Downsizing U.S. Weapons Programs or Not?

I think, technology has its place, and in the 80's through and into about 2005, people, began to realize that even though the technology is there or at least in reach does not mean we should use it.

A good example is our Manned stealth fighter program as compared to our what started out as unmanned recon program, and evolved in to unmanned recon and fighter program.

i.e., use fiscal responsibility along with a more common sense approach when applying technology. Keeping in mind, this should not stop R&D.

p911

I'm sure there are many factors to be weighed before a decision like that could be made and most of us aren't aware of some of the factors. I would venture a guess that 99% or better of the general public has no idea of what's involved in the military acquisition process and that it takes years to get a weapons system approved just for the R and D stage. Someone has to pay for it because the contractor isn't going to do it out of the goodness of his heart. But YES, an accountability clause should be a part of the package as well as some ethics training.

The real question is surely, which weapons programs have been shown to be effective against the current threats (perceived or otherwise).
And what weapons do you think will be effective agains future projected threats?
I shall refain from offering up an opinion myself...(Athough maybe something which is effective againt bloated bankers may be worthy of consideration as thay seem to have posed the greatest actual threat to global stability of late?)
Del

Everyone loves to vilify the contractors, but I have seen it from both sides of the fence. I'm former military and now work for a major defense contractor. The government wants to get the most bang for the buck (don't we all?) and there is considerable political pressure to push costs down. On the other hand, you have a government customer who wants an effective product they can put out in the field that meets their requirements. Herein lies the challenge.

When you produce a product or service for the government, the government also levies all kinds of requirements on the job. These requirements often times are the largest cost drivers in a program.

I worked a manned-submersible program for over twelve years. You wouldn't believe the paperwork and labor required in the design, material acquisition, manufacturing, and test. It ain't cheap. But then again, as a result of the loss of the U.S.S. Thresher, requirements were put into place to prevent the loss of life or injury due to defective components or design. We now have things like Scope of Certification (SOC) and SUBSAFE requirements that dictate how we will do things. And rightfully so.

I'm not advocating that we scrimp on quality or safety for our men and women in the field. They deserve the best we can give them to do their jobs. However, sometimes the "customer" really needs a product or system, but the true cost to do the job exceeds the political will of the Congress to properly fund it, so the customer comes up with a cost target for the available funding. The job then gets bid by the contractors to fit the cost target.

Schedules get compressed because time is money, and Basis of Estimates (BOE's) get cut because the true cost exceeds the amount the Congress is willing to fund. It is easy to see why so many jobs overrun both cost and schedule. Both the government customer and the contractor implicitly know it can't be done, but we go forward anyways and plus up the funds in later years to complete the job.

There is no easy solution to this dilemma. There are a multitude of rules in the FAR (Federal Acquisition Regulation) to try to control this, but it boils down to trying to control some very basic human nature. The government has improved over the years, for instance, they are no longer bound to accept the low bid. They now score a proposal based on best value which considers a contractor's prior performance, financial strengths, as well as technical quality, etc. We're getting there, but it is an evolutionary process and it does take time.

You wouldn't believe the paperwork and labor required in the design, material acquisition, manufacturing, and test. It ain't cheap. But then again, as a result of the loss of the U.S.S. Thresher, requirements were put into place to prevent the loss of life or injury due to defective components or design.

I worked in the shipyard that had the majority of the Avenger Class (MCM). minesweepers. And when military spending was reduced, this was the they had tried and failed in the private sector.

Had a lot of retired brass working for the company, probably from agreements from lucrative naval contracts from the past., but the company was set-up with a highly skilled and diversified employees with a good and competitive skills-sets.

But the company kept the ratio of management or office personal (the ones that review/wrote and making sure we were kept in compliance with the military contracts) to yard workers the same, and just could not compete in the private sectors

p911

I am in total agreement with Brave Sir Robin on this one. The Acquisition system for weapons seems to have been getting much better since the 1970's and 1980's. I'm ex-Military as well (USACE) and USAR Engineers, but I wasn't involved in the weapons end of things, just construction and Contract Admin, which sort of parallel the weapons programs to some extent. Those system improved equally so.

