The Calm After the Storm

Regenerating Combat Power at Scale

By COL Nicholas J. Ploetz and MAJ Garrett C. Chandler

Article published on: April 1, 2025 in the April-June 2025 Issue

Read Time: < 14 mins

On August 1, 2024, at approximately 8 pm, a violent microburst struck Butts Army Heliport on Fort Carson, Colorado. Over an intense 11 minutes, the microburst battered the Ivy Eagle fleet. This unpredictable and severe storm damaged 44 aircraft, resulting in total repair costs exceeding $50 million. The airfield’s anemometer measured wind speeds at 78 miles per hour before failing; however, the intense gusts were forceful enough to flip several helicopters that had blade tie-downs applied and were moored to anchor points with chains. This destructive event occurred on the eve of three culminating collective training events for the 4th Combat Aviation Brigade (CAB), just days prior to a division-level combined arms training exercise and 3 months prior to a CAB rotation to the Joint Readiness Training Center.

Although a microburst is a relatively rare phenomenon, the amount of damage sustained by the 4th CAB was comparable to a ballistic missile strike or sustained artillery barrage against an aviation brigade’s tactical assembly area in Large-Scale Combat Operations (LSCO). The similarity in scope of loss provides a unique opportunity to share several important lessons on combat power regeneration at scale by describing key steps taken by the 4th CAB and the assistance provided by the greater Aviation and Sustainment Enterprises during the repair of two battalions’ worth of aircraft. We will also provide a few suggestions on how to improve the process for the future.

Within 24 hours of the storm, commanders and staff from across the brigade assembled to design a deliberate “get-well plan,” which consisted of four discrete—yet related—parts: first, defining the problem; second, a systems approach; third, a shared understanding; and finally, assessment and reframing.

Defining theProblem

The initial design began by ensuring common understanding of the problem. The immediate concern was regenerating combat power while minimizing the loss of readiness across the brigade. The quickest way to categorize impacts to readiness was using the familiar readiness categories: “Personnel, Supply, Readiness, and Training (P, S, R, T)” (Department of the Army, 2019, p. 1).

Because of the extensive damage, initial assessments projected repairs to take months, not including the time required to fund, order, and receive parts. Using this assumption, personnel, operations, and standardization officers across the brigade conducted an initial assessment on the training impacts to our crews based on remaining available aircraft.

This analysis required a comparison of projected total crewmembers over time against the expected execution of the flying hour program (FHP). To complete this task, the S-1 provided total numbers of aircrew members that would remain in or arrive to 4th CAB over the next year. Standardization and operations officers then determined the overall experience levels of these individuals and estimated the number of hours each crewmember would need to complete readiness level progression, annual proficiency and readiness training, annual flight minimums, and the hours required to conduct a train-up for a possible overseas deployment. These estimates provided the basis for how many hours 4th CAB needed to fly—by aircraft type—over the next few months to be in position to minimize readiness impacts. This analysis was key in determining the needs of the brigade to meet U.S. Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) required mission readiness gates and served as the foundation for describing the impacts of the loss in terms of risk to force.

The staff determined two risk reduction options during this analysis that we implemented within the first 2 weeks. First was the need for a waiver from the division commander to reduce flight hour requirements and provide future extensions. The early adoption of this waiver established clear expectations for all subordinate commanders and standardization officers to focus on specific training requirements to most efficiently meet FORSCOM readiness requirements during this period of reduced FHP execution. It also set expectations for all crewmembers across the brigade.

Secondly, the 4th CAB requested that Human Resources Command reduce the flow of newly graduated flight school students to Fort Carson. This would temporarily reduce flight training requirements as aviators departed 4th CAB during the 25-01 movement cycle, allowing the CAB to focus efforts toward on-hand crew readiness.

Another area of immediate concern was funding and resourcing parts at the scale required to repair the large quantity of damaged aircraft. To address this issue, the 4th CAB leveraged the Brigade Aviation Maintenance Officer (BAMO), Aviation Materiel Officer, S-8 (resource management staff), and the rest of the Support Operations–Air team to manage a brigade-wide approach using Army Aviation’s proven problem, plan, people, parts, time, tools, and training maintenance methodology, commonly known as P4T3.¹

Managing P4T3 at the brigade level allowed the battalions to focus on detailed and accurate damage assessments to best understand the scope of the problem. Furthermore, it used available staff capacity at the brigade level to help prioritize and resource maintenance activities. The sheer scale of the damage outpaced every battalion’s internal capability, so the CAB headquarters directed support from the 404th Aviation Support Battalion—and later—leveraged resources from the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command (AMCOM).

