LESSONS LEARNED FROM MIDEAST WAR Mr. SIKES. The war in the Middle East was essentially ground combat action, but there was Navy involvement to a limited degree. Mr. Secretary, were there any significant lessons for the Navy which came from the war in the Middle East? Secretary WARNER. Yes, Mr. Chairman, very definitely. I would propose to let the two service chiefs address specifically the lessons learned in the professional military sense, and then I would like to summarize. Mr. SIKES. Very good. Admiral Zumwalt, insofar as the Navy is concerned? Admiral ZUMWALT. We learned once again that the only way you can get the large fraction of supplies into a war theater is on the surface of the seas. Of what went in, 70 percent went in on ships. Roughly the same is true of the other side as well. Second, we learned how critical it is to be able to support the sealines and airlines through which both the airlift and sealift is coming. Mr. SIKES. Unfortunately, there was very little publicity about the sealift. Admiral ZUMWALT. Yes, sir. I guess it isn't as newsworthy, but it is the only way you can get it there. You just cannot handle a war in which major logistics are being consumed, without sealift. Airlift cannot do it alone. It can get the high-value stuff there. It cannot get the bulk. Second, we learned that had we not had forces there to protect the sealift and airlift along that long, thin line, with no support except from the territory of one ally, we would have been in very dire straits without a 6th Fleet. Mr. SIKES. What in this budget directly reflects the lessons we learned in the Middle East war? Secretary WARNER. Mr. Chairman, that would include items in the supplemental budget request as well. Do you wish both questions addressed, or just the fiscal year 1975? Mr. SIKES. Both. Secretary WARNER. I would like to lead off on that issue. Mr. SIKES. Possibly I should hear General Cushman, and then get back to what is in this budget. General Cushman, of course you are ground combat force and an amphibious force. What did your people learn from the war in the Middle East? General CUSHMAN. We learned some very important lessons. First, as to the ground part of the combat, a balanced force is required. The Israelis left their artillery and infantry behind and pushed their tanks forward. They were unable to attain air superiority immediately because of the antiaircraft problem they faced with the Arab Sam missiles. Therefore, the Israeli tanks ran up against about equal numbers of Arab tanks and missiles. As a result the Israelis suffered heavy tank losses. Another facet of the balanced force issue is the coordination of— infantry, tanks, artillery, and air. You have to be able to use all the combat arms to destroy these antiaircraft missiles before you can attain air superiority. For the Israelis this meant the destruction of the Arab antiaircraft umbrella had to be accomplished before effective close-air support could be provided the troops. This is actually a matter of doctrine and hard fighting. I think we, in the amphibious forces, already operate in this fashion. Our tanks, artillery and other supporting units accompany our infantry as parts of our integrated Marine air-ground team. Second, there is definitely a problem in the amphibious operating water area posed by the use of high-speed, small craft with guided missiles. This threat has to be considered and appropriate countermeasures must be planned to protect the ampibious task, particularly while the landing is going on. When it comes to the use of helicopters, it is obvious that there is a great threat to them, particularly from the hand-held infrared missile. We are studying the problem and R. & D. projects are being worked on, but meanwhile we have applied temporary measures. Resolution of the problem is very important, indeed, to the future of helicopter movement. Mr. SIKES. General Cushman, we have been given some very useful briefings on that conflict. One of the things that has been emphasized repeatedly is that we must exercise greater reliance on night combat capability. Do you share that feeling? General CUSHMAN. I always have, yes, sir. For 39 years I have stressed the importance of combat in the dark. Mr. SIKES. There was relatively little use of helicopters in that conflict. Does that say anything of significance to you? General CUSHMAN. It says to me, sir, that since the Israelis were unable to get air superiority, they had to concentrate on that aspect of the battle first. Until they had air superiority, they felt it was too risky to use helicopters. Mr. SIKES. Mr. Secretary, you were going to tell us something about changes in the budget. I would like to know whether there has been any change in policy and organization which are projected, either in