
The Bunker appears originally at the Project on Government Oversight and is republished here with permission.
A triple-bank shot of trouble
The Pentagon loves the number three: think of the nationâs nuclear triad (bombers, subs, and missiles) or the three major military services (Army, Navy, and Air Force). In recent days, each of those services has experienced troubles that shouldnât have happened. While the specifics vary, the problems are all rooted in the perpetual bane of the Defense Departmentâs existence: poorly planned programs; too-rosy glasses; poor training and execution. Accountability will largely be MIA when it comes to assessing responsibility. Bureaucracies are far better at removing fingerprints from snafus than dusting for them.
The M10 tank goes belly up
Too bad thereâs no Ozempic for U.S. Army tanks. The service blew up its M10 Booker âlightâ tank program May 1 after it discovered that the nearly 40-ton (!) beast would crack eight of the 11 bridges at Fort Campbell, Ky. Sure, such armor may not sound light, but it is â when compared to its bulked-up M-1 tank cousin, which tips the scales at 73 tons. The Army has long had difficulty developing Goldilocks armored vehicles â light enough to fly to the front, but beefy enough to protect the troops inside once they get there.
The Army awarded a $1.14 billion contract to General Dynamics in 2022 to build the first 96 M10s. It wanted to buy 504 (the service prefers to call such multi-ton tracked machines outfitted with 105 mm guns âarmored infantry support vehicles,â but we taxpayers arenât bound by such Pentagon nomenclatural niceties).
The M10 is âone of the Armyâs top modernization priorities,â the service declared in February. Three months later, not so much. âThis is not a story of acquisition gone awry,â Alex Miller, the serviceâs top technology officer, told Defense One. âThis is a story of the requirements process creating so much inertia that the Army couldn't get out of its own way, and it just kept rolling and rolling and rolling.â
Refreshingly, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll put the M10 out of its misery after GD had delivered 80 of them. âWe got a heavy tank,â Driscoll conceded. âWe went to the Pentagon leadership and we said, âwe made a mistake, this didnât turn out right. Weâre going to stop.ââ
It's a good start.
One reason why the new ICBM is so costly
The Pentagon has a nearly Pavlovian predilection to assume the best and buy the worst. Itâs like that old adage: Itâs easier to ask for forgiveness (after the screwup) than ask for permission (when the mission is Permission: Impossible). Take the Air Force effort to replace the aging nuclear-tipped Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles with new Sentinel ICBMs. The Sentinel programâs current price tag of $141 billion â an incredible 81% hike since 2020 â is so high the Pentagon said last year that it is now planning to come up with a âsimplerâ and âmore affordableâ plan sometime âaround 2026.â
One way the Air Force wanted to save money was to put Sentinel missiles polka-dotted across five states into the existing 400 underground silos now housing the Minuteman IIIs. âPart of the requirements, initially â 10 years ago when this program was started â was to reuse the holes, the missile holes at the launch facilities,â Air Force General Thomas A. Bussiere said April 30. âThat was believed to be more efficient, more cost effective, and quicker.â Despite decades of use, and well aware that the Air Force wanted to re-use its ICBM silos, the service recently clutched its warheads and was stunned (wink-wink) to discover theyâre too decrepit for the new ICBMs. As Air Force Missileer Emily Litella might have said: âNever mind.â
âAs the program continues to undergo restructuring activities, the Air Force analysis continues to confirm unacceptable risks to cost, schedule, and weapon system performance stemming from the original baseline strategy of converting Minuteman III silos,â the service said May 6. âTo mitigate this and other risks, the Air Force plans to build new missile silos on predominantly Air Force-owned real estate, which means reusing the existing missile sites but not the 55-year-old silos.â
The Sentinelâs continuing problems have the Air Force considering upgrades so the Minuteman fleet can remain on duty until 2050, 11 years longer than currently planned. Other experts maintain the Pentagonâs nuclear triad can safely be turned into an atomic dyad by amputating its ICBM leg.
It turns out the Sentinelâs problems arenât so much with the missile itself, but the rotting silos and other ground-based elements of the system, that are driving costs sky high.
Apparently, Air Force dirt ainât dirt cheap.
Warplanes are designed to dive ⊠but not like this
Itâs been a tough tour for the USS Harry S. Truman, the 100,000-ton aircraft carrier whose F-18s have been bombing Houthi rebels in Yemen from the Red Sea. First, one of its F-18s was shot down by mistake by another U.S. warship in December. On April 28, a second F-18 fell off the flattop while it was being towed, after the carrier swerved, apparently to avoid a Houthi drone. A third F-18 ended up in the drink May 6 following a botched landing. Thankfully, there were no serious injuries, except to Navy pride.
The mishaps âhave raised questions about the strain placed on the aircraft carrierâs crew,â the Washington Postâs Dan Lamothe reported. Defense Secretary Hegseth has twice extended the Trumanâs stay in the region to ensure there are two U.S. carriers in the âhood to deal with the Houthis.
THE BOTTOM LINE
There is plenty of blame to go around for all of these snafus. But donât go looking for finger-pointing. That tends only to happen when those allegedly culpable are no longer around to defend themselves. On May 7, a fourth military service, the U.S. Marine Corps, blamed a 2024 CH-53 helicopter crash that killed five on âfatal controlled flight into terrain.â
Purported pilot error, in other words.
Hereâs what has caught The Bunkerâs eye recently
The House passed a bill codifying President Trumpâs recent decision to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, the Washington Examiner reported May 8.
Defense Secretary Hegseth is wielding a scalpel when it comes to his ballyhooed Pentagon spending cuts when he should be brandishing an ax, Greg Williams of the Center for Defense Information, here at the Project On Government Oversight, wrote May 7 for Just Security.
â Read no evil (PDF)
The Pentagon ordered its commanders May 9 to purge their libraries of all books promoting racial and gender diversity. Up next: an order barring all books about how the U.S. military lost its 20-year war in Afghanistan?
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