Want to Look for Government Waste

[Hyena Dandy]

I'm sure there are plenty of succesful projects, but the budget is something I'm worried about. The American military budget is so huge, there's no motivation to make sure things are done cheaply. I feel like we end up putting huge amounts of money into making improvements that are not actually worth the money we put in. I'm not going to argue the improvements are not IMPROVEMENTS, but I wonder if the improvements are worth spending as much as we DO.

[Gravekeeper]

Here's the process the DoD uses to go from beginning to end in developing any new piece of equipment.

The DoD is so fucked up and mismanaged that the Governmental Accountability Office has been unable to audit them since 1998. Their financial management is so bad it can't even be audited properly. >.>

[mikoyan29]

Come to think of it, when was the last time an Ameriican piece of military hardware was developed on time, on budget and without a massive list of design flaws? It seems I've heard a fair amount the last couple years about these ridiculous projects that end up in utter failure while wasting millions of dollars. >.>

I would put up the F-117 in that category. But that might be a stretch because for the most part it was an experiment. The F-15 went off pretty well. The F-16 had a few snags but pretty much came out without much of a hitch.

[Gravekeeper]

I would put up the F-117 in that category. But that might be a stretch because for the most part it was an experiment. The F-15 went off pretty well. The F-16 had a few snags but pretty much came out without much of a hitch.

The F-117 was developed around 1975-1981ish. Pretty damning if thats the last time there was a successful on time on budget development project. Apparenty the prototypes only cost 35 mil and the final sticker price was 111 million per craft. It was replaced with the F-22 ( 66.7 billion dolars in development, sticker price of 150 mil each ) which was so grotesquely overbudget, had some rather major flaws ( Not providing enough oxygen to pilots ) and had a lack of operational purpose ( not many air to air fights these days ) that it got replaced with the F-35.....which is turning into a huge money sink as well.

So, yeah, doesn't seem to be going to well >.> The air force seems to be the worst, though the Navy isn't doing to well at it either.

[mikoyan29]

I'm not sure if the F-117 was on budget, but I'm pretty sure it was mostly on time but then again, it didn't really have a time frame as for the most part it was a "Let's see if we can do this sort of thing". It did have the nickname "Wobbly Goblin" because it was a pretty unstable aircraft but that was more due to its unusual shape than any sort of error on the part of the contractor. But then again, the "Skunk Works" had a reputation to uphold.