“why it took this long and cost this much to replace an item that performed poorly from the start “
Oh, get a clue! It’s not about winning wars, or protecting the lives of our soldiers, or making the best use of the taxpayers money - its about money for the contractors, contractor contributions for the politicians, and about the careers and prestige of the brass involved in the process.
There are many time where the contractor is to blame for cost over runs and shoddy equipment, but the Govt is to blame for the majority of these problems. I have seen the havoc the Govt causes contractors. Here is a couple of examples.
I worked for a Defense company on the JLTV(Joint Light Tactical Vehicle)Program and the NLOS Cannon Program.
In the case of JLTV the Govt goes to the contractors with a specific set of requirements and asks for an RFP(Request for Proposal). The contractors then go through the Govt requirements and come up with a dollar number and time frame to build and test prototypes.
The Govt then selects 2-4 competitors and the Technology Demonstration phase begins. While the prototypes are being built the Govt will come down with even more requirements. Usually some set of bells and whistles that some idiot desk commander in the Pentagon thinks would be nice. This in turn causes the contractors to go back and re-engineer complete systems, or layouts. Costing them more money and time.
This crap happen all the time. I am not excusing the contractors for stuff that is their fault, but the Govt needs to stick to it’s initial requirements and the RSPs they accepted from the contractors.
A large part the failure belongs to DCMA(Defense Contract Management Activity) offices. These clowns rarely know anything about the program they are charged with overseeing. Many of them fail to keep their audit schedules, they tend to wait until the equipment is ready for delivery to the Govt. Their initial acceptance inspections are a joke. Many are not written for the equipment they are inspecting. It is not all on the contractor.