ELECTRONIC WARFARE: The Army Can Reduce Its Risks in Developing New Radar Countermeasures System
Abstract
The Army is in the process of acquiring a new, state-of-the-art radar countermeasures system called the Suite of Integrated Radio Frequency Countermeasures to enable its helicopters and other aircraft to identify, track, and defeat radar-guided missiles in complex electronic environments where many radar systems could be operating simultaneously. Customers for the system include the Army s Apache helicopter and the Air Force s Special Operations CV-22 tilt-rotor aircraft. When the Army began developing the new system in 1994, low-rate initial production was originally scheduled to begin in 1999 and full-rate production in 2001. In 1999, the Army restructured the program to provide more time and money for serious developmental problems uncovered during testing. The Army has delayed the low-rate initial production decision to 2002 and the full-rate production decision to 2003. The system s overall development cost has increased from $54 million to a projected $127 million. Because of the developmental problems with the new radar countermeasures system, we reviewed the Army s acquisition program to determine whether it will provide decisionmakers with sufficient knowledge about the system s readiness to begin low-rate initial production.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 2001
- Accession Number
- ADA389251
Entities
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office