Experts contradict Pentagon on anti-RPG tests

In March 2006, the Army awarded Raytheon a $70 million FCS contract to investigate promising RPG-defense technologies — from all sources, foreign and domestic — and present the Army with a ‘best of breed’ solution that could be fielded both on current combat vehicles, like the Stryker, Abrams and Bradley, as well as the Manned Ground Vehicle, being built as part of the FCS.

As Col. Donald Kotchman, the Army official overseeing the process, told NBC News in a June 26, 2006 interview: “We did not contract with Raytheon for their system. They partnered with a variety of vendors in the development of a solution to meet the requirements that would bring the best of capabilities to the service.”

But that’s not exactly what happened. In May 2006, a technical team was put together and, in the span of three days, evaluated Trophy, Raytheon’s own system — called Quick Kill — as well as five other Active Protection Systems. We asked Kotchman about the team’s composition:

Lisa Myers: Do you know how many of the 21-person technical team worked for Raytheon?

Kotchman: To the best of my knowledge, none.

Army documents obtained by NBC News, however, show that nine of the 21 technical experts — as well as all the administrative personnel — were from Raytheon.

Despite a mandate to present the Army with a solution incorporating the best elements of other systems, the selection team concluded that of the seven APS considered, Raytheon’s own Quick Kill was “the clear winner” and “scored highest in the trade study in all categories except risk.”

Myers: It appears as though Raytheon was allowed to select itself.

Kotchman: I don’t know that to be a fact, and so I really can't comment on it.

The Army later told NBC News that, its own document notwithstanding, the technical team actually consisted of 30 people plus two administrative assistants and that a total of eight people were from Raytheon.

“That sure doesn't look like an objective panel to me,” says Phil Coyle, a former principal adviser to the secretary of defense on weapons testing and evaluation who is now a senior advisor with the Center for Defense Information. “It just doesn't pass the ho-ho test when you have that many people from one company on the selection panel and then that company is the one that's chosen.”

Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson, a top Army acquisition official, told Congress that the selection process was free from taint and that Raytheon’s Quick Kill was selected over Trophy because it was “deemed to be less power, less weight, less volume, [and] provide the 360-degree hemispherical capability.”

In other words, Sorenson said Raytheon’s system would fit inside a Stryker without drawing too much power and could handle so-called top-attack threats — where the enemy shoots nearly straight down onto the vehicle.

Although Kotchman told NBC News that Quick Kill wouldn’t be ready for fielding until 2011 at the earliest, Sorenson later testified that Raytheon’s system would be ready to “hang on a vehicle in about 2008” and that the Army was already beginning to do integration work to put the system on the Stryker.

By contrast, he said, Trophy was too big for the Stryker, drew too much power and couldn’t handle top-attack. '“Our testers said, at best, even with Trophy system, at best, today if we had the system, and get it integrated, to get it tested, and then ultimately get fielded, we're looking at 2008 at best.”

The clear implication, say congressional sources, was that Raytheon’s system was easier to integrate onto a Stryker and that the system could be fielded — and out protecting U.S. forces — at least as fast as Trophy and with less hassle.

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