CAPITOL HILL: Nunn-McCurdy notifications to Congress of gross cost growth in a weapons system’s costs strike fear in the hearts of top Pentagon acquisition officials, and something like them may become law for a new set of costs — operations and support. “They should be the next frontier for acquisition reform,” former DoD Comptroller Bob…
By Colin ClarkModernizing military simulation with open systems architecture
Best-of-breed common models and architecture enable virtual training and testing with the same data in a cyber-resilient posture.
WASHINGTON: Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s decision to curtail the controversial Littoral Combat Ship program may not be the last word, according to several well informed sources. Those sources independently told Breaking Defense that the Office of the Secretary of Defense is divided over the decision cut LCS from 52 ships to 40. So is the Navy, which has had pro-…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: Costs of the Pentagon’s major weapons programs — which make up a relatively small percentage of the military’s overall spending but attract enormous political and strategic attention — continue to improve. But a big question mark hovers over them. Are costs coming down only because the Pentagon has started very few programs in recent years and isn’t…
By Colin Clark
WASHINGTON: Under intense budget pressure, a Pentagon cost-cutting team is pushing the Navy to cancel its third and last Zumwalt-class destroyer, the Lyndon Johnson (DDG-1002). But two sources familiar with the program say this cost-cutting measure just doesn’t add up. The DDG-1000 Zumwalts are expensive; three ships will cost almost $13 billion. About $9 billion of that…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. WASHINGTON: Jamie Morin, head of the Pentagon’s quiet but powerful Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) office, offered an understated and emphatic explanation today of why Congress’s inability to do its basic work and pass spending bills poses dramatic challenges to the US military. Morin and his colleagues at CAPE rarely appear in public and even more rarely…
By Colin Clark
WASHINGTON: The Pentagon’s hardest-nosed accountants have endorsed the Army’s Aviation Restructure Initiative. ARI is a controversial cost-cutting plan which would retire the Vietnam-vintage OH-58 Kiowa scout helicopters and replace them with AH-64 Apache gunships taken from the National Guard. The Army said ARI, once fully implemented, would save $1.09 billion a year. In a document…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
UPDATED: Adds Pratt & Whitney Responses To Bogdan; Adds Lockheed Statement Correction (April 18 at 10:55 am) CRYSTAL CITY: Pratt & Whitney got a public drubbing from the sharp-tongued head of the F-35 fighter program, Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, when the Pentagon released a new cost estimate for the military’s biggest weapons program. “Pratt’s not meeting their…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. and Colin Clark
A new approach to speed, scale and efficiency for the industrial base
Radars, EW, EO/IR, space imagery, and microelectronics are brought under one roof for a streamlined approach to common people and factories.
WASHINGTON: Acquisition experts agree that accurate cost estimates can be devilishly difficult to get right. The Pentagon’s top cost estimator, Christine Fox, says current cost estimates are often accurate within several percentage points. That’s impressive, but on programs measured in the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars, a few percentage points can mean a…
By Colin Clark
