Premature Weapons Testing Drains Military Budget

The U.S. Defense Department’s top weapons tester had plenty of bad news this week for some of the military’s most expensive weapons programs — from the F-35 fighter jet to the Littoral Combat Ship.

In his annual report to Congress, J. Michael Gilmore, director of the Pentagon’s Operational Test and Evaluation office, said the fifth-generation fighter has cracked during testing and isn’t ready for combat operations, and that the LCS has had problems with their guns, mine-countermeasures and anti-submarine warfare systems.

But perhaps even more troubling was his assertion that acquisition officials, in some cases, continue to approve programs that aren’t ready for operational testing — a practice that creates costlier problems down the road.

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