Army's M109 Howitzer

Required Testing Should Be Completed Before Full-Rate Production Gao ID: NSIAD-92-44 January 23, 1992

The Army has spent about $500 million through fiscal year 1991 to upgrade the M109 howitzer. GAO found that the Army approved and contracted for low-rate initial production of a modified howitzer called the "Paladin," even though the system had significant unresolved operational and technical problems with several subsystems. The Army is now producing howitzers containing most of the improvements intended to correct the problems. Until these improvements are further tested, however, it will remain unclear whether the problems have been cleared up. The Army plans a follow-on operational test and evaluation of Paladin howitzers to verify that the problems have been resolved and to support a decision on full-rate production. However, significant numbers of Paladins could be procured before such testing is finished. Since approval of the program in 1984, the estimated unit cost for the Paladin tripled from $500,000 to about $1.5 million. This unit cost increase is due mainly to changes in the configuration of the howitzer, a quantity reduction, and inflation.

GAO found that: (1) the Army approved and contracted for low-rate initial production of the Paladin, a modified howitzer, despite unresolved operational technical problems; (2) the Army has made changes to the howitzers to correct such problems and is producing howitzers that include most of the improvements; (3) the Army will not know whether changes have actually resolved problems until the howitzers are tested further; (4) the Army plans to conduct a follow-on operational test and evaluation of Paladin howitzers to verify that the contractor has resolved the previously identified problems; (5) the Army could procure significant quantities of Paladin howitzers before the contractor completes operational testing and evaluation; and (6) unit cost increases occurred because of changes in the howitzer's configuration, a quantity reduction, and 6 years of inflation.

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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