Panel: Flaws push EFV back 8 years

[unhappycamper]

Panel: Flaws push EFV back 8 years
By Joelle Tessler - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday May 1, 2008 6:24:35 EDT

WASHINGTON — Major development flaws have pushed up the cost of the Marine Corps’ amphibious Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle program by 168 percent per tank and pushed the production deadline back by eight years, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform found.

The Defense Department says it will acquire 593 vehicles from General Dynamics at a total cost of $13.2 billion, compared with an earlier projection of 1,025 tanks for $8.4 billion, according to a House Oversight Committee report released Tuesday.

The committee presented its findings at Tuesday’s hearing on a major Government Accountability Office report concluding that inefficient Pentagon management led to cost increases, delays and production shortfalls for many key weapons programs last year.

Rep. Henry Waxman, the committee’s chairman, said the amphibious tank program illustrates many of the problems highlighted in the broader GAO report, which came out in late March.

“The Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle experience appears to be the rule, not the exception,” Waxman, D-Calif., said at the hearing.


Rest of article at: http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2008/04/ap_EFVhearing_042908/