Summary: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO: (1) examined how well the Army was preparing its reserve general support maintenance units to perform their wartime missions; and (2) assessed actions underway to improve their capability.
GAO found that: (1) although 51 of 56 units GAO surveyed had received some missions guidance as of May 1990, 22 units had not received guidance identifying the specific equipment they would be expected to repair during combat; (2) many reserve general support units did not use their limited training time to develop and sustain maintenance proficiency, and between 42 percent and 50 percent of their mechanics were not prepared to perform their wartime tasks; (3) excessive administrative demands, the lack of mission-essential equipment, and the wide geographic dispersion of units from potential repair sources adversely affected the efficient use of reserve units' limited training time; (4) the Army lacked a system to evaluate reserve unit or individual proficiency, and was not aggressively pursuing actions to develop such a system; (5) although the Army implemented such initiatives to improve reserve maintenance capability as a Hands-On Training Program, Regional Training Sites-Maintenance Program, and the Overseas Reserve Maintenance Training Program, they may not ensure the general support maintenance units' preparation for wartime missions; and (6) the Iowa National Guard developed initiatives to measure and track the proficiency of unit mechanics performing general support-level repairs and ensure that certain training weekends are dedicated to primary mission tasks.
