As an adaptation from Lt. Col. James G. Burton's 1993 book of the same name, 'The Pentaton Wars' dramatises the ludicrous time/money wasting going on in the many Pentagon weapons programmes during the cold war.
The film focuses on the development of the M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle. Burton (an U.S. Air Force Lt. Col played by Cary Elwes) is appointed, by Congress, to test and evaluate the vehicle that has been under development by the U.S. Army for 17 years at a cost of $14 billion. The press has caught onto the astonishing waste and incompetence, and pressure is applied to prove that the whole thing isn't just throwing away vast quantities of money. Politicians, sensitive to the press coverage, begin to insist that some of these weapons programmes actually go into production, rather than just sitting around on the drawing board and testing grounds.
The General in charge of the programme (played by Kelsey Grammar) is superficially friendly and cooperative to Burton, but his main aim is to stall and divert him into doing nothing to interfere with the gravy train -- just as so many previous appointees have avoided doing in the past, to the benefit of their careers. No-one wants to sabotage a hugely lucrative programme and find themselves ostracised.
Burton, though, has other ideas. After observing a deeply flawed test of the vehicle he begins to dig deeper. He looks into the history of the programme and finds designers being constantly asked to redesign it to fit in with ever shifting fads. The vehicle started out as a troop carrier, until one General realised he could chop a big chunk out of his budget by merging his "scout" project with it -- meaning it now had to have guns, a turret, detection equipment and be twice as fast (meaning it carries half as many people with less armour to protect them)... and so on. At one point, another General even suggests making it amphibious. After the 17 years of this, the end result is a hideous mongrel that can't perform any role particularly well.
Burton's investigations into the testing methods of the programme are no more encouraging. The "successful" tests performed on the armour are supposed to have been done with Soviet weaponry, but were actually done with Romanian RPGs that can't even blast through a metal door ("Romania is part of the Soviet-block" is the excuse). Other tests of its resistance to fire after being hit are done when the gunpowder in the carried ammo is replaced by sand, and the fuel tank is either empty or full of water. A British Army report into the type of aluminium used for the vehicle (when hit by a shell it burns and releases a toxic gas) is buried. Burton's attempts to run his own tests are constantly undermined and sabotaged. In one of the film's finest moments, Burton's idea to use sheep to test what would happen to a crew when hit by an RPG is blocked by the General setting up an ENTIRE NEW DEPARTMENT called "Ruminant procurement", thereby ensuring it will take 8 months for Burton's spec to be examined (type of sheep, length of coat, gender etc etc) and a further 8 months to actually procure them. Meanwhile, the under-pressure General is forcing the vehicle into production despite its manifest failings.
The whole thing is played for laughs... there was no other way to treat it really. I haven't read the original book (but I will now), so I can't say how faithful it is, but it's a very smart and funny film. Anyone who has worked in a large organisation will be familiar with the goings-on... but only colossally budgeted ones like the military can take it to such comedic extremes.
The film focuses on the development of the M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle. Burton (an U.S. Air Force Lt. Col played by Cary Elwes) is appointed, by Congress, to test and evaluate the vehicle that has been under development by the U.S. Army for 17 years at a cost of $14 billion. The press has caught onto the astonishing waste and incompetence, and pressure is applied to prove that the whole thing isn't just throwing away vast quantities of money. Politicians, sensitive to the press coverage, begin to insist that some of these weapons programmes actually go into production, rather than just sitting around on the drawing board and testing grounds.
The General in charge of the programme (played by Kelsey Grammar) is superficially friendly and cooperative to Burton, but his main aim is to stall and divert him into doing nothing to interfere with the gravy train -- just as so many previous appointees have avoided doing in the past, to the benefit of their careers. No-one wants to sabotage a hugely lucrative programme and find themselves ostracised.
Burton, though, has other ideas. After observing a deeply flawed test of the vehicle he begins to dig deeper. He looks into the history of the programme and finds designers being constantly asked to redesign it to fit in with ever shifting fads. The vehicle started out as a troop carrier, until one General realised he could chop a big chunk out of his budget by merging his "scout" project with it -- meaning it now had to have guns, a turret, detection equipment and be twice as fast (meaning it carries half as many people with less armour to protect them)... and so on. At one point, another General even suggests making it amphibious. After the 17 years of this, the end result is a hideous mongrel that can't perform any role particularly well.
Burton's investigations into the testing methods of the programme are no more encouraging. The "successful" tests performed on the armour are supposed to have been done with Soviet weaponry, but were actually done with Romanian RPGs that can't even blast through a metal door ("Romania is part of the Soviet-block" is the excuse). Other tests of its resistance to fire after being hit are done when the gunpowder in the carried ammo is replaced by sand, and the fuel tank is either empty or full of water. A British Army report into the type of aluminium used for the vehicle (when hit by a shell it burns and releases a toxic gas) is buried. Burton's attempts to run his own tests are constantly undermined and sabotaged. In one of the film's finest moments, Burton's idea to use sheep to test what would happen to a crew when hit by an RPG is blocked by the General setting up an ENTIRE NEW DEPARTMENT called "Ruminant procurement", thereby ensuring it will take 8 months for Burton's spec to be examined (type of sheep, length of coat, gender etc etc) and a further 8 months to actually procure them. Meanwhile, the under-pressure General is forcing the vehicle into production despite its manifest failings.
The whole thing is played for laughs... there was no other way to treat it really. I haven't read the original book (but I will now), so I can't say how faithful it is, but it's a very smart and funny film. Anyone who has worked in a large organisation will be familiar with the goings-on... but only colossally budgeted ones like the military can take it to such comedic extremes.