To accelerate the rate of assessment completion, the 4th CAB deliberately stopped all phase maintenance and tasked the phase maintenance teams to perform assessments. This was immensely valuable, as it allowed the 4th CAB to provide detailed descriptions of the support needed in terms of funds, parts, and time, providing higher level commanders maximum decision space. This proved critical with the incident occurring near the end of the fiscal year.

A SystemsApproach

To leverage the full Aviation Enterprise, the 4th CAB predominantly used only established systems of record to document damage, order parts, and track expenditures identified during the assessments. Deliberately choosing to use available reporting tools and systems versus manually generated products both prevented additional workload on units and allowed all echelons across the Army to see the information the same, reducing miscommunication. This allowed us to focus on communicating requirements and resourcing support outside the organization, which led to significant innovation in the use of the available systems and tools.

Tracking Maintenance

The first innovation was early adoption of the software application, Griffin. To consolidate reports of assessed damage and later track status of repairs, the BAMO leveraged Griffin’s artificial intelligence (AI) daily status report (DSR) tool, created by the Army Artificial Intelligence Integration Center (AI2C).² This was done by isolating the aircraft damaged in the microburst into a separate “Weather Task Force” query within the system. Since Griffin pulls data from standard reporting systems, it removed the need for additional reporting requirements from units, enabling the team to focus on maintenance tasks. Furthermore, as a web-based tool, it provided a common operating picture with low latency that was accessible to a Department of Defense-wide audience once they created an account.

Funding

The second novel use of established systems was the S-8’s use of a discrete customer fund code (CFC) specific to weather repairs. This CFC aligned repair parts to specific aircraft, allowing parts to be uploaded into the Global Combat Support System-Army (GCSS-A) directly, without immediately funding the orders. This CFC process enabled materiel managers across the Army to review inventory and begin locating parts, even prior to resourcing funding. This system allowed the 4th CAB to plan and prioritize purchases ahead of funding so that when funding arrived, the unit could execute large purchase requests in minutes. Additionally, this process established a clear, replicable, auditable, and accessible cost capturing methodology for headquarters across echelons to provide funding requirements to higher level headquarters.

Parts

Lastly, the maintenance team realized a need to create an internal tracker based on the quantity of parts ordered and assist in the coordination of redistribution from across all three components: Active Duty, National Guard, and Reserve. Although not solely a product from a system of record, this document aligned parts to specific aircraft and displayed estimated shipping dates through combining multiple reports from GCSS-A. This provided critical insights to the larger Enterprise and allowed for the prioritization and redistribution of inventory to support repairs.

The combination of these various systems and reporting mechanisms served to create an overall common operational picture for both 4th CAB and 4th Infantry Division (4th ID). Our next step required us to create a shared understanding of not only the initial problem set but to provide updates throughout the process to assist decision-makers with risk and resource forecasting.

Shared Understanding

To operationalize the information in these systems of record and hasten repairs at scale required extensive communication across the Army. Initially, the 4th ID Chief of Staff (CoS) served as the release authority for all communication outside of the division. This served both to protect the brigade from the flood of information requests and offers of support and aligned the division staff to 4th CAB requirements. The 4th CAB and 4th ID staffs met daily to consolidate the analysis provided through the reporting mechanisms previously discussed, requests for support, and articulate risk to force and mission. The 4th ID CoS communicated these shared reporting metrics to a support team from across III Armored Corps, FORSCOM, AMCOM, the U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence, the Defense Logistics Agency, and the Headquarters, Department of the Army, staff. This was done via a variety of means. It started with daily video teleconference calls and later, daily email rollups with links to the various tools listed above.

