Cost Cutter

The relatively slow A-10 Thunderbolt is a "close-support" aircraft, intended to swoop in low over a battlefield and savage the enemy's infantry and armor. When the prototype jets started flying in 1975, some Air Force brass were worried that its GAU8 antitank cannon was not up to snuff. The nose-mounted, 30-mm weapon was like a Gatling gun, with seven rotating barrels. And like a Gatling gun, it seemed a little oldfashioned, unworthy of a state-of-the-art Air Force. Colonel Bob Dilger was ordered to Dayton to take over the GAU8 program.

It did not take Dilger, a fighter pilot and former dogfight instructor, long to decide that he did not want to replace the GAU8 with some expensive missile. The General Electric cannon performed spectacularly in tests. Over a simulated battlefield in the Nevada desert, his A-10 pilots destroyed 65% of their targeted tanks at a distance of 3,000 ft., and more than 80% at 2,000 ft. The cannon fires off 70 rounds a second. Says Dilger: "We found that the optimal burst to kill a tank was only 35 rounds."

Dilger set himself a second challenge: getting down the price of the armor-piercing ammunition. Pentagon accountants figured it would cost as much as $83 per round, which the Air Force was prepared to pay. Dilger decided not to impose any product specifications, telling the two manufacturers, Aerojet Ordnance Co. in Downey, Calif., and Honeywell's defense systems division in Minneapolis, that he simply wanted 30-mm ammo that worked, for the lowest possible price. The companies still compete hard, improving efficiency and cutting prices to win the major share of each year's production contract. Average cost per shell: less than $15. Over five years Dilger used the savings to further refine the cannon, yet still managed to turn back a surplus of $124 million that had been allocated for the GAU8 program. He is proud. Dilger's reward? No promotion. A new, unattractive desk job. In 1980, colleagues say, he quit the service in disgust. Today Bob Dilger, 49, raises corn and cattle on a farm outside Xenia, Ohio. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.