A tale of two (military) procurements

Procurement of custom made goods is hard. Especially when the need is in the future and the requirements are set by successive committees. Maybe it's possible to learn from experience.

 From Defense One:

The Army made a tank it doesn’t need and can’t use. Now it’s figuring out what to do with it.
The M10 Booker busted its requirements from the beginning. It’s a case study in how Army procurement wants to change. by Meghann Myers

"As the 101st Airborne Division prepared last year to receive their first M10 Bookers—armored combat vehicles designed specifically for infantry forces—staff planners realized something: eight of the 11 bridges on Fort Campbell would crack under the weight of the “light tank.”

It turns out that though the vehicle was initially conceptualized as relatively lightweight—airdroppable by C-130—the twists and turns of the Army requirements process had rendered the tank too heavy to roll across the infrastructure at the infantry-centric Kentucky post, and nobody had thought about that until it was too late.

“This is not a story of acquisition gone awry,” Alex Miller, the Army’s chief technology officer, told Defense One. “This is a story of the requirements process creating so much inertia that the Army couldn't get out of its own way, and it just kept rolling and rolling and rolling.”

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How cargo drones could reshape Marine Corps resupply
Medium-sized cargo drones could be key to effective distributed operations. One company is rushing to be the first to deliver them.  by Patrick Tucker

"The Marine Corps is looking for medium-sized cargo drones to handle supply missions across the far-flung islands of the Pacific. One company hopes its acquisition of a drone from an uncrewed-logistics pioneer will put it in the running.

On Tuesday, Piasecki Aircraft Corporation announced it had acquired Kaman Air Vehicles’ KARGO program, a medium-lift drone that fits in a standard trailer and can lift a 500-pound payload for long distances, or a 1,000-pound payload for short missions of about 100 nautical miles, said President and CEO John Piasecki. But those numbers will likely change as the Marines examine their resupply needs more fully.

The Army and the Marines both need a variety of cargo drone types and payloads, from relatively small ones that only travel short distances to what Piasecki called medium-range drones, capable of carrying 500- to 800-pound payloads, as well as even heavier-duty ones. The Marines are discussing the tradeoffs of extending the payload requirement to 1,400 pounds, he said.

“It’s all [in] flux, and so we'll see how the Marine Corps requirements evolve,” Piasecki said."