When the Department of Defense Homeland Secrity Wants It's Money Back, You've Screwed Up

So, the Coast Guard wants to to stretch and improve some (49) patrol boats, and the contract goes out to Lockheed-Martin and Northrop-Grumman, with the former doing the new systems, and the latter doing the hulls.

Small problem though, the systems don't work, and the stretched boats buckle and leak. What's more they leaked more than water. They used unshielded cables on the upgrade, meaning that your average Russian fishing trawler could listen in to a secure military network.

So the Coast Guard is asking for its money back:

The U.S. Coast Guard has asked a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp and Northrop Grumman Corp to pay $96.1 million for eight patrol boats that it modified, but that cannot be used.

I'm shocked, but less so than if it happened on a DoD, as opposed to a DHS contract^*.

The coast guard is decommissioning (basically scrapping) the boats in question, and is taking back management of the program from the LSI (see my rundown on the LSI process, and why congress is moving to ban the process, here) of the , "$24 billion, 25-year modernization program known as Deepwater".

Wouldn't happen in the DoD. Too many generals who plan to work their retirements with the defense contractors.

^*The strikethrough in the title is irony, not a correction.