Before the M1 Abrams main battle tank, there was the M60. It served with honor for well over 20 years before being replaced by the revolutionary turbine powered M1. The M60 was powered by a magnificent V-12 Diesel engine. As an employee of the engine manufacturer, I served as Liaison Engineer with the Army Tank Automotive Command. One of my responsibilities was the qualification under military specs of any new or changed components that went into the engine.

Now, much has been said about the proverbial $5000 military hammer that you and I can purchase from the helpful hardware man for $8. The jist of the talk usually suggests that suppliers are ripping off the military and therefore us tax payers, too. But there's much more to the story, as I found out during my first month on the job.

Late one Friday, I got a call from the manufacturer of the starter used on the M60 engine. As you can immagine, the starter was a large unit designed specifically to meet military standards and specifications. It had been in production ever since the first V12 was built, and was used no where else. So I almost panicked when the nice lady on the other end of the phone line announced that the starter we'd been using for more than 20 years would no longer be available in only two weeks time. "Don't worry", she said, "We'll send you one that's just as good". I tried to reason with her, pointing out that there was a rigorous qualification procedure that had to be completed before we could accept the new starter. She was unfased and responded that we could do what we liked, but the next shipment of starers in two weeks would be completely different than those we'd been using. She did, however, agree to overnight a couple prototypes for us to test.

As I dug into the qualification requirements, I found that the starter would have to be cycle tested under various stressful conditions including tests at -20 degrees F, underwater testing, dirt ingestion testing, high temperature testing, drop tests, repeat starting and several others that escape me now. It became painfully clear why the hammer cost $5000. It didn't have anything to do with the materials of construction. It had more to do with the cost of the airplane to carry out the drop test from 3000 feet, and the cold room required to test at -20 degrees! Thankfully, the new starter wouldn't require an airplane to complete its drop test. But the other tests looked like they'd take about 3 months to complete. A quick discussion with the VP of Engineering got me all the overtime and help I needed and I started around-the-clock testing. I slept in a dynamometer cell on two occasions, and didn't sleep at all many days. It took a painfull and expensive effort by 8 or 10 of us, but after two weeks, the new starter was qualified. The new starters arrived on time and proceded directly to the production line where they slid into the assembled engines like nothing at all had happened.