Munitions Procurement

Resolve Questions Before Proceeding With Sensor Fuzed Weapon Production Gao ID: NSIAD-91-235 August 16, 1991

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined the Air Force's Sensor Fuzed Weapon's readiness for low-rate initial production, focusing on the: (1) status of developmental and operational testing; (2) adequacy of cost and operational effectiveness analyses; and (3) status of the threat that the weapon is intended to counter.

GAO found that: (1) as of May 1991, the Air Force had successfully completed 33 of 38 planned developmental tests and 11 of 30 planned initial operating tests; (2) although the current plan did not call for the completion of 3 developmental and 10 operational tests before the September 1991 production decision, the program manager stated that the Air Force would complete all critical tests before that time; (3) previous cost analyses indicating that the interdiction weapon was more cost-effective than existing weapons used an effectiveness criterion for close support weapons, since there was no criterion for interdiction weapons; (4) the Air Force may not include the full range of interdiction weapons in further cost-effectiveness analyses; and (5) the Air Force developed the weapon primarily to counter the Warsaw Pact's numerical tank advantage in Central Europe, but that threat has changed considerably with the Pact's disintegration.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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