Last week the Government Accountability Office issued a report regarding United States Special Operations Command’s Armed Overwatch program. In 2022, the command selected Air Tractor-L3Harris to provide 75 AT-802U Sky Warden aircraft to conduct Close Air Support, precision strike; and Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance missions. The aircraft will be operated by Air Force Special Operations Command and organized into five squadrons, four operational and one for training.

Congress has never really been a fan of this program; there’s just not enough pork. It’s a propeller aircraft in an age of the Joint Strike Fighter which has components built in as many congressional districts as possible to spread the wealth.

Consequently, the House of Representatives issued House Report 117-118, accompanying the bill for the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2022, which included a provision for GAO to review the Armed Overwatch program. This is first of two reports.

What GAO found:

“GAO found that SOCOM is limited in its ability to justify this acquisition target for three reasons:

1 Documentation indicates that SOCOM decided on the size of the fleet before conducting the required analyses.

2 SOCOM did not assess how changes in the aircraft’s capabilities could affect the number needed for operations. Specifically, the aircraft selected is more capable than the one modeled. SOCOM is also determining how to adapt the aircraft to meet intelligence requirements that may affect demand.

3 SOCOM has not reevaluated its needs despite changes to operational missions (such as the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan) and force structure reductions under consideration.

Because of these reasons SOCOM is also not well-positioned to justify its acquisition timeline. According to SOCOM, changes to the acquisition timeline might affect the cost per aircraft. By ensuring that it thoroughly assesses its needs against adjustments in the cost per aircraft, SOCOM will be better able to make informed decisions and efficiently use the more than $2.2 billion it estimates that it will spend for the program through FY 2028.”

What GAO recommends:

“GAO is making two recommendations, including that DOD (1) analyze the number of Armed Overwatch aircraft needed using valid assumptions and taking into account changes in SOCOM’s operating environment, and (2) limit the acquisition of the aircraft until SOCOM completes the analysis. DOD concurred with the first recommendation and partially concurred with the second, describing its need for training aircraft.”

You can read the full report here.

While I personally feel that the Armed Overwatch capability was needed about 20 years ago, I’m pleased to see that it is finally being sought. What’s more, I reject the death spiral thinking that this GAO report supports. The US defense establishment has fielded fewer and fewer weapon systems over the years and it’s getting to the point where we can easily be overwhelmed by larger numbers of less capable threat systems. The AO force size is based upon what the command says it needs and that comes from decades of operations worldwide. What’s more, they’ve conducted more than a few studies to determine both capability and force size. But those weren’t good enough for Congress, or GAO.

Admittedly, I’ve been critical in the past of USSOCOM’s very expensive air force, but considering the exquisite suite of capabilities it offers the nation, the bang has been worth the buck. In other programs, particularly aviation programs, USSOCOM has initially shortchanged itself and had to incrementally buy more platforms at ever increasing costs. I don’t want to see this happen again. The Armed Overwatch aircraft can come online relatively quickly once they get moving and field a very robust capability. GAO recommends slow rolling this thing. That’s is a mistake. This investment of 75 airframes seems quite reasonable considering SOCOM is divesting of other, less capable platforms which cannot conduct both ISR and CAS functions.

Eric Graves

Editor