Having been a field commander in combat, I for one am very thankful for the quality of the equipment we received, and it wasn't secondhand junk like it used to be in the Reserves on the 70's,,,,,starting in the Reagan Administration, we started receiving the same equipment as our Active Duty counterparts. Our Battalion TOE, mission statements and training was identical!

Yes, there is a lot of waste involved in weapons programs, but a good chunk of it you can blame of Congress, as everyone of them has a district to attend to and bring home the defense bacon, therefore slicing up the pie even more with multitudes of Defense Subcontractors with resultant cost increases and overruns,.

If you eliminated Congress's finger in the pie, then a lot of waste would be eliminated, thereby saving a ton of funding that would ordinarily kill-off some very needed programs, and these program R&D take many years to develop, so if the programs are killed off for political expediency in the short term, they are still needed and will cost even more to restartin the future.........case in point: Carter cancelled the Rockwell B-1A Strategic Bomber program in the late 1970's. It was a much needed USAF weapons program meant to replace the slow, very tired, and aging B-52 Stratofortress in SAC. Approximately 3 years were lost in the program until President Reagan revitalized it as the B-1B Lancer program which cost a lot more than the original B-1A program and was and still is less capable......lost foremost was the supersonic capability. Loss too wasa much better Electronics Countermeasure package...the only gains were shared engine commonality with the F-15 Eagle jet engines and the radra absorbant paint....but only 98 aircraft were ever built instead of the much needed 100's. This all happened during the heart of the Cold War. I feel it was a great loss for this nation strategically and we could have bankrupted the Soviets that much sooner had the entire fleet been built in the late 70's and early 80's....instead we had to wait another 8 or 9 years for that to happen in 1989 & 1990 for the Evil Empire to start crumbling, and then it's final demise in 1991 following the Gulf War and the dismantling of the Berlin Wall.

I could go on and on about this, but will let others have their say...

It's not all black and white like the media portrays the system, but rather there are a number of gray shades involved that John Q Public is unaware of...mainly because of National Security and Need to Know basis.

Have a great day!

I can digest your comments but have a question:

"This all happened during the heart of the Cold War. I feel it was a great loss for this nation strategically and we could have bankrupted the Soviets that much sooner had the entire fleet been built in the late 70's and early 80's....instead we had to wait another 8 or 9 years for that to happen in 1989 & 1990 for the Evil Empire to start crumbling, and then it's final demise in 1991 following the Gulf War and the dismantling of the Berlin Wall."

You are serious about this? Maybe we need to change names and roles in a few years from now?

I must needs agree with the Captain on this one. It is widely agreed that it was Ronald Regan's military build-up in the 80s which brought down the Soviet Union, by simple virtue of bankrupting them in trying to keep up with him. Imagine if Jimmy Carter had had Regan's testicular fortitude. He would have had a second term and the USSR would have died ten years sooner. Plus we would have been spared the embarrassment of the original Iranian embassy hostage situation. The world would be a much different place today.

Do we understand the Russians? Or even try?

I do think overall we do understand the Russians in terms of mental state and long term strategic aim, that is from an Intelligence viewpoint.

Don't forget that the Russians have a paranoid outlook on life, and mostly this is derived from the "Great War" (WWII) where they lost over 30 Million people (they say 45 million) to the Nazi war machine. They are also paranoid about using countries as buffers between themselves and their perceived enemy, NATO, and it's leading component, the USA. I do think we should continue to try to understand them, or else there will be problems occurring down the road for us and the world. All you have to do is look at the likes of Putin and feel the hair on the back of your neck stand up. He's a former hard-line Commie supposedly reformed, but I truly wonder how far + he's very flaky and a dangerous thinker. I'm basing that on what I've read about him and seen on the TV, and I don't have the CIA and NSA files on the guy. I'm sure the mental assessments on him alone would open a lot of eyes and scare a whole boat load of people in and out of our government.

Then, there's the question of the Red Chinese and what their ultimate goals are in regard to strategic aim and controls? Very heady stuff and scary. Regardless of their economic/capitalist gains, they (the Government hierarchy) are after all a mix of Moderate and Hardliner Communists through and through just like Mao.....the more things change the more thing remain the same.

