Point, Counterpoint

Top Pentagon weapons tester Michael Gilmore has circulated a point-by-point rebuttal to some of the claims made by a General Dynamics C4 Systems executive last week about the company's product in the high-stakes business of Army radios. Gilmore's document, which consists of an Inside the Army story interrupted with insertions to rebut key points, was circulated to staff on Capitol Hill today, according to a spokeswoman.

For example, the ITA story -- originally posted Oct. 12 on InsideDefense.com -- stated:

Chris Marzilli, president of GDC4, told ITA in an Oct. 11 interview that the Manpack recently demonstrated that all of its issues had been addressed during a follow-up test at Ft. Huachuca.

"It's a good day for JTRS," he said. "We knew the results at WSMR were not representative of the product."

. . . to which Gilmore's memo responds:

During its Limited User Test (LUT) during NIE 11.2 in June 2011, the Manpack radio demonstrated poor range performance for both SINCGARS and SRW waveforms. It also demonstrated inconsistent voice quality and poor reliability during this test. Dismounted Manpack radios also experienced heat problems; on three occasions during the LUT users chose to turn off their Manpack radios rather than risk a heat-related radio failure. These same problems were seen during the benign environment of Government Developmental Test (GDT) 2 conducted at Ft. Huachuca in March 2012. During GDT 2, fewer than 20 percent of Manpack's SINCGARS calls were completed at ranges more than 5 km, radio temperatures exceeded safe levels, and reliability was not improved. Because of these numerous flaws, the DASD for Developmental Test and Evaluation stated that Manpack was not sufficiently mature to conduct the planned MOT&E in May 2012. During the MOT&E, the Manpack’s SRW waveform range was improved, but it once again demonstrated poor SINCGARS range, poor reliability, and heat problems. Over 60 essential function failures were recorded during MOT&E. After MOT&E the Manpack PM identified 14 separate hardware or software flaws which the contractor attempted to fix prior to September’s GDT 3. The contractor's actions to address identified flaws resulted in better SINCGARS performance during GDT 3, but also revealed four new hardware or software flaws which the contractor will have to address to enable the radio to meet reliability requirements. Note that the follow-up test at Fort Huachuca was a relatively short test conducted in a benign developmental test environment, and hence it was insufficient to conclusively demonstrate that the flaws seen during MOT&E have been satisfactorily addressed.

View the Oct. 12 InsideDefense.com story.

View the full DOT&E point-by-point response.

View today's story that highlights Gilmore's response.