WASHINGTON — The Army is not at a satisfactory readiness rate, according to one service official, and will have to further rely on industry to fill its capability gaps.
“To say we’re satisfied with our readiness rates, I think would be disingenuous. We have real problems with our major weapons systems, both aircraft and ground, and we have to address those things, and we’re doing so through a number of different ways,” Army Undersecretary Michael Obadal said today during the annual McAleese Defense Programs Conference. “Public-private partnerships in an organic industrial base (OIB) is one of the most fundamentally different approaches that we can take.”
Obadal said that while “everyone will have different metrics” on how to measure readiness, his are: How can the Army respond tonight with what it has; what can the Army respond to within the next month; and what is the Army able to sustain for the next year of combat.
Based on such metrics, Obadal determined that not only does the Army have problems with its major weapons systems, but also has problems with magazine depth, something the “current situation” has “absolutely” put pressure on, he said, seemingly referring to the ongoing conflict with Iran.
Obadal did not call out any weapons systems in particular as having problems.
One way to fix such issues with weapons systems is to have the original equipment manufacturers work alongside soldiers and engineers in the field to fix vehicles and aircraft in a “more rapid manner,” Obadal said.
Separately, he said the Army is still working on its “right to repair” legislation that would allow the service to own portions of a vendor’s intellectual property so soldiers can fix equipment on hand instead of sending it back to the manufacturer. The Army proposed legislation to be included in the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, but ultimately it was scrapped from the final bill. With this, Obadal said, the service is working with lawmakers and industry to develop a more “refined” provision, which he hopes will be included in next year’s NDAA.
“We have to be very narrow on what we’re asking for. So how many repetitions, how many units, how many years before we have IP [intellectual property], and there’s some IP that we don’t want commercial software and other things. We want companies to keep that because we want them to be responsible for the updates, the security patches and all that, but we want to be able to change things out as the environment demands,” Obadal said.
He added that for the Army’s weapons systems, there needs to be a “comprehensive approach” to how the service can obtain IP so that it can best utilize the OIB so soldiers “know how to fix things and can fix [them] without having to send an entire system back to the United States.”
As for filling capability gaps with weapons systems, the Army is looking for industry to provide systems that are backed by capital and can get to a “certain TLR [technology readiness level]” on their own before they enter into business with the service, Obadal said. He added that he recommends vendors come to the Army with a system that they have started to develop and explain how it fits into the service’s existing ecosystem, including how it can be incorporated into its kill chain webs, open systems architectures with other hardware and software platforms.
Further, in terms of magazine depth, Obadal said the Army’s new modernization effort inviting private industry to directly coinvest in its OIB installations will help fill gaps by providing a strong demand signal to vendors.
“If we ask industry to change, we have to address the long term viability of our own organic industrial base. So a new environment requires new approaches,” Obadal said. For example, at the Letterkenny Army Depot, private industry and the Army are working on “essential” air and missile defense systems, which includes munitions related to magazine depth.
“It blends the unique skills of our depot workforce with the agility and the capital of industry. That’s how we’re going to build, sustain [the] Army of 2030, and build a resilient industrial base. It’s a shared responsibility and shared success,” he added.