I personally do not trust either the Ruskies or the Chicoms. That's my personal opinion after spending many years training to fight them on the battlefield. I'm sure there are other Vets here that'll feel the same way. We can offer the Olive Branch as President Obama has recently done with the Russians, but at the same time I believe we should also carry a very big stick pursuant to Teddy R's mindset.

Okay, I'm off the soapbox...someone else's turn please!

Thanks and congratulations, Doc, welcome to the club, D

As a combatant, it's your job to be paranoid. It's the policy-makers' jobs to be sane. I think we're all in pretty good shape overall. (Sanity does not mean agreement or even respect.)

Agree with CaptMoosie. Re Ruskies, one eye open, one eye closed.

How timely. I just finished taking SYS282, Applied System Engineering Management, and filled the back of my "textbook" with observations. I've been hoping to find a forum to discuss them at length. (Not that I expect that from this particular thread. I offer them here without expectation.) By way of background, I'm an experienced software engineer in my first year of DOD civilian experience.

Key problems I've observed with the acquisition process:

We budget BEFORE developing requirements. (More or less: there are napkin-level requirements based on stated user needs before launching a program, but these are useful for rough order-of-magnitude estimates at best.) Ready, fire, aim!

The government does not reward under-promising and over-delivering. If your group provides more system with less dollars, your next budget is adjusted DOWNWARD.

Lack of training. Those who know civil service will be bug-eyed at this assertion because we get huge amounts of training (compared to roughly "zero" in the private sector), but I've noticed a gap in locality-specific training. Policies should be enacted to require every group in the government to budget X% of their training for learning the local organization's policies and procedures. It currently seems to be hit-and-miss. This will, of course, contribute to the cost of everything.

Lack of organizational support for common activities. For example, the Air Force provides MS Office to everyone, but all engineering orgs. should be licensed for DOORS, Project, Visio and other common project engineering and management tools.

Simple politics. The F-22 is an awesome machine, but I've said before it's like a Ferrari: only those who can easily afford one should have one. We've got a fleet of aging Fords and Chevys (F-16, F-15, F-18) that is already tested and superior, we're developing the next generation Honda Accord with the F-35. We just don't NEED the F-22, and SecDef Gates tried to nip the program in the bud. Congress intervened to preserve jobs in the districts they're beholden to. There is no solution to this ubiquitous "problem".

Staff turnover. To get ahead in the government, we are encouraged to spend just a couple years in any position. We have the option to sit in one spot, but your experience and knowledge will not commensurately rewarded. When we move on, we take our experience and knowledge with us. Much of it does get documented and that contributes to program cost, but much of it doesn't or can't. This problem is shared by government and commercial worlds, but is more institutionalized in government.

Getting organized: reform has substantial built-in costs. What's the standard we're working to THIS year? We have to write this or that specification that's going to be obviated two years from now: wasted money.

Other things to consider when examining defense acquisition and the problems therein:

The government builds and buys for the long term. The youngest B-52 is about 50 years old. The F-16 is 30+ years old, KC-135 30+ years, and warships and tanks last "forever." If the F-22 costs $200M a piece, is it really so bad if we get 30+ years of service out of it?

Critics don't know what they're talking about: The DOD periodically catches heat because of $600 toilet seats and $300 hammers. These are specialized items! Try inverting your toilet, like the ones on any airplane can experience. The hammer might well be a very specific alloy or design for a very special purpose. (It makes me crazy to see a politician exploit ignorance in this way.)

I'm curious as to whether retro-fitting engineering to a rapidly fielded system is REALLY the wrong way to do things. After 9-11, we dumped a pile of money on a number of defense contractors to get an air defense umbrella over Washington DC. They threw one together "overnight." Well, it's gonna need sustainment for the next 20 years, so someone has to go audit what's out there, reverse engineer the documentation, and set up a program office and supply chain to support it. This is costing a lot of money. BUT WE ALREADY KNOW ANYTHING THE DOD DOES COSTS A LOT OF MONEY. Every program more or less is over-budget and late. If the right way is so expensive, are we sure the "wrong" way is better? At least the "wrong" way got us something that works (we think) almost overnight.

