Noah Shachtman reports on a new concept in weapons systems procurement competition. and the pushback that it is getting from defense contractors and their pet politicians.

It’s about the Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM), a missile system, designed to replace the Hellfire and Maverick missiles. (It’s probably a family of missiles, as the 50 kg Hellfire has a 8-9 kg warhead, and the 200-300 kg Maverick has a 57-135 kg warhead).

They are going to select two different groups to compete the missile program, which is not surprising, but they will base the competition on actual physical prototypes, as opposed to paper proposals.

…. Last September, Young issued a policy that went beyond competitive bidding and resurrected an old idea: competitive proto-typing.

…….

But Young’s memo decried a pattern among “many troubled programs” that were pushed forward before they were ready, wasting time and billions of dollars. The problem, in part, was that defense officials often made decisions “based largely on paper proposals that provided inadequate knowledge of technical risk and a weak foundation for estimating develop- ment and procurement costs,” he wrote ….. hence, the decision to change the acquisition strategy for the JAGM program before it proceeded too far, too fast.

The defense contractors are apoplectic over this, which to my mind shows that it’s a good idea.

Earlier verification through prototype may add a few bucks, and a few months, early in the process, but it will likely result in better, and cheaper, products.