MGV Death Spiral Begins

The Pentagon hasn't killed the Manned Ground Vehicle completely, but it has issued a partial termination order.

Boeing said in a press release that the company "will now begin notifying those partners and suppliers impacted by the order and initiate the termination proposal process with the Army. It would be premature to comment publicly on those discussions at this time. It is important to note that the Boeing FCS contract was not terminated. The order affects only the Manned Ground Vehicle element of the program."

Boeing also issued a separate statement saying that " Boeing and its partner SAIC will be reducing their combined work force by approximately 30 percent." The companies began sending 60-day advance layoff notices on July 17. Roughly 70 Boeing employees received layoff notices. More notices are going out on July 31. I checked around and SAIC and Boeing have 2,000 people working on MGV, so roughly 600 jobs are at stake in places such as Huntington Beach, Calif., St. Louis, Philadelphia and the Washington D.C. area.

The two companies said they "are taking aggressive steps to lessen the impact of the funding reductions" on their employees such as moving them to other programs.