Weapons Acquisition

The Defense Department (DOD) is wasting billions of dollars by buying large numbers of weapons before they are fully tested--a practice that results in substantial inventories of unsatisfactory weapons requiring costly modifications and, in some cases, deployment of substandard weapons to combat forces. For example, the Air Force's C-17 airlift aircraft, the Navy's T45A trainer aircraft, and the Army's Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles encountered problems during test and evaluation that required major changes after significant quantities had been purchased during low-rate initial production. If DOD bought minimal quantities of untested weapons during low-rate initial production, more funds would be available to buy other proven weapons in full-rate production at more efficient rates and at lower costs.

GAO found that: (1) DOD has inappropriately placed a high priority on buying large numbers of untested weapons during low-rate initial production to ensure commitment to new programs and thus has had to cut by more than half its planned full production rates for many weapons that have already been tested; (2) this practice is wasteful because DOD must often modify, at high cost, the large numbers of untested weapons it has bought before they are usable and must lower annual buys of tested, proven weapons, stretching out full-rate production for years due to a lack of funds; (3) GAO has repeatedly reported on DOD's practice of procuring substantial inventories of unsatisfactory weapons requiring costly modifications to achieve satisfactory performance and, in some cases, deployment of substandard weapons to combat forces; (4) GAO found the practice of reducing planned full production rates to be widespread; (5) primarily because of funding limitations, DOD has reduced the annual full-rate production for 17 of the 22 proven weapons reviewed, stretching out the completion of the weapons' production an average of 8 years longer than planned; (6) according to DOD's records, if these weapons were produced at their originally planned rates and respective cost estimates, the quantities produced as of the end of fiscal year 1996 would have cost nearly $10 billion less; (7) at the same time, DOD is funding increased annual quantities of weapons in low-rate production that often are in excess of what is needed to perform operational tests and establish the production base; (8) if DOD bought untested weapons during low-rate initial production at minimum rates, more funds would be available to buy other proven weapons in full-rate production at more efficient rates and at lower costs; and (9) this would reduce costly modifications to fix substandard weapons bought in low-rate production and allow full-rate production of weapons with demonstrated performance to be completed and deployed to combat forces earlier.

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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