officials have asserted that the United States currently has enough capable tanks to meet any foreseeable contingency and that there would be enough time in the event of a major crisis to restart the tank

line, closing the tank line carries some risks. Those risks have to be weighed against the hundreds of millions of dollars that would need to be spent annually

to provide insurance against them.

The Comanche program, when it was conceived in 1983, was intended to develop one aircraft that, in two different configurations, could replace not only the Vietnam-era scout and attack helicopters described above but also the UH-1 utility helicopters of the same vintage. The Army originally planned to buy more than 5,000 Comanches of various configurations. The utility version was dropped in 1988, however, because the program had become too costly. Since then, the Comanche program has included only the attack and scout version, and the quantity has been reduced further, from a planned purchase of more than 2,000 aircraft to just under 1,300. The helicopter is still in the development stage, which will continue at least through 2004. As recently as 1992, the Army had planned to start buying Comanches in 1996, but it has since delayed the start of production until 2005.

These changes in the objective and size of the program have caused the cost of each Comanche helicopter--expressed in 1997 dollars--to more than double since the program began, from $11 million in 1985 to $26 million based on the Army's 1996 estimate. Furthermore, the Comanche has become more expensive to acquire than the Army's current generation of attack helicopter, the AH-64 Apache, which is bigger and heavier than the Comanche. That cost

increase is significant, particularly in a helicopter whose development was originally justified on the basis of its being inexpensive to purchase, operate, and maintain. Indeed, the Comanche's high cost calls into question the prudence of pursuing this as-yetundeveloped aircraft instead of continuing to buy existing helicopters such as the Apache or later models of the Kiowa.

Some analysts have questioned the wisdom of continuing the Comanche program. A General Accounting Office (GAO) report published in 1992 noted not only the increase in the cost of buying the Comanche but also the potential for maintenance costs to increase to three times the original estimates. Those factors, plus the risk of additional cost increases as technical issues are resolved, caused GAO to question the Army's underlying rationale for the Comanche program. In addition, the Comanche, which was conceived at the height of the Cold War, will no longer need to counter threats of the same scale or sophistication as those it was designed to thwart. Indeed, the Comanche is now so similar in capability to the Apache--the aircraft it is supposedly designed to complement--that whether it has a unique role to play in Army aviation is unclear. Without a mission that existing Army helicopters cannot perform, it is hard to justify the continued development of an aircraft that is more expensive to acquire than existing helicopters.

Based on these various concerns, this alternative would provide other means for filling the Comanche's role, at reduced cost. It would cancel the RAH66 program, thereby saving $2.6 billion over the next six years. Some added costs, however, would be associated with buying more helicopters of other types. The Army has already purchased enough Apaches to

fulfill the attack role assigned to 13 of its 18 divisions. During Operation Desert Storm, Apaches performed their missions without scout helicopters, and this alternative accordingly would provide no replacements for the aging Kiowas currently assigned that role in those divisions. The Army, however, needs to replace the aging Cobras assigned to the attack aviation units of the remaining divisions. Armed scout helicopters, known as Kiowa Warriors, were used effectively in the Persian Gulf and could replace the Cobras still in service. The Congress has supported purchasing those aircraft in the past, and the Army has bought a limited number (382). This alternative would buy 24 armed scout helicopters each year, leading to a total procurement of 519 by the end of 2005. After taking into account the cost of buying those helicopters, net savings compared with the 1996 plan would be $113 million in 1997 and

would total $1.4 billion over the 1997-2002 period. (The savings compared with the Administration's plan for 1997 would be similar.)

The primary disadvantage of adopting this alternative would be the loss of the new aviation technology incorporated in the Comanche. Some analysts would argue that the threats the Comanche is likely to face would not demand the very sophisticated stealth, avionics, and aeronautic technologies slated for the new helicopter, but others would support the program as a way to maintain the U.S. lead in helicopter technology. Some of the Comanche's new technologies are already being incorporated into current U.S. helicopters such as the Apache. Abandoning the RAH-66 program, however, would mean that the Army would have to rely on helicopters designed in the 1960s and 1970s for years to come.

