Army Acquisition
Air Defense Antitank System Did Not Meet Operational Test Objectives Gao ID: NSIAD-91-51 December 10, 1990GAO evaluated the performance of the Army's line-of-sight forward heavy air defense system, trade-named the Air Defense Antitank System (ADATS), during operational testing to determine its operational availability and effectiveness.
GAO found that: (1) ADATS failed to meet operational availability and reliability requirements; (2) the Army overstated ADATS operational availability by excluding some critical test data and making certain erroneous assumptions; (3) the Army failed to adequately define mission-essential failures; (4) ADATS demonstrated limited maintenance capability during operational testing; (5) the Army failed to test logistics support and may have understated operational effectiveness requirements for ADATS; (6) the Army failed to demonstrate the required ADATS performance capabilities, especially in its missile-firing phase; (7) the Army's new program proposal may not overcome problems; and (8) the Army received $54.8 million in research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) funding for fiscal year (FY) 1990 and $92 million in restricted appropriated funds for continued RDT&E for ADATS. GAO also found that Congress rescinded $208.9 million in unobligated procurement funding for FY 1990 and denied the Army's request for $271.8 million in procurement funding for FY 1991 for ADATS.