Inside the Navy September 30, 2002
NAVY REBUFFS CHRISTIE'S CONCERNS ABOUT DEPLOYING SYSTEMS EARLY
Malina Brown
Responding to allegations the Navy has deployed systems that did not perform adequately in testing, Navy Secretary Gordon England acknowledged last week that the war on terrorism demanded the service put to use new weapons prematurely in order to meet warfighting needs.
Thomas Christie, the Pentagon's director of operational testing, raised the concerns last month. England has since assured Christie that "the risks were evaluated and considered acceptable to deploy these weapons systems to support our emerging plans in the war on terrorism," according to a recent memo reviewed by Inside the Navy.
In an Aug. 1 memo, Christie said he was worried "about an apparent trend by the Navy to deploy an increasing number of combat systems into harm's way that have not demonstrated acceptable performance during adequate operational test and evaluation." Christie's memo points to five systems that he said were used in the war on terrorism, despite poor performance during testing.
The systems in question are the Joint Stand-Off Weapon (JSOW), three F/A-18E/F Super Hornet systems -- a classified system, the Advanced Targeting and Designation Forward Looking Infrared system (ATFLIR) and plans for the Shared Reconnaissance Pod (SHARP) -- and the BQQ-10 submarine sonar system's Acoustic Rapid Commercial-Off-the-Shelf Insertion (ARCI) program.
Christie's memo was circulated last week by the Project on Government Oversight, a self-described nonpartisan watchdog group.
In detailing his objections, Christie notes which systems did not fare well in testing.
The JSOW-A, part of a family of satellite-guided bombs, was delivered to the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis (CVN-74) before it passed operational tests, writes Christie. Meanwhile, the unspecified classified system for the Super Hornet was "decertified" from tests in February due to unsatisfactory performance. Yet Christie writes that this summer he heard of plans to use it anyway under rewritten performance goals. He also discusses April tests of ATFLIR in which only two of seven laser-guided bombs demonstrated "acceptable performance."
Christie is also concerned about proposals to accelerate SHARP, designed for the Super Hornet, before adequate testing. Similarly, he argued against the Navy's decision to install ARCI on submarines before it demonstrated "acceptable reliability" during testing.
Christie concludes his letter by stating, "I strongly recommend that you adopt a policy of deploying new combat systems after they have demonstrated appropriate performance during adequate operational test and evaluation."
In his response, England assures that it is the service's policy to conform to OT&E procedures prior to deploying systems. He added that each system Christie named "will continue with their test efforts to complete OT&E in accordance with their program plans."
According to Ron O'Rourke, an analyst with the Congressional Research Service, Christie's memo, "plays into a larger discussion about where DOD is going with defense acquisition generally. The emphasis from OSD seems to be to accelerate and streamline the process as much as possible. That's something that a lot of observers would likely support as a general goal.
"But some observers -- including some who support defense acquisition streamlining as a general goal -- are concerned about just how much the process may be telescoped or accelerated and what implications that may have for things like congressional oversight and operational test and evaluation," O'Rourke said.
"There is natural tendency to send new hardware towards the sound of gunfire," according to John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington-based public policy organization. "There is a lot of pressure on project managers and contractors to get 'combat proven' stamped on their literature," particularly under the current Pentagon's leadership, he said.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has instituted "a fundamental philosophical shift" towards a spiral development approach, Pike said, characterizing the new tendency as an urge to deploy weapons "as soon as they 'have been known to work on occasions' rather than waiting until they are proven to be combat effective."
Countering suggestions the service has become "trigger happy," Navy spokesman Ens. David Luckett said the service balances "a conscious awareness of test results, schedule delays and real impact to future deploying units.
"Most importantly," said Luckett, "the Navy will not deploy a system that it believes will endanger our sailors."
© Inside Washington Publishers
