Tonya and PQBON's WebLog
Last week, Navy Secretary Donald Winter tore a bunch of defense industry types a collective new one over their runaway costs for eternally-delayed projects. Today, he backed up the hardball words with even tougher action. Winter just announced he's canceling construction of Lockheed Martin's second Littoral Combat Ship, the third of the class, after expenses on the first of the vessels ballooned.
It often amazes me how old all the tech in military is. There was about a 20 year gap between fighter platforms (that last being released in the early 80s (F-117), the new F22 finally being released this year). Ships and planes now take decades to design and build which seems counter intuitive to me. With modern tools and production techniques it should be faster not slower to build things.
During WWII and after (until the end of the 70s) the US was spitting out new weapon systems every week it seems. US airmen would get a new plane every year or so. Ships were launched at an insane rate. Many of the ships are still in the water and their is quite a subculture surrounding WWII surplus aircraft. Now we are stuck in a place where we are upgrading boats and planes built before most of their crews and mechanics and engineers were born. Even the HMMWV dates back to '85 (meaning many GIs are younger then the HMMWV design). I think a large part of the problem is the pentagon/military has outsourced entire programs and has awarded cost+ contracts. That and instead of developing a solid starting point every single piece of the new weapon systems under development is new cutting edge technology. It never seems to come together quickly or correctly. I could sight many examples (*ahm* Comanche chopper, V-22 Osprey, the Entire FCS combat system) but I won't ;-). Maybe the pentagon should take back development, stop awarding cost+ contracts, and de-risk development by developing a simple product, then improving it over time.
At least they seem to be take proper action by finally punishing companies for 2x+ cost over runs.
Posted by pqbon at April 12, 2007 6:17 PM