During a House Armed Services Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Pat Harrigan (R-NC) questioned General Bryan P. Fenton, Commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, about utilizing drones in future missions.
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00:00Gentlemen, thanks for your testimony this morning. It's good to see both of you.
00:04General Fenton, I had the opportunity to spend the weekend down with General Baraga at USASOC.
00:09And one of the things that we were talking about that concerned me greatly
00:14is that the Green Berets are currently only producing about half the number that they are attritting each year
00:22through separation or retirement.
00:25What are we doing across the force?
00:27Specifically, that's a conversation about the Green Berets, but what are we doing across the force
00:31to make sure that we are actually replacing the number of special operators that we need?
00:39Representative, I'll start by saying, first, we maintain the standards.
00:44And as I look at that, it's a challenge to get a production that in some ways,
00:49I think if we're talking about SF enlisted, I think the requirement, General Baraga probably talked,
00:54he's about 825. When the force overall shrinks, that certainly shrinks down our input pipeline.
01:02And we're not going to adjust the standards.
01:04And we've had this conversation with Secretary of Defense, who is all about lethality and warfighting.
01:09And I talked a bit about production rates, and I think at the very end he said, maintain the standards.
01:15Roger that. Now, that isn't, don't do other work to try to get more in the pipeline.
01:19So I think with some level of force size reduction in the Army, we're talking about the Army here,
01:25that is a challenge of who wants to come in the pipeline.
01:28I will offer that we've tried to amp up our 18 x-ray program, which has been, and hopefully General Baraga explained this to you,
01:35has been a really good program.
01:36It's about 3,000 folks who otherwise would not come into the Army, coming in off the street, going through infantry basic training, advanced training,
01:43and going through SFAS and the qualification course.
01:47And that 3,000, about 800 make it.
01:51So there's about 2,200, as we're enforcing the standard, that go back to the Army and serve in all kind of infantry units and do well.
01:58I do think there's a way we could amp that up, not only for the good of the Green Berets, which are part of the Joint Force,
02:04but also to bring in additional folks into the Army who would otherwise not even think about the Army unless they were coming towards special operations.
02:11So we've got the same type of contracts with Ranger contracts.
02:14So I think there's a lot out there we're trying to do, but I think it all goes against we will absolutely maintain the standards.
02:20We've had a recent audit, and that audit from the Department of Defense has come back that we're maintaining the standards.
02:26So I think we've got some challenges.
02:27Yeah, thanks, General, for that, and thank you for maintaining the standards.
02:31It's incredibly important.
02:32And I'd like to take the rest of my time and talk about drones.
02:35Mr. Jenkins, you talked about we need to be actively taking lessons and innovate from current conflicts.
02:45General, you talked about a supersonic acquisition and procurement process, that we're moving at a glacial pace,
02:52that we have an outdated system.
02:56And you also said that we're still at the talking stage with industry with respect to small drones.
03:03Representative, no, we're well in discussion.
03:06I just wanted to make sure that folks understand.
03:08Maybe I misstated.
03:10We are in constant discussion with small and medium-sized companies that are in this business.
03:16And in many ways we have some of their product already.
03:18So we're not just talking, we're actually doing.
03:20Okay.
03:21We need to do more.
03:22I appreciate that, because I was a little concerned by the statement, thinking we need to move a little bit faster in SAF.
03:28Roger.
03:29So, absolutely.
03:30But I'm never happy.
03:32Absolutely.
03:33I want to go speedier.
03:34So I won't be complacent.
03:35But we're well in the thick of this.
03:36One of the lessons that I have picked up from Ukraine is that their production process of how they're manufacturing these FPV drones,
03:46which, as we have discovered, are responsible for 80% of the Russian casualties on the front lines.
03:52These have become a very, very important and transformational technology on the battlefield.
03:57Is that they have somewhat of a hybrid mechanism of production, some outside industry, some internal.
04:03Are you open to the possibility that in order to actually create this capability at scale,
04:10that part of that effort may actually need to be done organically within the force, given all the frustrations and constraints
04:18that we have with our defense industrial base and our acquisition process at this time?
04:23I absolutely am, Representative.
04:26I think we're already doing it throughout all of SAF.
04:29We've got incredible folks who come in who not only want to shoot, move, communicate, do combatives,
04:34get after what I call the SAF basics that are the baseline.
04:38They're all into putting this stuff together and getting it out in a homemade way and doing them in the hundreds.
04:46I think our challenge is, at some point, to scale that, there's probably a private sector piece that's got to come in.
04:52But I think in many ways we're doing that.
04:54We need to be able to scale that, and we want to scale more.
04:58If I could just double down on it, that costs money, too.
05:01It costs money, so yeah, thank you.
05:04Chairman.
05:05Thank you, Mr. Ryan.
05:06You're recognized for five minutes?
05:07Thank you, Mr. Chair.
05:08Good evening.
05:11You're surrounded by a great place.
05:13Thank you, Mr. Okola.
05:16I've got this one.
05:17You're bÄdÄ
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05:19No.
05:21Oh, my gosh.
05:22You're really a ĪæĻĪ抵Š½ŠøŠ¹.
05:24Okay.
05:25You're welcome.
05:29I didn't see the goal.