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Mr. WELDON. Thank you.

General Beauchamp, welcome.

STATEMENT OF BRIG. GEN. ROY E. BEAUCHAMP, DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF FOR RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT AND ENGINEERING, U.S. ARMY MATERIEL COMMAND

Mr. BEAUCHAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittees.

I am Brig. Gen. Roy Beauchamp, Deputy Chief of Staff for Research, Development, and Engineering at the Army Materiel Command. I also serve as the Deputy for Combat Service Support on the staff of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Research, Development, and Acquisition, and I am here today to join with the other witnesses to discuss our countermine equipment and countermine research and development programs.

I have a brief statement, and I have provided a more extensive statement for the record.

Mr. Chairman, let me say that, first of all, it is an honor for me to appear before the committee and discuss this program which is so very important to soldiers in the field.

One of the greatest threats facing U.S. forces today at every level of conflict is the landmine. Its low cost, its availability, its effectiveness, and ease of deployment have made it one of the most widely used weapons in the world. It is, therefore, not surprising that we see its widespread use in Bosnia.

Our objective is to provide the best equipment available to accommodate the full range of countermine mission requirements. That is detection, breaching, clearing, marking, and protection.

Our forces in Bosnia have available to them all of the equipment, all of the items that have been top classified and approved for field into United States Army units. These include such items as mine detectors, battalion countermine sets with rollers and plows, mine clearing line charges, and minefield marking sets.

We have also provided our forces in Bosnia with some nonstandard equipment for countermine operations. In this regard, nonstandard means equipment that has not yet, in all cases, gone through the normal acquisition process before an item is top classified and fielded to Army units.

We have been responsive also to requests for additional equipment from the United States Army, Europe, in anticipation of the countermine operation in Bosnia. This includes additional equipment which has been top classified and fielded and other equipment which the commander felt they needed to deal with the potential countermine problem. These include items such as rollers for mounting on tanks, bolt-on Army kits for tactical vehicles, and armored wheeled vehicles to provide ballistic protection against mines.

We have provided some equipment from our research and development programs to provide an enhanced capability to our soldiers. These include a vehicle-mounted mine detection system with a metal detector, infrared systems, and remote control kits. We have also provided dogs to provide which are specially trained in mine detection.

We are also looking at other technologies that are currently being worked in our science and technology community to determine where we could accelerate development and fielding to employ the most current technologies in Bosnia. These include diffusion of metal detection systems with ground-penetrating radar and infrared systems to give us a system of systems which will then, in turn, give us a significantly enhanced capability in-for a standoff, hand-held detection capability for soldiers involved in up-close mine detection.

In addition, we are looking to see if there are foreign systems available which we may be able to use to deal with the countermine problem.

This countermine problem is significant in part because of the wide diversity of mines and fuses, over 2,500 different types, which we must be prepared to confront. Also, the equipment we develop must be capable of operating under near 100-percent effectiveness under a wide variety of operating conditions and environmental conditions.

Recent advances in microcircuitry, electro-optics, and information signal processing have put solutions to these problems, we think, within our reach.

Our objective is to provide state-of-the-art equipment to protect soldiers and conduct operations efficiently and effectively whether under wartime conditions or in operations other than war such as Bosnia. We have a focused, fully integrated program within our science and technology and acquisition communities in the Army to achieve that objective. We are also closely linked to the other services through the triservice programs sponsored by the defense director of research and engineering and the joint logistics command

ers.

Mr. Chairman, we appreciate the support of the Congress in resourcing our efforts to develop solutions to these critical problems, and we look forward to answering your questions on these matters. And if I may summarize, sir, we are intending to learn the lessons from Somalia and our deployment in Bosnia to deal with this widely diversed threat that we face and have at the same time an aggressive development program to deal with it, that is responsive to the commander, to enable us to protect soldiers and bring them home well and in one piece.

Thank you very much, sir.

[The prepared statement of General Beauchamp follows:]

87

STATEMENT BY

BG ROY E. BEAUCHAMP

DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF FOR RESEARCH,

DEVELOPMENT, AND ENGINEERING

U.S. ARMY MATERIEL COMMAND

RECORD VERSION

BEFORE THE

MILITARY PROCUREMENT SUBCOMMITTEE

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT SUBCOMMITTEE

COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY

UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ARMY COUNTERMINE SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND EQUIPMENT

RESPONSE TO THE LANDMINE THREAT IN BOSNIA

24 JANUARY 1996

NOT FOR PUBLICATION

UNTIL RELEASED

BY THE HOUSE

COMMITTEE

ON NATIONAL SECURITY

BG Roy E. Beauchamp

BG Roy E. Beauchamp was assigned to the Army Material Command on August 21, 1995 as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Research, Development, and Engineering. He also serves as the Deputy for Combat Service Support on the Staff of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Research, Development, and Acquisition.

BG Beauchamp entered the Army in 1965. He was commissioned through Officer Candidate School in 1967. He is a graduate of the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He earned a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Dayton and a Master of Arts in Public Administration from Central Michigan University. He is also a graduate of the Ordnance Officer Advance Course, the Command General Staff College and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.

BG Beauchamp is a career logistician in the United States Army. He has served in a variety of staff positions up through the Department of the Army. He has commanded at the Company, Industrial Installation, Battalion, Group, and General Officer level. Prior to assuming his current duties he served as the Commanding General, Defense Industrial Supply Center, Philadelphia, PA. He served in Vietnam and in Desert Shield/Desert Storm.

BG Beauchamp and his wife, Olivia, have one son who is a student at Shenandoah University. They reside in Clifton, VA.

INTRODUCTION

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you to discuss the U.S. Army's Countermine equipment and the Countermine research, development, and acquisition program. The Army's acquisition community is striving to provide U.S. forces with the best capability to

achieve their Countermine mission in Bosnia.

One of the greatest threats facing U.S. forces in any level of conflict or other contingency operations has been and will continue to be the landmine. Its cost, availability, effectiveness, and ease of employment have made it one of the most widely used weapons in the world. It is the one consistent threat that U.S. forces are likely to encounter. It is therefore not surprising that we now see its widespread use in Bosnia.

From a technical perspective, the landmine also poses one of the most difficult challenges for the material development community. To put the challenge in proper perspective it is important to understand the complexity of the threat. There are estimated to be approximately 2,500 mine and fuze combinations in the world inventory. They range from the technically simple pressure fuze to the highly sophisticated mines which can attack a target with top and side attack munitions up to 100 meters away. All of them present a hazard to U.S. forces. Both ends of the technical spectrum of mines presents its own technical

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