Marine Vehicle Shows Contract Pitfalls

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
Boston Globe
March 22, 2007
With $2b spent, it may be obsolete
By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- When General Dynamics won the contract in 1996 for the Marine Corps' new amphibious vehicle, it boasted that its "breakthrough" design would allow it to deliver 17 combat-ready Marines over the waves at 20 knots, hit the beach, and then sprint into battle at up to 45 miles per hour.
But $2 billion and a decade later, the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle isn't reliable enough for service -- and may never see combat.
In recent water performance tests, a prototype accelerated only after the driver took his hands off the wheel, according to a December report that deemed the vehicle "unsafe for combat."
The Pentagon, however, appears ready to give General Dynamics another chance.
This week, the military gave the defense industry giant another $144 million to carry the program through September 2008. Now, the Marine Corps doesn't expect to take delivery of the vehicles until at least 2015 , and it will need at least $11 billion more to produce 573 vehicles -- almost half the number the Pentagon initially ordered, according to a Pentagon briefing paper produced this month.
The EFV is case study on the pitfalls of the Pentagon acquisition system, weapons specialists say. Defense contractors make lofty promises , and the Pentagon doles out billions, but if a major project fails to deliver , often there are few alternatives but to press on and pay a lot more for a lot less.
"They have allowed the [EFV] program to get too complex , and they have allowed one cost overrun after another to accumulate," said Phillip Coyle , formerly the Pentagon's top weapons testing official. "It is not the worst example, but the Marines don't have a lot of money. They can't afford a system that is unreliable and unsafe."
The EFV, as the vehicle is known, is not the only example. The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, warns that new satellites, warships , and aircraft are all rising in cost, far behind schedule , and failing to live up to billing.
But the Marine vehicle is in such trouble -- including problems with the hydraulics and electronics systems and the hull design -- the Pentagon is even rethinking the Marines' signature mission: charging through the surf to seize an enemy beachhead.
Some in the Pentagon question the wisdom of spending more taxpayer dollars on a vehicle and a mission that may already be obsolete.
"Is filling this gap an investment priority given other ground mobility priorities and historical technical challenges?" asks the March Pentagon briefing, drafted by the Pentagon's acquisition office.
"They haven't done that since Inchon," said John Pike , a defense specialist at GlobalSecurity.org , referring to the Marines' last opposed landing, during the Korean War. He thinks Marines are far more likely to face smaller-scale foes like those in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that the Marines already have an array of precision-guided weapons and aircraft that could meet the landing mission.
Yet the Marine Corps is clearly unwilling to give up a role that Pike said "is central to who the Marine Corps think they are."
Marine Commandant Gen eral James T. Conway recently told Government Executive magazine that the Marines will need amphibious capability "for a long, long time to come" and that the service is working to "keep the [EFV] program online."
The March briefing concluded, however, that acquisition officials saw "limited evidence" that the vehicle will ever be reliable.
 
Back
Top