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NSIAD-83-49 1 (1983-08-23)

handle is hein.gao/gaobabnce0001 and id is 1 raw text is: UNITED STATES GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE S, 6WASHINGTON, D.C. 20548 NATIONAL SECURITY AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS DIVISION B-209124 AUGUST 23,1983 The honorable Caspar W. Weinberger The Secretary of Defense Attention: DOD Office of the Inspector General Deputy Assistant Inspector General for GAO Report Analysis Dear Mr. Secretary: Subject: Air Force HH-60D Helicopter Acquisition Program (GAO/NSIAD-83-49) This is to advise you that we have completed our review of the HH-60D Helicopter Acquisition Program. In the course of the review, we developed several concerns about the program that we brought to the attention of your staff and the Air Force in a draft report earlier this year. A number of events have occur- red since then which are recapped below. In our draft we observed that the HH-60D may be more cap- able than existing helicopters, but the planned HH-60D fleet is probably far too small to be very productive in a major con- flict, based on our review of an Air Force study of such mis- sions. Further, we observed that losses are likely to be pro- hibitively high. We anticipated recommending to the Congress tha: it direct the Secretary of the Air Force to present a cred- ible basis for establishing the appropriate size of the combat rescue fleet and for projecting its relative contribution to combat effectiveness. Following discussion of that draft with personnel from your Office and the Air Force, and after reviewing documents which they provided, we continued to believe that the Air Force had not convincingly demonstrated the extent to which acquisition of the HE-60D fleet would enhance combat rescue effectiveness. We then considered suggesting that you direct the Secretary of the Air Force to prepare an empirically verifiable estimate of how much more effectively combat rescue can be accomplished with the pli'nned HH-60D fleet than without it. At a subsequent meeting, Air Force and Office of the Secretary of Defense officials indi- cated Defense could comply with this suggestion. (951720)