Pentagon’s top new weapons programs are 12 years behind schedule: Watchdog

[rangerrebew]

Pentagon’s top new weapons programs are 12 years behind schedule: Watchdog
By Michael Peck
 Jul 6, 2026, 10:50 AM
 
The news was almost predictable. For yet another year, auditors have found that America’s new weapons aren’t being delivered on time.

“DOD plans to invest over $2.4 trillion to develop and acquire its costliest weapon programs,” according to the Government Accountability Office’s 2026 annual report on major defense acquisition programs, or MDAP.


“Schedule delays persisted across MDAPs, signaling overly optimistic time frames,” according to the GAO report, which examined 104 of the Pentagon’s most expensive weapons programs. “The overall average time frame to deliver a capability increased this year to over 12 years. Further, several MDAPs have not set new delivery dates or are delaying critical interim milestones.

“By keeping delivery dates static, these programs raise questions about how realistic their estimates are. This means the 12-year average will likely increase in the future.”

[rangerrebew]

On the plus side, I'll bet every program for illegal immigrants is on time.  That's much more important than military weapons,

[DefiantMassRINO]

Not uncommon when a vendor is selling vaporware (doesn't exist yet) to customers.

Budget folks need dates and costs.  Contracting folks need dates, costs, and deliverable milestones. 

How do you come up with dates, costs, and deliverable milestones for something that may have never been done before?  The vendor and the customer make them up to get the ball rolling, and adjust them as the project/program proceeds.  They may also make up the specifications as they go along, which increases costs and pushes out dates.

Conquering the unknown is uncertain, messy, and expensive.  Budgets and contracts do not allow for unknowns.  You make stuff up and pick any convenient number or date to fill in the blanks.

And that's before mismanagement adds costs and delays.