Random Biggest Military Wastes of Money (16 items)

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  (#7) Future Combat System - $19 Billion

  Work began on the Future Combat System in 1999, with the intention of building an integrated set of manned and unmanned combat vehicles that would dominate the 21st century battlefield. Then the September 11th attacks happened, and military priorities changed completely, requiring a redesign of the FCS. Ballooning costs, technical problems, and the budgetary drain of the Iraq War sent the bill for the program sky high. When it was finally cancelled in 2009, $19 billion had been spent - and just eight prototype vehicles were built.
  
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  (#9) Zumwalt Class Destroyer - $3 Billion per Ship

  Likely the most sophisticated warship in existence, the Zumwalt-class destroyer is also one of the most expensive. A stealth-guided missile destroyer intended to replace current US destroyers, many of which are three decades old, the DD(X) program that birthed the Zumwalt was so plagued with cost overruns that the initial order of 32 ships was cut to 10, then three. Therefore, each ship costs over $3 billion - so expensive that Navy officers are reluctant to use them in combat.
  
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  (#2) Hitler's Atlantic Wall - $200 Billion

  Soon after Nazi Germany conquered France, Adolf Hitler ordered the building of fortification all along the Atlantic coast to protect it from Allied landings. Fuehrer Directive 40 called for 15,000 individual emplacements to be manned by over a quarter of a million Germans and foreign conscripts - all in less than a year.

  The cost of the Atlantic Wall was staggering, certainly in lives (much of the work was done by slave labor), but also in material and money. 1.2 millions tons of steel, enough to build 20,000 tanks, was used, along with 17 million cubic meters of concrete. The total cost was the equivalent of $200 billion in today's money, a cost that Germany could barely afford. Famed General Erwin Rommel declared the Wall to be a farce in 1943, and he was right - it was breached in less than a day, with the vast majority of the emplacements either never finished or never used.
  
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  (#5) MX Missile - $25 Billion

  A 1970s nuclear deterrent, the LGM-118 (or MX Missile, as the program was usually called) was a land-based ICBM that could carry up to 10 re-entry vehicles, each armed with a 300-kiloton W87 warhead. It could deliver a devastating strike to the Soviet Union that could essentially win a nuclear war in one blow. The program was cancelled and restarted several times due to issues with housing the missiles, before President Reagan approved their deployment in hardened silos. 

  The program suffered massive delays and cost overruns, and the missiles themselves were hard to maintain and expensive to build. The MX ended up costing over $25 billion to make just 114 missiles. The last were taken out of service in 2003 - and the Cold War they were meant to win lasted just a few years after they were deployed.
  
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  (#3) Strategic Defense Initiative - $100-150 Billion

  Announced just a few weeks after Ronald Reagan's "evil empire" speech, the Strategic Defense Initiative was meant to be a space-based system of lasers and satellites that would shoot down any Russian intercontinental or submarine-launched nuclear missile headed toward the United States.

  What it became was a black hole of theoretical research, pop culture ridicule, political tension, and spent money. A staggering amount of money. Estimates on the cost of SDI research and development start at $100 billion, and run as high as $150 billion. All for a system that was dependent on technology that was never developed past the theoretical stage. Thankfully, some of the money was spent on basic science research, so it wasn't a total waste.
  
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  (#12) M247 Sergeant York - $6 Billion

  Designed as a counterpart to mobile Soviet self-propelled anti-aircraft guns (SPAAG), the M247 was meant to deploy two 40mm cannons on a radar controlled turret. The procurement process was plagued with arguments over what design to go with, and what cannons to use. Once a design was chosen, it had severe problems with its radar, including an inability to discern enemy helicopters from trees. To save money, off-the-shelf parts were used, including World War Two era Bofors guns.

  But design and construction pressed on. When the tank was finally unveiled, the fire control radar mistook a reviewing stand for a target, sending observers scrambling for cover, lest they be shot to pieces. The M247 was finally cancelled after only 50 had been made, and most were bombed as targets. All told, the US spent over $6 billion on four different experimental SPAAG systems, none of which worked.
  

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