the Navy or in the Marines, as a result of lessons learned in the war in the Middle East. Secretary WARNER. Mr. Chairman, as a consequence of those lessons, the Secretary of Defense put together a supplemental budget request which is now before the Congress. It is my understanding that Chairman Mahon has scheduled early hearings, I think as early as next week, on that subject. I would like at this time to address the Navy's portion of that supplemental, if it is agreeable. Off the record.] Mr. SIKES. Mr. Chairman, I do not think you would consider it remiss if I were to call attention to the fact that the son of a very distinguished member of this subcommittee, Lt. Crisp Flynt, has just completed 2 years of military service, and one of his rating officers said in his efficiency report that he considered him the outstanding young man that he had served with for a long, long time. I thought everybody would be pleased to get that word. Thank you very much, gentlemen. We have been pleased to have among our visitors this morning the wife of Admiral Zumwalt and the other ladies. Thank you very much. AFTERNOON SESSION Mr. MAHON. We will now resume the hearing. Mr. Davis has some questions. RESERVE FORCES Mr. DAVIS. Following up on some of the questions that Mr. Sikes had asked you before the break for lunch, we have had discussions on this matter and I believe both Admiral Zumwalt and General Cushman referred to the role of the Reserve forces. We have sort of all worked on the premise here that the Reserve forces will have to play an increasingly important role as our active duty military personnel stabilize, become lessened in numbers. Perhaps this would be a good time for both of you to bring us up to date on any significant changes that we ought to know about relating to improving the readiness and the effectiveness of the Reserves, applying both with respect to the Navy and the Marine Corps. Secretary WARNER. Mr. Davis, just generally speaking, I can assure you that within the Department of the Navy there is no deemphasis whatsoever of the significance we attach to the Reserve component. Although we are recommending some small cut in the manpower levels, it has been more than offset by acquisition of better equipment, reorganization, and a structurally stronger voice within the Secretariat and on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations. So I think in every respect that we can defend our record on Reserves. Mr. DAVIS. General, from the standpoint of the Marine Corps, would you give us a little updating on that? General CUSHMAN. Yes, sir. Our Reserve, as you know, has a ground Marine division and Marine air wing. We attempt to keep this at the highest state of readiness and equipped with the same equipment as we have in the Regular forces. This has proceeded satisfactorily on the ground side, with the division. They will be getting new tanks, they are getting the new amphibian tractors, they have the M-16 rifle and so on. Also, their training I think has prepared them so that they can be ready in about 60 days to proceed overseas to whatever job is required. The wing, however, is a little different in this respect, in that they are one model behind in some of their aircraft and are slated to receive updating shortly, beginning this year and the next year. I am speaking here of the replacement of the F-8 with the F-4, the later versions of the A-4 aircraft to replace the earlier versions. There are some aircraft we simply will not have the money to get for them, such as the electronic countermeasures aircraft, the EA6. The new procurement of KC-130's will enable us to transfer some of the older KC-130's to the Reserves. On the other hand, the photographic aircraft, the R-F-4B, we will not be able to provide. So they will have a limited capability in comparison with the regular wing. However, they will be able to provide good quality, but more limited support to the Reserve ground force. I would say the personnel are the major problem, sir. We have run into a recruiting problem with the Reserve which we have not been able to solve, although taking every management step and so forth that we could think of. There has been, I think, a bottoming out and a slight climb, but the incentives are not really there, any more, for a man to join the Reserves and stick with it as there were when the alternative was the Vietnam war. We had no trouble, of course, getting the people. So this is our problem now. We still have enough in the Reserve which is not organized, the Standby Reserve, to fill the bill, et cetera. But how long this will go on at the present low level of recruiting, of course, is a very questionable point. So I foresee trouble ahead, in other words, unless something changes in the recruiting picture. PRIOR