These daily reports, combined with the Griffin DSR, GCSS-A repair cost report and parts status report, created a detailed common operating picture to understand the repair and parts status of every aircraft. Within 2 weeks of the weather incident, this analysis directly informed decisions for the FORSCOM Deputy G3/5/7 during weekly operational planning teams (OPT). This weekly OPT served to streamline reporting to decision-makers who could best impact resource prioritization and was the primary source document for FORSCOM to generate options for fleet management in support of combatant command operations. This OPT met via video teleconference with minimal slide inputs. It leveraged the reports above and focused on resourcing shortages, manpower, parts availability, funding, etc.

This OPT resulted in efforts divided by echelon. Through validating funding requirements, FORSCOM reallocated available end of year funds to purchase repair parts as complete “packages” to fully fund an aircraft’s repair requirements. The III Armored Corps, through 13th Expeditionary Sustainment Command, scrubbed the parts list to cross-load parts across the corps and assisted the 4th CAB in coordinating with outside organizations to redistribute inventory from across the Army to support the 4th CAB. Using the Griffin DSR, all echelons worked with the BAMO to coordinate outside augmentation to repair a few aircraft beyond the internal capacity for the brigade.

Assessment and Reframing

Categorizing the regeneration effort retroactively as an overall medium-structured problem, the primary challenge was determining what resources were needed at which time to maximize regeneration (Department of the Army, 2015, p. 4-2). The importance of ensuring the commands at echelon and across the Enterprise all acted toward common, yet shifting, needs over time cannot be overstated. Although the overall goal remained rapid regeneration, establishing incremental supporting objectives allowed the Enterprise to methodically resource support in phases. For example, although assessments were critical within the first few weeks, the need shifted for maintenance repair support within the first few weeks. Managing these transitions required consistent feedback to the previously listed commands with supporting analysis and focused requests to position resources for the next phase. Eventually, the frequency of both the FORSCOM OPT and daily email updates reduced over time as the 4th CAB received resources, and repairs transitioned into execution at the unit level.

Lessons Learned

Broadly, the Enterprise operated precisely as it was designed to operate. Through using the systems of record, the 4th CAB could communicate precise requirements and status updates widely across the Enterprise. These systems allowed higher headquarters in making data-informed decisions to reprioritize resources across their formations. Additionally, using that detailed data allowed maintenance managers across the force to identify and locate required specific things and then ship them across the world, when necessary, to support the 4th CAB. All these tools and systems exist in the current structure.

In the event of a high-intensity conflict, the main limitations with replicating this process are twofold. First, successful combat power regeneration is entirely dependent on having the available inventory of parts to then redistribute to the point of need. If we need to regenerate battalions worth of aircraft in LSCO, we need to build extensive inventory depth across both high usage and low usage items. Otherwise, we will be dependent on long manufacturing times. However, this inventory incurs additional cost, risk of obsolescence, and care of storage in supply requirements. Regardless, there needs to be a discussion and deliberate decision on this supply system vulnerability.

Second, particularly regarding aviation maintenance, the quantity and distribution of aviation maintenance organizations mean that decisions to reallocate inventory across formations happens at the corps level (at a minimum), or in this experience, at FORSCOM. In high-intensity conflict, this system would be overwhelmed based on the number of competing challenges across multiple corps. It may be beneficial to consider the creation of a unit or committee to be stood up in wartime that operates under FORSCOM and is charged to manage aviation maintenance with the authorities to reallocate funds, parts, and limited manpower. Composed of key leaders from both FORSCOM and AMCOM, this unit would be focused on aviation combat power regeneration alone and not be an ad hoc group of leaders balancing multiple competing requirements.

Finally, a significant portion of the communication process from the brigade outward oriented around an ad hoc delineation based on expertise. This served both to limit confusion and to play to individual strengths. For any interactions with the Aviation Enterprise and strategic-level communication, all information out of the brigade came through the brigade commander. Anything pertaining to parts, funding, and overall readiness with the Sustainment Enterprise passed through the brigade executive officer. Coordination for outside maintenance support or augmentation all flowed through the BAMO. These three channels, managed at the brigade level, reduced miscommunication and allowed battalions to focus on actual repairs versus coordinating their resources individually.

Hopefully, this article used the storm at Fort Carson to build a greater understanding in combat power regeneration at scale. We believe our use of problem definition, a systems approach, a shared understanding, and assessments and reframing provides a common stepping off point for any unit facing a similar situation in the future.