Army industrial base under review.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: Defense Insider

The Army will not have enough work to keep today's armored vehicle suppliers and sprawling maintenance depots in business. Unless the Army soon begins to "right size" its industrial base, it will continue to throw good money after bad, analysts warn.

But before the Army starts picking winners and losers, hardware buyers and budget-meisters have to agree on how to modernize an aging fleet of combat vehicles, including the Abrams tank, the Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, as well as a large inventory of tactical trucks.

It comes down to stark choices, said retired Army Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson. The Army must decide how much of its ground-vehicle modernization budget--estimated at about $5 billion a year--should be spent on preserving today's hardware, and how much to invest in the future, said Sorenson, who is vice president and partner at A.T. Kearney, a management consulting firm.

Sorenson currently is advising Army acquisition executives in the ground combat vehicle program office...