There’s a proven way to drive down defense acquisition costs, and it works especially well for the complex, high- tech platforms prone to big cost overruns. You’ve heard of it: the learning curve. It lowers costs the old-fashioned way.
ajor League Baseball’s Chicago Cubs waited 108 years to finally win the World Series championship in 2016. It has not been that long—30 years or so—since the Army launched a major combat ground vehicle pro-
gram, but the drought is conspicuous and frustrating nonetheless. Te Army’s “Big 5”—the M1 Abrams main battle tank, the Bradley fighting vehicle, the UH-60 Black Hawk, the AH-64 Apache and the Patriot missile system—all date to the 1980s. Te Army’s initiatives to introduce major ground combat vehicle platforms over the past 10 years—for example, Future Combat Sys- tems and the Ground Combat Vehicle—have not succeeded.
Te Army terminates acquisition pro- grams for a variety of
