Most expensive military project failures

[The Brain]

That time when Olaf the Hairy, high chief of all the vikings, accidentally ordered 80,000 battle helmets with the horns on the inside.

But not post-WW2.

[Barrister]

Is the F35 a true failure, or just much more costly and functional than most countries want/can afford right now?

Honest question.

It's still under development (even as it is under production, which is by itself kind of insane) so maybe they'll be able to pull a rabbit out of a hat, but it seems like it's going to be a failure. 

[grumbler]

Is the F35 a true failure, or just much more costly and functional than most countries want/can afford right now?

Honest question.

It's still under development (even as it is under production, which is by itself kind of insane) so maybe they'll be able to pull a rabbit out of a hat, but it seems like it's going to be a failure.

Not sure why you think it is a failure.  It is late and more costly than planned, but has the capabilities the buyers wanted.

The Zumawalt class destroyers cost as much as a Nimitz class carrier (including R&D) but don't work.

[11B4V]

The Zumwalt class destroyers probably top the list.

The B-58 Hustler is probably a good one to research, as it was famously expensive and never really panned out, being taken out of service after less than 10 years.  The B-52 was introduced five years earlier than the B-58 and lasted (so far) fifty years later in service.

internment


But the B-58 is cool looking...

[Tonitrus]

The F-35 (which I would say is still a bit early to say if/how much of a failure it is) might be all flashy and headline-grabbing, being a fighter jet and all.  But how about that KC-46 Pegasus...

[grumbler]

The F-35 (which I would say is still a bit early to say if/how much of a failure it is) might be all flashy and headline-grabbing, being a fighter jet and all.  But how about that KC-46 Pegasus...

Not sure why you rate the KC-46 a failure.  It's had some teething problems, but nothing extraordinary.

[crazy canuck]

Won't be most expensive by total dollars, but I thought I'd throw out a couple Canadian examples:

-Upholder/Victoria class submarines.  Built by the Brits in the 70s, only in service for about a decade.  Then sold to Canada, where they've been nothing but trouble.
-the 30 year saga to replace the Sea King helicopters
-and yeah, the F-35

Yes. All those.  And of course the Avro Arrow.

Hey, Brazen good to hear from you. 

[mongers]

Won't be most expensive by total dollars, but I thought I'd throw out a couple Canadian examples:

-Upholder/Victoria class submarines.  Built by the Brits in the 70s, only in service for about a decade.  Then sold to Canada, where they've been nothing but trouble.
-the 30 year saga to replace the Sea King helicopters
-and yeah, the F-35

Yes. All those.  And of course the Avro Arrow.

Hey, Brazen good to hear from you.

[Razgovory]

The German G11 is example of costly failure, though the failure was more a result of politics than design.

[KRonn]

IIRC there was a very costly program for the toilet in I thing the A6 Prowler* navy jet, or at the least the toilet seat itself was Very expensive.


* Not totally sure it was the prowler, but I think was some naval EW/recon jet, probably not the E2 and I don't think the S3.

Pretty sure that was the P-3 with the toilet seat thing.  Couldn't have been the A-6 or S-3 as those didn't have toilets.

As a reservist I worked maintenance on P3's, and just flew a couple times for short hops but never had to use the toilets. One of those short flights was when we first got the planes and I and another ground crewman went along for touch and go landings. Man, we got so nauseous!    Still didn't use the toilets and I have no first hand knowledge of how good or bad the things were.   

[celedhring]

The jury is still out there with the F-35. To be classed as a total failure, imho, a project should never reach operationability or be removed after a short time.

[Razgovory]

The jury is still out there with the F-35. To be classed as a total failure, imho, a project should never reach operationability or be removed after a short time.

Yeah, it may stay in service for decades, who knows?

One thing that should be considered is that while a program may fail, the work that went into it might prove useful on another project.  An example would be the MBT 70, a Joint American-German effort to build a new tank.  The project failed but informed the development of the M1 Abrams and the Leopard II.

[Malthus]

The Zumwalt Destroyer program mentioned by Grumbler is the best case study I know of, of a recent military procurement project that ran completely and expensively off the rails.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/12/zumwalt-class-navy-stealth-destroyer-program-failure/

[Tonitrus]

Another one that comes to mind...as I think I played a PC game/simulator for it once.  The RAH-66 Comanche.

[Hansmeister]

The Army's FCS comes to mind, it was an utter conceptual fail, though you could broaden the fail to all Army tracked armored vehicle development over the last quarter century, from the Crusader to the GCS, billions of dollars were spent on these platforms without anything to show for it.  At least the Zumwalt was actually built, flawed as it is.

The Army Reserve spent over $2 billion on a new web-based personnel system that crashed on day one and was abandoned after a few months as being unfix-able.  Not as sexy as a weapon system but an epic fail nonetheless (this happened a year after the obamacare fiasco).

The Navy's LCS was also a huge failure, the Navy wanted it to be a swiss army knife that solved many of its problems, it ended up solving none of them.

The ACU uniform, whose camouflage only worked if you were trying to hide in a gravel pit.  Whatever procurement officer signed off on that must have gotten a nice consulting job with the manufacturer afterwards.