Research, Testing, Production Phases Overlap : DIVAD Costs Laid to Accelerated Buying
The Pentagon’s accelerated purchasing procedures were blamed Wednesday for expenditures that climbed to $1.8 billion on the controversial Sgt. York air defense gun before it was canceled Tuesday.
The accelerated procedures permit the Defense Department to make weapons available to troops in the field much faster by overlapping research, testing and production phases.
And critics of the Sgt. York, also called the Division Air Defense gun, charge that some of the expenditures could have been avoided if the Pentagon had not fought the creation of an independent office--which was eventually established anyway--that found the weapon to be inadequate after it was tested under simulated battle conditions.
More Problems Seen
Moreover, one defense expert suggested that the scrapping of the Sgt. York could foreshadow additional problems for another complicated, expensive weapon, the Advanced Medium Range Air to Air Missile (AMRAAM), the production funds of which have been held up by Congress.
“It is a classic failure of the testing process,” Gordon Adams, director of the independent Defense Budget Project, said of the development of the Sgt. York.
The weapon, dubbed the DIVAD, was developed under the expedited, overlapping procedure, which is known as “concurrency.” Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, announcing his decision Tuesday to cancel the Sgt. York, acknowledged that this process “is a somewhat more expensive way of trying your best to get what you need as quickly as you can.”
No ‘Luxury of Time’
But, he said, a slower process, under which all testing could be completed before a decision to produce a weapon is made, is “a luxury of time” not available to the United States in its effort to field an air defense gun capable of shooting down the most sophisticated Soviet missile-carrying helicopters and low-flying airplanes.
“On occasions where you have a need as great as this, you do have to use all the methods you can to fill that need as quickly as possible,” Weinberger said.
But a congressional source, speaking on the condition he not be named, said that, under this system, “by the time we get around to an operational test, we’ve bought half the units.”
Sudden, Unusual Halt
Weinberger’s decision brought to a sudden and unusual halt the production of the Sgt. York after 65 of a planned order of 618 weapons had been purchased. The gun was manufactured by Ford Aerospace & Communications Corp., which employed 1,900 persons at its Sgt. York facilities in Orange County.
The Army wanted Weinberger to approve $417.5 million for the next 117 guns, in addition to the $1.8 billion already spent. But the Pentagon chief rejected that request after reviewing results of tests completed in May and June and deciding that the Sgt. York lacked reliability and sufficient range.
The usefulness of those tests was questioned last month by John E. Krings, director of the Pentagon’s new Office of Operational Test and Evaluation, who suggested that they did not fairly represent the Soviet threat against the new gun.
Pressure From Congress
Krings’ office was created in 1983 under pressure from Congress and was resisted by the Pentagon. The position of director was vacant for many months, further delaying the office’s opening.
Congressional critics of the Sgt. York maintained that, if the Pentagon had moved more quickly to create the testing office and fill its top positions, it could have put the gun through a series of stringent tests and discovered its flaws sooner. The new office examines weapons independently of the individual military services, which usually pressure senior Pentagon officials for approval of new purchases.
One congressional source, referring to the cost of the Sgt. York, said: “$1.8 billion? That money was spent before the testing office was created.”
$1 Billion for Missile
David Morrison, a staff member at the Center for Defense Information, an independent organization led by retired military officers, said that the Sgt. York decision could signal additional problems for the AMRAAM weapon, which, he said, depends on high technology to an even greater degree than the air defense gun.
Morrison said that the Navy and Air Force already have spent $1 billion on the air-to-air missile, but a congressional conference panel has recommended that no more be spent until Weinberger certifies the weapon’s effectiveness.
Adams, whose Defense Budget Project studies military spending issues, said that “real operational testing,” which critics of the Sgt. York have contended could have halted the project well before $1.8 billion was spent, “is the poor cousin in the procurement process.”
No ‘Long, Hard Look’
“No one has wanted to do it,” he said. “There’s no incentive to slow down and take a long, hard look” at a weapon before it is produced.
This, he said, was the result of the military bureaucracy’s interest in buying weapons, an individual service’s interest in deploying new equipment and the defense industry’s interest in selling its products.
At the same time, he said, Congress until recently has been reluctant to halt production of new weapons for fear of appearing to delay the achievement of national security goals.
Cancellation of the Sgt. York gun should have minimal effect on Ford Motor Co. and its subcontractors. Part IV, Page 1.
