The software design syllabus I teach refers to MOTS as modified off the shelf which bugs me no end.

Worse is that it refers to COTS as customised off the shelf. FFS people.

Believe me, I understand the frustration.  Years ago I worked in a building that housed numerous US Government agencies.  Each had its own set of acronyms, many of which used the same letters meaning different things (DOD seemed particularly popular, for some reason).  I could almost swear that the motto was "All acronyms, all the time."   At least it provided some entertainment since my coworkers and I spent a fair amount of time coming up with entertaining or off-color phrases to match the acronyms' letters.

No further progress, it seems: https://www.overtdefense.com/2021/07/01/impacts-of-noise-result-in-suspension-of-ajax-vehicle-trials/

AJAX should be cancelled, it’s been a train wreck since TRACER.https://twitter.com/nicholadrummond/status/1410509736433401856?s=20

I regard the UK's record (and probably other nations too, but I'm less familiar with them) of consistent failure in acquiring new equipment with a kind of horrified fascination.

I have a suspicion that with highly complex new systems, so many different firms get involved that there is no-one who has a overall grip of what is going on, or is held accountable when it fails.

I can understand problems occurring with cutting-edge, high tech and therefore high risk projects, but a medium-weight tracked AFV? How can anyone mess that up so badly, then keep carrying on with it as if everything's OK?

What's the one variant of Praeto's Law? 

80% of the cost comes from the last 20% of performance. For a while, people have been demanding that last little bit of performance, and then wonder why they can't afford it.

Working for a different country's government in a totally different field, this is depressingly familiar.

When I started working for a bureaucracy, I was prepared for it to be evil and/or corrupt (in fact part of me was kind of hoping for it in a voyeuristic way, and was disappointed not to find it).

What I wasn't prepared for was the total lack of respect for any kind of subject matter or technical knowledge. The only skillset that is valued is that of the generalist manager, and the only way to move up is to change jobs every few years to be well rounded. Anyone who actually knows anything about content rather than process is either from a previous generation or sacrificing promotion to do something they enjoy. In engineering terms I guess it is like trying to build a complex machine made only out of screws and bolts, or running a vehicle with only lubricant but no fuel.

From what I have seen and read from the outside military procurement and big private companies more or less work the same way. Luckily most of my jobs have been in less critical fields.

The only places you can expect competence are where there are immediate consequences for things going wrong. Big defense projects last longer than the average manager's or minister's tenure in office, so...

An update - everything is either fine or will be soon..... 

Gee, that is the most comforting post I have seen in a long time.

Of course, my first thought was  " That's nice...  I wonder what thread this is?  Oh, UK spending."  

In today's Financial Times:

Army's £5.5bn armoured vehicle project at risk

A £5.5bn project to build the army a state of the art armoured fighting vehicle may be scrapped after more than a decade, a defence minister has admitted. Delivery of the Ajax vehicle should have started four years ago , but trials have been halted twice after concerns that noise and vibration were damaging crews' hearing. One MP said "it's heavier than a Sherman tank. It's too small. And it's as stealthy as a Ford Transit full of spanners".

Too small? That's a new one. It's already the size of a bus and dwarfs the CVRT it's intended to replace.

There is a growing air of failure around the project. If a defence minister has gone public in doubting its future, then it's probably only a matter of time.