Is the free market really the best way to do defense? Why not pull all the engineers into the government, and trade contractor profits for the overhead of federal employees? It would free the government of an unbelievable mountain of rules and regulations regarding "fairness" and "ethics" in dealing with contractors. Systems would be cheaper and quicker in that regard. It's quite a socialist proposition, but I think it's worth seriously considering, if only to expose inefficiencies in the current structure.

Software is becoming a bigger part of everything, including (especially) weapons systems. Software is notoriously and inherently difficult to manage - and this comes from an old software hand. If you thought costs and schedules were hard to control in the past...

Weapons systems will become more like software (see previous), in terms of their evolution and fielding. It's common to push features off to the next release of a piece of software. This is an emerging trend in weapons acquisition and is going to be a significant change in the way the government builds, buys and supports stuff.

If there's any "branch" of engineering that can be applied globally, it's System Engineering. This is because SysEng is very abstract and managerial in its nature and application. We should be able to establish one SysEng standard and process to rule them all.

If your group provides more system with less dollars, your next budget is adjusted DOWNWARD.

I do not know the particuliars of some of the contract, I do know that when doing multiples items of a large contract, such as multiple hulls, that there are some (a lot of development) price is based on say the first hull, and the following hulls would follow in line with this.

The waste envolved is staggering, but that is how its structed, and like you said, you can not fully blame the contractor.

But as a contractor, you also have to be somewhat responsible of costs overruns.

wiinner of the last stealth fighter contract has been spanked for that.

If your group provides more system with less dollars, your next budget is adjusted DOWNWARD.

I was actually talking about internal government groups, but this could include program offices which very indirectly includes contractors. Contractors have a strong traditional incentive to NOT save the government money. But you reminded me of another important consideration that I forgot to mention.

R&D is typically a small part of the overall cost of a weapon system. It just feels like a huge one because that's what we engineers spend most of our time doing. Once the system is sold off, people have to manufacture it, wash it, man it, fix it, etc. And like I said, things are typically used up completely before they're replaced. One exception is the F-117, which was overtaken by events and technology and forced into early retirement.

Having joined a group that is responsible in part for maintenance of one of our fighter types, I am very impressed at how much effort and money it takes. Next time you see an F-anything flying overhead, realize that for every cubic centimeter of volume in that thing including the paint, there is at least one person (if not 1000) with responsiblity for what goes on in that space. It's not quite the same with airliners or cargo planes: the majority of space inside them is the responsibility of the loading or passenger service crew, which might be one person (with training and support systems and the infrastructure that provide them).

The reason we end up with $600 toilet seats is because the government forces the contractor to charge that much.

How is that you ask?

Well, every part of a deliverable product is documented ($$$). That means someone had to create, draft, review, and release a drawing(s) that controls the characteristics of that part that meets the customer's requirements. It might be manufacturing drawings, source control drawing, vendor item drawing, or even an altered item drawing.

For instance, not just any toilet seat you can buy at Home Depot or Lowes is going to fit on the (vehicle, plane, ship, submarine, etc.) toilet. Therefore you have to specify a size, mounting hole spacing, material type for some safety/flammability reason, shock, vibration, out-gassing, durability, human factors, color, heating, etc.

You then purchase this toilet seat by creating a requisition, go out for bids, evaluate bids, award, developing a purchase order, place the order, track the order, receive it, inspect it, place into the storeroom, pull for operations/manufacturing. All this adds cost ($$). Due to the limited numbers of some systems, fixed costs associated with the front-end are amortized over relatively small quantities and the unit cost per toilet seat soars.

If you are putting toilet seats in 10,000 HMMWV's, the unit cost becomes much more reasonable. When you put that toilet seat into five submarines, you get a $600 toilet seat due to the fixed costs.

It is this very process that some ignoramuses in our Congress don't understand that they are very ones who drive these costs so high. There are many efforts to standardize certain "commodity" type items to help reduce costs. I'm all for it. For one, it saves me having to be the lead engineer of toilet seats. I'd much rather work on more interesting things.

