The Navy Scraps Development of Its Showpiece Warship - Until the Next Bad Idea

The is the true story of a recent project sponsored by the U.S. Navy that was finally cancelled after over $13 billion in sunk R&D costs was already spent on it. The Zumwalt-class Destroyer was intended to operate in shallow water (littoral) environments and provide fire support, primarily through cruise missiles and 155 mm artillery fire. The ship was also intended to be a stealth vessel and was heavily automated, supporting a very small crew through advanced systems embedded throughout. Closer examination of the ship and its capabilities suggests there were a number of questionable decisions made as the project was developed. For example, the ship was not fitted with anti-missile capabilities. When this was pointed out to the Navy, their initial solution was to station another ship nearby to provide anti-ship missile protection. It was then pointed out that this solution meant the platform was no longer stealthy, as the protection from an escort would become visible. Through a series of cost overruns and questionable development decisions, the ships were finally deemed unnecessary and the program was cancelled, following the completion of three ships - overall, an expensive failure of initial strategy and subsequent development.

Questions

1. U.S. Department of Defense has a long history of sponsoring projects that have questionable usefulness. If you were assigned as a member of a project review team for a defense project, what criteria would you insist such a project has in order to be supported? In other words, what are the bare essentials needed to
2. Why, is there such a long history of defense projects overshooting their budgets or failing some critical performance metrics?