This is a good example of why it’s a bad idea to allow politicians to get too deeply involved in military acquisition and logistics:
The U.S. Army wants to use more precision “smart” weapons. To that end they have replaced unguided MLRS (227mm) rockets with a GPS guided one. There is now a very popular GPS guided 155mm artillery shell in use. Laser guided Hellfire missiles are widely used by helicopter gunships. But there’s still one unguided “dumb” weapon that the army just can’t seem to get away from; their unguided 70mm (2.75 inch) rockets. Back in 2003, the army planned to begin phasing out these rockets. But, instead, during the last five years, the army has purchased nearly a billion dollars worth of 70mm rockets. Not because they wanted to, but because the politicians from Vermont, where the rocket is manufactured, had enough clout to force the army buy over 100,000 70mm rockets they don’t want, won’t use, and will eventually have to dispose of. That last step will cost more money, unless they can find some foreign country that wants to buy them, cheap.
I guess the plant that produces them is in a district represented by a member of a powerful committee in Washington.
