Weapons Acquisition

The military services are spending billions of dollars to acquire new and improved munitions whose technical sophistication allows guidance corrections during their flight to the target. These weapons are known as precision-guided munitions. GAO reviewed Air Force, Navy, and Army munitions in inventory, production, and development that use precision guidance to attack surface targets. This report determines (1) the costs and the quantities planned for the precision-guided munitions, (2) the services' rationale for initiating precision-guided munitions development programs, (3) options available to the services to attack surface targets with precision-guided munitions, and (4) the extent to which the services were jointly developing and procuring such munitions.

GAO found that: (1) the services have bought or are developing over 33 types of PGM at a cost of about $58.6 billion; (2) the 19 PGM types in inventory and production provide about 130,422 individual munitions at a cost of about $30.4 billion and are used by the Air Force and Navy; (3) the 14 PGM types in development have a combined estimated acquisition cost of about $28.2 billion; (4) the services' rationale for the PGM development programs include increasing the number of PGM, gaining additional capability through technical improvements, and providing interim capabilities until certain munitions are available; (5) the 33 PGM types provide multiple options for countering targets and some PGM can function against more than one target class; and (6) the Navy and Air Force have participated in joint PGM development programs, but they do not plan to buy some PGM currently under development.