SERVICE PERSONNEL Mr. DAVIS. Roughly, General, what portion of your personnel in the Reserve Division and the Reserve team are prior service personnel? General CUSHMAN. Leaving the numbers aside, we have found that the prior service personnel, in some cases we only keep perhaps one out of four. They will come to a few drills and there is no compulsion to remain if they do not like it, and they may change their mind and drop out. There is absolutely no hold upon them. So that even recruiting figures on the prior-service personnel do not mean anything when it comes to how many stay and stick with it, but I will have to supply for the record the percentage within the division and within the wing. [The information follows:] At the present time prior service personnel constitute 16.3 percent of the onboard strength in our ground units and 30.6 percent in our aviation units. In the total USMCR-(0)-19.5 percent are prior service personnel. Mr. DAVIS. Can you give similar information, Admiral, relating to the Naval Reserve groups, prior service versus the other? Admiral ZUMWALT. Yes, sir; we will provide that for the record. [The information follows:] Of the enlisted strength in the Naval Selected Reserve on December 31, 1973, approximately 52 percent had completed their first 6-year enlistment. The remaining 48 percent were serving in their first enlistment. Of the total enlisted strength in the Naval Selected Reserve, 79 percent have had over 1 year active duty experience. In addition, over 90 percent of the officers have had active duty experience. HEADQUARTERS REALINEMENTS Mr. DAVIS. In your statements there appeared discussions of headquarters realinements, in some cases reductions in personnel. Are you prepared today to give us a rundown on that, or is that still in the formulative stage? General CUSHMAN. Yes, sir. We directed a 25-percent reduction of fleet and shore headquarters and staffs as well as specified headquarters-related activities in 1974, most of which was to be done in 1974, and the remainder of which was to be completed in 1975. The fleet commanders in chief were reduced 4,083 military billets in headquarters and headquarters-related staffs. These reductions were implemented largely through consolidation of several major fleet, force, and sea frontier staffs. Shore headquarters and staffs, as well as related headquarters activities, were assessed 7,054 military and civilian billets. The Naval Reserve and Naval Training Commands were exempt. as they were undergoing major vertical consolidation and separate reductions were assessed. Ten percent of the civilian reduction was timephased through fiscal year 1975. Mr. DAVIS. That would be in fiscal 1975 ? Admiral ZUMWALT. Yes, sir. Mr. DAVIS. Has there been any comparable realinement in the Marine Corps, General Cushman? General CUSHMAN. Yes, sir. We will reduce our DOD defined management headquarters people by 12.5 percent during fiscal year 1975. This comes to 15 officers, 182 enlisted. Part of that reduction depends on DOD's final action on the reduction study. This will get us down to about a minimum, because in the last 5 years we have reduced by 25 percent pretty much on our own, but with some directions from the Department of Defense as well. So I think we are getting down to the minimum. In addition, I reorganized the headquarters last October and we have achieved some better efficiency. Some of the reduction in these figures is due to that, I feel. Admiral ZUMWALT. I might add. Mr. Davis, that we feel that the reductions taken to date have put a pretty heavy workload on the people remaining, which was already a heavy one. We hope it will be somewhat alleviated by the recently announced reductions in OSD and Office of the JCS staffs; in other words, the reduction in questionaskers will help reduce some of the load on the question-answerers. Mr. DAVIS. You mentioned earlier, Admiral, I think it was 65 of these Admiral ZUMWALT. Sixty-five of which were from intermediate fleet type staffs, division commanders, destroyers, that kind of thing were eliminated and we just dropped one whole echelon of staff in many cases. Mr. DAVIS. We were talking with the Army people yesterday. They then indicated that there were actually reductions in component commands there. For instance, they were combining out in Hawaii. Secretary WARNER. Yes, sir. Mr. Davis. Is there something similar to that? Secretary WARNER. We achieved it over 1 year ago when we made a reduction by which two fleet staff's were eliminated. The 1st Fleet and the Pacife ASW force had been operating on the west coast for many years. Admiral Zumwalt proposed to me, and I approved, a plan by which the 1st Fleet responsibilities were merged with those of the ASW Force, resulting in a single fleet staff-the 3d Fleet. |