In 1992, the Department of Defense's Mobility Requirements Study recommended that the Army preposition enough equipment on board ships so that it could quickly deploy a heavy brigade to regions as far away as Korea or Southwest Asia. That recommendation was based on the realization that in a world with fewer U.S. bases abroad, delivering large numbers of Army units by air or ship from the continental United States would take a long time. DoD officials believe that stopping an enemy attack in its early stages would require fewer forces than would pushing an enemy out of territory that it succeeded in occupying. Under that line of reasoning, by prepositioning equipment on board ships in the Indian Ocean and sending troops to meet up with it, the Army could halt enemy forces early in a conflict and thus ultimately fight a major regional contingency with fewer forces.

Today, the Army Prepositioned Afloat (APA) program keeps enough tanks and other heavy equipment on board seven ships in Diego Garcia--an island in the Indian Ocean--for a mechanized or armored brigade or an armored cavalry regiment. When augmented with five ships that are positioned in Guam, Saipan, and Diego Garcia, the APA can also provide a three-division contingency corps with enough supplies for 30 days of combat operations. The APA force also includes two ships that hold cranes and other equipment to help off-load cargo at ports that are ill equipped. As of 1996, the Navy has purchased 13 large, medium-speed roll-on/roll-off (LMSR) ships out of 19 that it plans to procure. Ultimately, eight of those LMSRs will contain equipment for the Army's heavy brigade and its logistical support under the Administration's plan. For the near term, however, the Army leases seven smaller roll-on/roll-off

ships from the Navy's Ready Reserve Force to house its brigade.

This option would place the Army's equipment for a heavy brigade on land in Southwest Asia and would cancel the purchase of the remaining six LMSR vessels since they would no longer be needed to preposition the equipment afloat. CBO estimates that net of the costs to construct buildings for heavy forces in Southwest Asia and maintain that equipment, the option would save $480 million in 1997 and almost $2 billion over the 1997-2002 period.

Critics of this option would argue that it would not allow the United States to deploy adequate numbers of forces quickly enough to a major regional contingency in South Korea. Current plans are to deploy the Army's heavy brigade afloat to either of the areas in the Defense Department's major planning scenarios (Southwest Asia or the Korean Peninsula) within two to three weeks. If that brigade was prepositioned on land in Southwest Asia, it could not be deployed as readily to a Korean conflict. Instead, the Army would need to send forces by ship from the continental United States or from U.S. bases abroad, which might take three to four weeks. Nor could parts of the heavy brigade be deployed as rapidly to smaller contingencies in other regions.

Some defense analysts might also argue that even if the Army's heavy brigade was prepositioned on land, the Navy would need to procure more LMSRs because the Army would still need additional heavy forces to halt an attack by North Korea. Although commercial sealift ships could help deliver equipment as they did during the Persian Gulf War, a dedicated fleet of military sealift ships would ensure that

additional forces could deploy immediately from the United States at the first sign of conflict; that is, some military analysts argue that commercial ships might not be available as quickly as military ones.

Supporters of this option would counter that the Army brigade that is currently prepositioned afloat may not be critical to the defense of South Korea. The Army already bases two brigades of its 2nd Infantry Division in South Korea, and it is planning to supplement those forces by prepositioning equipment for a third brigade on the peninsula in 1997. That combination of forces may be adequate to defend against the early stages of an attack by North Korea.

Even if additional forces were needed, the military's existing fleet of sealift ships plus chartered commercial vessels might be sufficient to deliver the equipment. During the first three months of the Persian Gulf War, for example, the Department of

Defense relied on commercially chartered vessels (most of which were under foreign flag) to deliver 30 percent of all combat and support equipment. According to a Center for Naval Analyses study of Gulf War deployments, commercially chartered ships tended to arrive more quickly at U.S. ports for loading than dedicated ships that were activated from the Ready Reserve Force.

Moreover, placing the Army's equipment for a heavy brigade on land in Southwest Asia could reduce the amount of time needed to halt an enemy attack in that region. Given adequate airlift, Army personnel could be flown to meet up with their equipment in about one week, rather than the two to three weeks required to deploy forces from Diego Garcia, off-load their cargo at friendly ports, and transport it over land. If the enemy mined ports or targeted them with weapons of mass destruction, moving that equipment to the battlefront could take even longer.