Summary: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO: (1) assessed the Department of Defense's (DOD) appropriation request for fiscal year (FY) 1987 for its ammunition and production-base support programs; and (2) examined the status of prior years' funding to identify any excess funds.
GAO found inadequate justification for $1.6 billion of the $4.9 billion of the FY 1987 DOD budget request for ammunition items and $177.6 million of the $353.9 million for production facilities. GAO believes that the DOD appropriation requests are overstated because: (1) ammunition inventories would exceed requirements; (2) program quantities would exceed the stipulated amount; (3) DOD would not need certain items to meet FY 1987 delivery schedules; (4) certain items have unresolved component problems; (5) some items had uncertain test results; (6) some items would not meet military training needs; (7) some items' large program quantities are not cost-effective; (8) some unit cost estimates are overstated; (9) DOD had not conducted required operational testing on some items that it was developing; and (10) plans to expand existing production facilities or build new ones were incomplete.
