Aviation officials say, however, that they hope to reach that target without forcing many troops out of the service. Maj. Gen. Clair Gill, commander of the Army Aviation Center of Excellence and Fort Rucker, Alabama, told reporters at the Association of the United States Army’s annual meeting on Wednesday that talent panels launched this month are intended to keep decision-making power with the soldiers and would not immediately lead to involuntary transfers or reductions.

“We went out to the formations and asked commanders to counsel every single soldier that was in the targeted population [where] we are over strength, and talk to them about where they are, what their goals are, what they want to do in the Army, if this is what they want to do, and if they’re looking for other things,” Gill said. “And then they created an order-of-merit list for their formations and sent that to us.” That list would be evaluated by a panel that would assess all the soldiers’ records and organize them into top, middle, and bottom thirds, he said. “We’re going to give that back to those commanders and say, ‘Here’s where your folks fell out. We want you to counsel them and talk to them about options,’” Gill said. “Right now, they’ll use that as a tool to say, ‘Hey, if you’re in the bottom third, you’re in the at risk population. You might want to think about options available to you, and here’s what they look like.’” Those affected by the talent panels include junior officers in year groups 2020 to 2023 and untracked warrant officers in year groups 2022 to 2024. The cuts reflect the rise of unmanned aviation and Army force restructuring that will see the elimination of cavalry squadrons within the continental U.S.

Between voluntary transfers within the Army, to other services, or out of the service, Gill said he hopes the Army can avoid mandatory eliminations. If the service does need to use involuntary cuts, he said, he doesn’t expect them to happen for at least a year – one to two manning cycles. Officials have previously said that the aviation reduction they hope to achieve will be complete by fiscal 2027. Targeted force reduction goals by year group are “in the dozens,” Gill said, and the Army is taking other steps to realign soldiers. For the cavalry squadrons undergoing divestment, Army leaders are planning to overstaff attack battalions to the maximum allowable level – with that cap still to be determined by leadership, he said. “We may have had units that were manned at 70-80% – now we’ll have units that are manned over 100%, so there’s some goodness there,” Gill said. The overstaffing, he said, would allow for additional maintenance and readiness for AH-64 Apache squadrons.

“Bottom line, the Army has a structure for all these people. So if we can align them with something that they’re interested in, now they’re going to have to compete, right? So they’re going to compete with everybody else that wants to go do that job,” he said. “But if they compete favorably in another organization, then I think we’re going to get down to where we’re really having hard conversations with very few people.” While soldiers facing talent panels are being asked about future career preferences, Gill said they will be pushed to consider careers in the unmanned space, where the Army is continuing to build capability. For example, he said, Apache mechanics with military occupational specialty 15X would be a good fit for the 15W enlisted tactical unmanned aircraft systems operator. “So yes, initially, we want to solve our own challenges, and then we want to proliferate talent around the Army, where there’s a need and they want to serve,” Gill said.