Shadow fleet hit but budget cuts

Scout mission compromised by funding cut
By Paul McLeary
Staff writer
February 1, 2014

WASHINGTON — Army leadership is betting that an 80 percent solution to its aerial scout needs will be good enough in the coming years, as it scraps its OH-58 Kiowa helicopter fleet in favor of a manned-unmanned mixture for peering over the next ridgeline.

But according to internal Army budget documents, this hybrid concept could be running into a budgetary brick wall.

At a Jan. 14 symposium in Washington, Maj. Gen. Kevin Mangum said the service expects the RQ-7 Shadow unmanned aerial system and Apache attack helicopter will meet “about 80 percent” of the aerial scout requirement until the service decides how it will meet that mission full time in the coming years.

But according to a five-year planning document obtained by Defense News, a sister publication of Army Times, budget cuts have taken away much of the modernization funding for the Shadow fleet.

The lack of research and development funding “prevents software modifications needed to enable manned-unmanned teaming with Apache and integration of Shadow into the full spectrum CAB [combat aviation brigade],” the document said.

The documents are part of the annual weapons systems review that all programs must endure when service officials put together the program objective memorandum budgets that plan out to five years. All of the information contained in the documents is pre-decisional, since they’re concerned with fiscal years 2015-2019.
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