http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/34914296

Trends in weapon system operating and support costs

In this period of diminishing Department of Defense budgets, an increasing percentage of each budget goes to the operating and support (O & S) accounts. This slows modernization of weapon inventories and could cause the average age of weapon systems in use to rise, perhaps to unacceptable levels. To address this situation, decision makers must find ways to lower the O & S costs of existing and future systems. This study was to determine if past efforts to reduce O & S costs have been effective. DoD's efforts to reduce per unit weapon system O & S costs have not been fully successful. In half of the cases we studied, new weapons were more expensive to operate, and in the other half they were the same or less expensive. However, most new weapon systems are more complex, more expensive to buy, and have significantly more capability than their predecessors. When you take asset value and capability into account, new systems are often less expensive to operate than the systems they replaced. The study does not address potential O & S cost increases avoided through cost-reducing design initiatives.

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