The Pentagon Director of Test and Evaluation Annual Report for FY2010

By Nick Schwellenbach

We’ve managed to get a hold of most of the newest annual report by the Pentagon Office of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (or DOT&E in Pentagon-speak).  The newest report is not available for free anywhere else online (Inside Washington Publishers has it behind a paywall).

The report is a great place to look for progress and problems in major weapons programs and major weapons upgrades. 

Last year, the DOT&E reversed the post-9/11 decision to take down its annual reports and posted all of them for FY1999 through FY2009.  It’s likely the latest report will make its way to DOT&E’s website soon, but for now feel free to take a look at our copy. 

Here’s what we have:

• Pages 13-44, which cover DOD-wide programs, such as the Joint Strike Fighter
• Pages 45-96, which cover Army programs
• Pages 97-178, which cover Navy programs
• Pages 179-224, which cover Air Force programs
• Pages 225-246, which cover Ballistic Missile Defense programs

As I wrote a year ago at the Center for Public Integrity, the DOT&E annual report has its roots in a 1980s weapons scandal that led to a book and a film called “The Pentagon Wars.” The movie stars Kelsey Grammer as a less-than-forthright Army general in charge of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle program.

Nick Schwellenbach is POGO's Director of Investigations. Follow Nick on Twitter.

Comments

[Dfens]

One of the biggest problems you had as a design engineer in the late '70s through the '80s was that managment was always strong arming us into insufficient testing. It actually began the slow down in military technology development that we very much see the fuits of today where often commercial aircraft have more sophisticated avionics than fighter jets (except for the sensors technology, typically).

The problem back then was due to the fact that the government was reimbursing the contractors on development costs, but not paying any profit until production weapons were delivered. Thus there was great pressure on individual engineers to shortcut the development process to get on with production. This lead to many aircraft being death traps until the B or C model when many of the problems that should have been tested before production were finally worked out.

When the contractors were lobbying the DoD for today's "cost plus award fee" contracts, they promised they would stop delivering aircraft that were not ready for production, and promised that more cutting edge technology would be incorporated in weapons if the contractors made a profit on development. What really happened is development times have dragged out and costs have soared, but without any competition pressure technology has maintained its snail's pace.

Testing is much more extensive than it was, but often the items tested make no sense. Is the item blue? Yes, it is blue. It's just checking off a box because we get paid a profit to check it off. We still make more money if we deliver faulty hardware, because we know the DoD will go to the original contractor to fix the problems. There is never any pressure to do anything right, but there's always an opportunity to do it over and over and over again.

It is a procurement system that is very demoralizing for those of us caught up in this military-industrial mess, and it wastes taxpayer money like there's no tomorrow. It is too bad that between the two groups we can't get together to change things in a way that would benefit both sides, even if it does make things more difficult for the contractor executives and the sorry ass military brass who might have to get off their butt and fight a war instead of maximizing thier frequent flier mileage and golf time at the taxpayer's expense.