It’s an ongoing theme with regards to many military programs. I experienced it first hand during my first 5 years working for a defense contractor after I graduated from university. Personally, I thought I would be making a contribution to my country’s armed forces through my work. But in those 5 years, nothing I worked on ever made it to the soldier. It was either cancelled or shelved. Most of these programs are treated like an old-fashioned ‘water pump’. Get $$$$ from government for program, spend it all, ooops we need more money, pump that handle again for more $$$$.
But in those 5 years, nothing I worked on ever made it to the soldier. It was either cancelled or shelved. Most of these programs are treated like an old-fashioned ‘water pump’. Get $$$$ from government for program, spend it all, ooops we need more money, pump that handle again for more $$$$.
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I agree with you, One of the many problems I see is that the Defense people always want the ‘platform’ to do EVERYTHING imaginable including on occasion the un-imaginable. Where a ‘purpose built’ plane, tank, ship or personal weapon might be built for a reasonable cost and even excel in that specific role the military brass always seem to want to keep adding in ‘bells and whistles’. And let me tell you every single ‘new’ item added on to a program increases the costs, sometime exponentially.
Where as if they would just stop tinkering and adding on in the hopes of producing a ‘do everything’ platform the contractors could and would produce under budget nearly every-time.
Heh, here’s a story for you, when I started programming for the Air Force as a contractor back in the early 80’s. I could make and document small code changes usually in less than a day. Testing and certifying for operational use might take a couple of days longer.
When I retired in 2009 a SINGLE line change to a program’s code would take at least six month’s and nearly a half a million dollars in overhead expenses before it was declared ready for operational use.