Independent Weapons Testing Comes Under Fire, Again

Industry-friendly politicians tried to reduce the ability of the DOD, DOTE office.

"It is also fiscally imprudent—not to mention dangerous—to cut the one activity that will discover design flaws early enough in the process to avoid not only astronomically expensive but also possibly fatal mistakes."

One example from DOT&E’s briefing is the P-8A Poseidon, a newly developed maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine aircraft based on Boeing’s 737-800 commercial airframe. A DOT&E review rejected the Navy’s proposed original operational test plan because it did not evaluate the P-8A’s two primary combat missions: anti-submarine detection and reconnaissance. Instead, the Navy simply wanted to test the aircraft’s engineering requirements; that is, its ability to fly a specific distance with a specific payload. DOT&E insisted on a test that exercised enemy submarine detection and attack as well as ocean reconnaissance under realistic combat conditions. The Navy’s operational testers agreed that such combat testing was essential.

When these tests were conducted as part of realistic fleet exercises, they revealed “important deficiencies” in surveillance and in the aircraft’s ability to hunt and destroy submarines, all due to problems with the P-8A’s sensor systems. Gilmore’s subsequent evaluation report concluded that the P-8A was “not effective for the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance mission and is not effective for wide area anti-submarine search.” As a result, the Navy is now working to address these serious problems and will do follow-on operational testing to ensure that this $35 billion program actually delivers combat-effective aircraft.