Modularity wasn't approved until 2004 and the real effects didn't even take place until 2005.

The Active Duty Army was on the increase from 480,000 to 520,000, then up to 569,000. The Guard also transformed their BCT's from the old Limited Division XXI or Army of Excellence design to Modular formations...shedding a lot of old Armor/Mech equipment in the process.

There was NO surplus equipment. The Redlegs in IBCT's were short of howitzers to such an extent that one gun had to be taken off a ski resort in California (used for avalanche control) and a number had to be bought off the Taiwanese (we had sold them these guns well in the past) before the new howitzers (M119A2's) were introduced...which has taken years.

The BCT's also had a massive influx of ABCS equipment - III Corps and a few SBCT's were the only units to really have a full compliment of ABCS equipment. We also replaced a bunch of rolling stock, switching out 30 year old 2.5 ton and 5 ton trucks for newer versions. This was all done within increases in the budget as well.

Of course, we also suffered from the giant sucking wound known as FCS which diverted billions of dollars that could have been used on existing programs.

Modularity also had significant increases in field grade officers and senior NCO positions over the old force structure, which led to additional costs.

The costs associated with Modularity were and are enormous. I think the Guard alone has had close to $30B of equipment pumped into it over the last decade...



Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
The army was downsizing, so how could that concept have been too expensive? There was surplus equipment from saved formations for almost whatever structure you could think of IIRC.