The US Army recently revealed that the 3^rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4^th Infantry Division had saved $26 million in maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) costs over the course of five months due to the advanced capabilities provided by the next generation automatic test system (NGATS), a containerized diagnostics and troubleshooting solution, produced by Northrop Grumman and DRS Technologies. The introduction of NGATS will significantly reduce MRO and life-cycle maintenance costs for a range of US Army vehicles such as the M1A2 Abrams tank and the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

Tristan Sauer, Land Domain Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “As the US military continues to expand its operational footprint in Europe following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, one of the prevailing concerns from military analysts has been the increased costs of supporting larger forces on more extended deployments. Since February 2022, the US Department of Defense has deployed over 20,000 troops to various bases in Europe, as well as additional assets including armored vehicles, fighter jets and artillery batteries. As the rate of operations continues to escalate, to ensure NATO Response Forces maintain a heightened level of readiness, so too will the rate of component failures and technical issues that require MRO.”

As other service branches contend with their own unique challenges, the US Army has seen some notable success with the NGATS, which allows vehicle engineers to isolate critical faults within Line Replaceable Units (LRU). LRUs are self-encased modular components featuring on most US Army vehicles and contain the various electronic subsystems and components critical to vehicle operation. Furthermore, LRUs are notoriously expensive to replace, ranging in costs from anywhere between $80,000 to well over $150,000 per unit.

Sauer continues: “Though recent operations in Poland remain one of the systems first overseas deployments, Army leaders have already praised the financial and operational benefits it provides, enhancing readiness levels in their armored vehicle fleets while proving eight times more cost-effective than the legacy DSESTS solution which was in use until last year.”

Furthermore, as the US and its NATO allies continue to debate the limitations on the deployment of ‘substantial combat forces’ outlined by the NATO-Russia Founding Act 1997, the forward deployment of non-lethal capability enablers such as NGATS provides a critical support mechanism should the deployment of such ‘combat forces’ become an absolute necessity.

Sauer adds: “As the US government continues to increase the defense budget and deploy additional forces in response to dynamic geopolitical crises, investment in solutions such as the NGATS will prove quintessential in ensuring optimal financial and operational readiness.”