The Army memo starting the process said the goal was to "eliminate all United States Army Reserve and National Guard Bureau AWS (Army Watercraft Systems) capabilities and/or supporting structure" — nearly 80% of its force.
In early July, several Army watercraft — including former USAV SSGT Robert T. Kuroda, one of the eight Besson-class Logistics Support Vessels the government planned to sell — appeared on the General Services Administration auction website.
Later in July, the listing for the Kuroda was taken down, according to The Drive. By the end of July, plans to auction nearly half of the Army's roughly 130 watercraft were halted.
Before the auction was taken down, a $1 million bid was entered for the Kuroda, but that did not meet an unspecified reserve price for the ship, which cost $26 million to construct.
The order to halt reportedly came from acting Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy and included a hold on the deactivation of watercraft positions and the transfer of Army mariners to other non-watercraft units, according to gCaptain.
The Army confirmed in early August that it halted sales to conduct a study ordered by Congress, after lawmakers who disagreed with the plan moved to withhold funds for deactivations until the Army reviewed and validated its ability to meet watercraft needs.
The study started in June (the auction listings were pulled because the study was ongoing, a defense official told Military.com) and is supposed to be concluded by the end of the fiscal year.
The 2019 fiscal year ends on September 30. Asked about the status of the Army's watercraft on September 4, McCarthy said the service was thinking long and hard about what it needed and what it would need to replace.
The study is being done "to ensure that we have the requirements appropriately aligned with the combatant commanders," McCarthy told reporters at the Defense News Conference in Washington, DC.
"It's multiple theaters that have requested this capability, so it's ensuring they have the right sets of equipment, but also how would that be impacted by a recapitalization schedule, because many of the assets are aging, so we'd have to replace several of them," McCarthy said.
Powerpoint slides and accompanying notes describing the Army's plan, reported in January by Stars and Stripes, said the deactivation process was faster than usual, as units are typically identified for deactivation two to five years in advance.
All the military branches have tried to find areas in which to save money. But the rapid and drastic nature of the Army's watercraft divestment alarmed lawmakers and experts who worried about the service's ability to deploy in the future, particularly in light of doubts about sealift capacity.
In conducting the review, McCarthy said on Wednesday, the Army "took a step back and said we have to make sure we get the requirements right, and then what would be the appropriate acquisition schedule to recapitalize these capabilities."