This is a very interesting discussion to me. Good example of this kind of stuff? One of the ships I was on (1980) in Long Beach, fuel filter o-rings in the supply system, over $12 each. Out of stock at supply center on base. Do a ton of paperwork and take a drive from the ship to the manufacturer in Los Angeles and get a box of 100 for a little over $50. Someone really opened a bag of worms with this discussion. I spent one of my tours in the Navy in acquisition. Needless to say, at times, with the FAR, DFAR, Navy FAR and all the other regulations, the government can be their own worst enemy. It will be interesting to see where this thread heads to. :)

It will be interesting to see where this thread heads to. :)

Go ahead and call me a commie pinko socialist if you must, but the more I learn about the way the government does business, the more I think the government should just do the freakin' business: absorb Lockheed, Boeing, American General(?), Northrup, etc. If it's not an existing commercial product that can be procurred via the GSA, just design, build and supply it in-house.

There's something to be said for the in-house concept, when you look at the points made by Brave Sir Robin. The paperwork involved is adding hugely to the cost. I wonder how much that could be reduced by in house production.

the more I think the government should just do the freakin' business:

NO, You've given up,

too many political interests at hand to have to government take control, look where its gotten us so far. If the departments can get shook up and clean out from the buddie system, they (the government) can make a good watch dog, but running the show, never.

is it really so bad if we get 30+ years of service out of it?

Like to add one thing, its not so much the life of the project, its, the kill ratio compared to its adversary.

After the war, Thats WWII, super powers that, that war created, needed a demonstration scenario, that knew it was going to be in the middle east.

In the 60's-70's it was Israel and Egypt (or the rest of the middle east). the 80's Iran and Iraq.

And as it turned out, the kill ratio as compared to the cost between the US made and the USSR, the US planes, I won't say it was superior, but had ratio that showed it was worth the investment.

This I believe is what started the stance of the higher price of technology is worth it. But things change as does technology and how wars are fought, and future defense will be played out differently, and to be able to defend ones self, you have to change your strategy to defend against your aggressors.

^{(I am not going to get into how some of the world sees the US as aggressors)}

p911

All this "Lets save money, cut costs, build it cheaper" crap sounds great until YOU are the one the bad guys are pointing guns at. Quality is job #1 in weapons development. Quality saves solders lives. When YOU are the one staring down the business end of an enemy weapon, the last thing you want to hear is how much money some penny pinching simpleton back home saved on your equipment.

"Lets save money, cut costs, build it cheaper" crap sounds great until YOU are the one the bad guys are pointing guns at.

I don't believe thats what was being said, You have to realize, we are talking more of fiscal responsibility.

In the 90's our yard was building one of (3) proto-type for the next generation of the Mark V SOC for deploying Naval Seals.

70 foot craft, with twin 3000 HP MTU engineers with surface piercing props, and Hamilton waterjet for Seal deployment and recovery, all to fit inside a Galaxy C5-A/B air transport. And for that to happen, weight was to be kept to a minimum for take off. So we used a high tensile strength aluminium alloyed to reduce material usage, problem was there were trade offs on material properties, High Strength meant fracturability increased.

On trials down in Florida, our welds were cracking on some bulkhead joints, and the fossil of a manager our yard sent down there explained to the Naval Brass that they were too hard on our boats.

I could have kick him in the a$$, I told him, You were never say that tpo people in a world of $#it, because if you were, you better believe no matter what you had, you were going to red line it to get your sorry a$$ out of it, YOU do not say something stupid like that,

He's reply "What else could I have said to him". Told him, anything but that, hell the first thing came to my mind was, "We'll add doubler plates to the problem area, that is more ductile, to absorb the stress." Thats all.

He's reply, well maybe the competition has a better craft.

He gave up before it started.

Needless to say, we lost the contract, I do not believe it was all due to that, but as time showed, the winner craft, also had fracture problems due to stress.

No guest, No one is saying we should equipment our soldiers with a rock and a stick.

Just be more responsible with basically a blank check.

p911

BRAVO DRMOOSE!!! I couldn't have said it any better myself. You get a GA from me. If I could, I would have voted you 5 GA's!

Signed,

CaptMoosie

(US Army Vet of Grenada & Desert Shield/Desert Storm/Desert Saber)

DrMoose this needs to be in print. You know your stuff, you express it extremely well. I hope you write professionally. You have the experience to back it up. If you do not write a book or submit articles and excerpts such as this to the Wall Street Journal or Human Events or National Review Online you are doing yourself a great injustice!

Do it.