh throughout presentations and interviews, but she’s shown Army leaders she can be a harbinger for change.

Next generation vehicles

One program that tested Shyu’s mettle in 2011 was the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle. With the Army and Marine Corps seemingly at an impasse over weight requirements for the Humvee replacement, Congress pegged the program for cancellation.

Until, that is, Shyu and Marine Corps leaders pared down their weight requirements at the eleventh hour in order to save the program by not forcing manufacturers to install exotic parts such as titanium mufflers.

The JLTV and Ground Combat Vehicle programs will each serve as a challenge for the service to maintain in 2012. Congress and top Pentagon leaders are already sharpening their cleavers looking for new programs to cut early in hopes of keeping current ones.

With an ever-smaller cushion of Iraq and Afghanistan spending and war priorities, service leaders will be forced to hold program managers’ feet to the fire over missed deadlines and budget growth.

The Ground Combat Vehicle, the Army’s second modernization priority behind its network, is already in trouble. The Pentagon has estimated the GCV’s per vehicle cost is already north of $13 million, the Army’s own red line for what it can afford.

Much like the JLTV program, the Army will have to depend on Shyu to swoop in and save a faltering program if it plans to replace the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle along anything like its current schedule.

Traumatic Brain Injury

Service leaders will have much more than hardware to worry about in 2012. Traumatic brain injury is an issue that will not go away, as a 2011 Defense Department survey found half of U.S. troops have been exposed to bomb blasts in Afghanistan but only one in five seek treatment for concussions.

This isn’t a new problem. And it’s one the Army continues to take seriously. What has held the service and the medical community back for so long has been the lack of research into concussions.

The sports world serves as a prime example: Despite the millions of dollars invested in him, the best hockey player in the world, Pittsburgh Penguin center Sydney Crosby, can’t stay on the ice because of concussion symptoms. And the Penguins’ doctors can’t figure out why they won’t go away.

The Army is in a similar situation, yet it has an entire force returned from Iraq and still deploying to Afghanistan racked with concussion symptoms.

What’s changed is the Army wants to make up for lost time and capture as much blast data as possible in the last year’s of the Afghanistan war.

The Army Rapid Equipping Force teamed up with the National Football League and Indy Racing League to design blast gauges that attach to a Soldier’s helmet and body armor. Small black boxes at command posts and inside vehicles measure the effects of blasts to a Soldier and compare that with their medical diagnosis.

Service doctors and the medical community at large plan to use the data collected in the upcoming years to better diagnose Soldiers and get those afflicted with concussions out of combat quicker so they can recover and return to their jobs.

New leadership

The Army will lose one of its champions for treating traumatic brain injury when Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli retires in 2012. Chiarelli has made TBI and reducing Soldier suicides his top priorities during his time as the Army’s no. 2 leader.

Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III was nominated to take over Chiarelli’s post after serving as the last commander of U.S. Forces-Iraq. Austin oversaw the pack up of Iraq and the transition of responsibilities over to the Iraqi army.

Austin’s nomination means the Army’s top two officers will have served time as the USF-I commander. In fact, Austin took over for Odierno in September 2010. There is talk the Army plans to have Austin eventually take over for Odierno again as the Army chief of staff.

Odierno plans to hit his stride in 2012 as he continues to roll out his vision for the Army. The Army four-star plans to maintain the focus Dempsey placed on the concept of „Army 2020,” but also place priorities on the mission at hand.

He knows he faces a steep challenging in managing a force returning from war. Transition a deploying force to a garrison force is no easy task. While Soldiers will appreciate the additional time with family members, Army leaders know those Soldiers will demand to be challenged in future training regimens.

Those regimens will place further emphasis on full spectrum combat, an art that Odierno has said he worries the Army might have let atrophy to prepare for the counter insurgency warfare that Soldiers faced in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Army plans to stand pat with Odierno as its leader next year, yet the transition that started in 2011 will continue have major ramifications on the Army of 2012.

Staff writer Matthew Cox contributed to this report.

Articolul original: aici