Army equipment was issued from pre-existing inventory locations immediately after the start of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine Did not meet maintenance standards, Pentagon the general inspector This was stated in a report released this week.
The inspector general assessed how the Army Sustainability Command and the Army’s 405th Field Support Brigade maintain and account for pre-existing equipment stocks in Europe, according to the report. When war broke out last February, the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division deployed to Eastern Europe and received thousands of pieces of equipment from a stockpile site in Germany.
The 405th AFSB was quickly issued [the Army pre-positioned stock site in Germany] Equipment of the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team.” “Some of the equipment has been issued from [the Army pre-positioned stock site in Germany] It was not – able to fully carry out missions, and we found that the 405th AFSB could improve and coordinate equipment maintenance operations.”
The day after Russia invaded, the Pentagon committed To deploy 7,000 troops to Eastern Europe. As part of this deployment, the Army for the first time in history issued equipment from a pre-German stockpile to troops deployed to Europe’s eastern flank.
Investigators found that maintenance requirements during storage at the pre-storage site did not meet Army standards, and procedures for using the equipment when problematic were not made clear, according to the report.
The report found that the 405th AFSB and the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team prepared to deploy “without coordinated procedures and schedules for preparing and issuing equipment” from the site in Germany.
The Army’s Sustainability Command did not respond to a request for comment at the time of this post.
Among the recommendations in the report, the investigators suggested “maintenance operations to track mission capability [pre-positioned stock] Equipment, Equipment Practice Methods, Checklist to Help Deploy Units Co-ordinate During Rapid Deployment Operations, Equipment Configuration Requirements for Transportation and Combat.”
Other recommendations addressed clarifying inventory maintenance requirements and providing guidance to personnel to support future surges.
Zamone “Z” Perez is a rapid response reporter and podcast producer at Defense News and Military Times. He previously worked for Foreign Policy and Ofhamo Africa. He is a graduate of Northwestern University, where he researched international ethics and atrocity prevention for his thesis. He can be found on Twitter @zamoneperez.