The Army is developing the brilliant antiarmor submunition, with acoustic and infrared seekers working in tandem, to autonomously search for, track, and destroy moving armored targets. This submunition is to be carried deep into enemy territory by the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) Block II missile, which is still in development and is a modification of the in-production ATACMS Block IA missile, which carries a different submunition. The brilliant antiarmor submunition and the ATACMS Block II missile are a $4-billion system designed to support the Army’s “deep fires” mission, which calls for the destruction and/or disruption of enemy forces at ranges exceeding 100 kilometers. Each Block II missile is to carry 13 submunitions that will be dispensed over large clusters of high payoff targets to attack and destroy individual targets. The advantage of the submunition is that it can cover a large area when dispersed, which allows it to compensate for target location errors. Figure 1 shows the submunition acquiring a moving column of tanks. The brilliant antiarmor submunition program was established in 1984 as a special access program and progressed to a successful engineering and manufacturing development phase decision in May 1991. The Tri-Service Standoff Attack Missile was designated as the first delivery vehicle for the submunition, but when the Army terminated its participation in the program in December 1993, the ATACMS Block II missile was designated as the submunition’s carrier. This change of carrier and continued technical difficulties have led to significant cost growth. The current program office estimate shows that development costs have increased from $700 million to $1.2 billion (in constant 1991 dollars) from the initial February 1992 estimate. Projected production costs have also risen by almost $7,000 per submunition (in constant 1991 dollars). The Army currently plans to produce 2,352 submunitions during low-rate initial production and a program total of 19,871 during fiscal years 1998-2006. According to current Army documentation, the average procurement cost of a single Block II missile loaded with 13 brilliant antiarmor submunitions is about $2.3 million (in constant 1991 dollars). One of the brilliant antiarmor submunition’s original criteria for starting low-rate initial production was to demonstrate that it could be successfully dispensed from its carrier. This criterion was established in an acquisition decision memorandum dated May 1991 for the submunition and its original missile carrier, the Tri-Service Standoff Attack Missile. With the termination of the Army’s participation in this missile program and the selection of the ATACMS as the new carrier in 1993, new criteria were subsequently developed. In a 1994 classified report on the brilliant antiarmor submunition, we raised the issue of the lack of sufficient testing requirements in the criteria. We recommended that the Secretary of Defense direct the Secretary of the Army to conduct substantial system-level testing before low-rate initial production was approved. DOD’s written response to that report stated that the decision to start low-rate initial production would not be made without significant system-level testing, including both the carrier and the submunition. In addition, DOD stated that the criteria proposed by the Army for entering low-rate initial production would require the successful completion of multiple system tests with the ATACMS as the carrier. The response also stated that the planned testing for the submunition to support the low-rate initial production decision was consistent with and exceeded the original criteria established in the 1991 acquisition decision memorandum and that the criteria would have to be approved by DOD. Nevertheless, the submunition’s revised criteria, approved on October 4, 1995, do not require the Army to demonstrate that the ATACMS Block II can successfully dispense the submunition. We could not determine why such a demonstration is no longer required. The revised criteria call for the submunition to meet or exceed its performance specifications in its requirements document. Under these specifications, the Army will consider (1) how many kills are achieved per load of submunitions fired, (2) how well the system will operate in countermeasures, (3) how well the system will perform in degraded weather conditions, (4) how lethal the system is, and (5) how reliable the system operates. According to project office representatives, many of these requirements will initially have to be met using simulations but will eventually be verified through actual flight testing. However, the flight testing will not occur until after the low-rate initial production decision has been made. While the current criteria do not require that the submunition be dispensed from its carrier, officials from OSD, Army, and project office acknowledge that this is a key issue for the system’s performance. Army and OSD representatives agree that they would like to see a demonstration of the carrier successfully dispensing the submunition before the submunition’s production decision. However, this is not a requirement. The brilliant antiarmor submunition’s development is significantly behind its original and revised schedules. The submunition received approval to enter its engineering and manufacturing development phase on May 15, 1991. The plan at that time was for the Defense Acquisition Board to hold its low-rate production decision review in November 1994. However, because of a change in the submunition’s carrier and the technical difficulties being experienced with individual subcomponents, the Army approved a new program plan on September 22, 1995. This plan stretched out the development program by 3 years and rescheduled the low-rate initial production review for December 1997. Despite the change in the program’s plan, the submunition is still behind schedule. The submunition is currently behind its revised design verification test completion estimate by 6 months and behind its revised contractor development testing completion date by 8 months. Army officials maintain that the past slippage will have no impact on the scheduled December 1997 low-rate initial production decision, but admit that the schedule is extremely ambitious. Table 1 shows the September 1995 scheduled dates and the estimated slippage since the revised estimates. A significant portion of the submunition’s test plan remains uncompleted. The project office has added five development flights to the test program because of technical problems, without extending the time to complete all the tests. Three of these flights were added by the contractor to verify hardware design changes that were made due to prior flight test failures. The other two flights were added as preproduction verification tests as a result of previously failed flight tests. The plan is to complete development flight testing and qualification testing in November 1997. According to the project manager, the entire test schedule is tight, and there is no time available prior to the scheduled production decision to conduct additional tests should any new problems develop. For example, after a July 1997 developmental test failure, the project office continued with other planned tests without allowing time to analyze the failure or do a retest. All of the submunition’s flight testing will be done using a test aircraft with subsonic deployment rather than the supersonic deployment from its intended carrier, the ATACMS Block II missile. The Army has not included a flight test in its submunition’s test plans to evaluate whether or not the carrier can dispense the final tactical submunition configuration. However, the Army plans to conduct three ATACMS Block II flight tests to dispense the submunition within the next several months. During the first two tests, a nontactical version of the submunition will be used, but during the final test in December 1997, tactical submunitions will be used. According to Army representatives, data from this test will not be used in making the submunition’s low-rate initial production decision, since a test to dispense the submunition is not required. In addition, the ATACMS Block II missile tactical dispense tests are dependent upon the submunition’s subcomponent qualification and development tests being completed by then. According to the former ATACMS Block II product manager, if any problems result from the submunition flight tests, the ATACMS Block II dispense tests would not be done until after the December 1997 low-rate initial production decision. The final Block II test might not occur until after January 1998. The Army’s ability to complete the remaining portion of the test schedule on time will be a significant challenge. The testing completed to date has uncovered numerous problems that have resulted in design changes, additional testing, and schedule delays. Some component failures have required repeated efforts to resolve. For example, the bands that secure the wings and tail fins to the submunition’s body prior to it being dispensed from the missile have caused problems during two flight tests. When the submunition is dispensed, the bands are designed to fall away, allowing the wings and tail fins to deploy. During the first flight, however, the bands did not fall away from the submunition and prevented the wings from successfully deploying. Although the project office believed the problem had been solved, during a subsequent flight, the bands again failed to fall away, causing the submunition to crash. The second redesigned band system performed successfully in a May 1997 flight test. The entire process to redesign the bands required approximately 10 months to complete. The three other components that have taken the longest time to qualify and have contributed to the bulk of the schedule delay are the inertial measurement unit, the deceleration and stabilization system, and the infrared seeker. Qualification testing was scheduled to be completed in November 1995. However, under the current schedule, qualification testing is not expected to be complete until November 1997. The design and production of the inertial measurement unit, which provides in-flight data to adjust the submunition’s flight path, continue to be significantly delayed. According to the product manager, the problems with the unit are the result of the change in carriers. As a result of this change, the unit had to be redesigned, and that effort has taken more than 2 years. As of the June 1997 performance report, the contractor had delivered 34 of 95 units and is at least 6 months behind schedule.