Defense orders overhaul of troubled fighting vehicle program

Responding to a huge cost jump and persistent reliability problems in one of the Marine Corps' most important acquisition programs, the Pentagon has ordered a major restructuring that will change the contractor's payments, impose significantly greater government supervision and delay operational availability for at least four years, officials announced Thursday.

The decision to modify rather than cancel the troubled Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle program followed a long high-level review triggered by a congressionally mandated cost-control provision known as the Nunn-McCurdy Act.

"The bottom line" of the review was that the revolutionary amphibious troop carrier was essential to national security and that "there were no alternatives that would provide equal or greater military capabilities at equal or less cost," said Anthony Melita, director of land warfare programs in the Pentagon's acquisition office.

The decision to move ahead was made by Kenneth Krieg, the under secretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, with input from senior military officers and outside technical experts, Melita said.

To get the program back on track, the contract with General Dynamics Inc. will be renegotiated to virtually restart the development process, requiring a higher degree of systems engineering to produce seven new prototype vehicles for testing. The emphasis in the new process will be "design for reliability," said Col. William Taylor, program executive officer for Marine Corps land systems.

The test vehicles are expected to be delivered by 2010 and a decision on whether to start production of operational EFVs could come late in 2011, Taylor said.

The program already has been set back four years due to developmental problems and the new vehicles are not expected to be ready to replace the Marines' current Vietnam-vintage amphibious troop carriers until 2025, more than a quarter century after the program started and 10 years later than originally planned.

The Marines already have spent nearly $2 billion on the EFV program while the projected total program cost has soared 43 percent to an estimated $13 billion. Despite the repeated delays and technology problems, General Dynamics has received $80 million in incentive fees or "bonuses."

During the prolonged development process, the Marines reassessed the need for the EFV and chopped the planned buy from 1,013 to 573.

The EFV was conceived as part of a team of revolutionary platforms to give the Marines greatly improved speed and maneuverability in expeditionary or amphibious operations. The high-speed landing craft air-cushioned transporter has been in service for more than a decade and MV-22 Osprey is about to make its first combat deployment.

The new vehicle was to be able to race across open waters at more than 25 miles an hour -- three times the water speed of the current amphibious tractors -- and do 45 mph on land. Taylor said the EFV has met all of its key performance requirements, except for the operating time between systems failures. In operational tests in 2005-2006, the vehicles broke down on average about every four and a half hours.

Taylor, who had been program manager for the MV-22, said the effort to get that trouble-plagued program finally ready for combat service could provide a good roadmap for fixing the EFV program.