Word: viperous
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Another classic case of waste and confusion involves the Viper antitank weapon. Ten years ago, the Army decided to provide infantrymen with cheap, light antitank bazookas. The Vipers were projected to cost about $75 apiece, but design changes began almost as soon as the weapon was proposed. The weight, it was decided, must be reduced to less than seven pounds This meant the warhead had to weigh less than a pound, which sharply limited its potential destructive power. The size of the rocket motor was also reduced to cut blast noise. By the time the contractor finished redesigning...
Even Congress, which is usually tolerant of procurement high jinks, was appalled by the Viper debacle. So the lawmakers cut the program last year. But is it dead? Buried in the 1983 Defense budget is $10 million for testing a light antitank system. The 1985 budget authorizes $122 million to purchase the first weapons. Like many discredited weapons
...systems, the Viper is a Lazarus. A slavish devotion to the latest high technology is perhaps the most basic cause of problems in the weapons-buying process. It results in massive sacrifices in the quantity of arms to achieve what seems on the surface to be improvements in quality. "The fallacy of the past 40 years has been that technology will save us," says the Heritage Foundation's Kuhn. The trend toward relying on high-tech weapons to offset the numerical advantages enjoyed by the Soviet bloc accelerated during the tenure of Robert McNamara as Defense Secretary...
Destroying tanks is expensive too. Six years ago the Army decided to commission its own shoulder-held antitank weapon, called the Viper, to replace a Norwegian model costing $135. The U.S. version would be cheaper, a mere $78, and have a longer range. But the first models proved too noisy, so the firing tube was lengthened. When these were tested, part of the barrel blew off. Subjected to the prescribed two-hour water-immersion test, the weapon failed after five minutes underwater. The Norwegian model now costs $250. The Viper, if Congress does not shoot it down, is expected...
America is the home of legal liberty. Our country is so great that even this small viper who crawls between heaven and earth should be with decency and tried and punished without prejudice...