In the military, one wrong move can mean a dead soldier - or worse,
a lost battle or war. But some mistakes are worse than others.
These are thirteen of the most costly military mistakes in history.
Lockheed Martin has been designing military and government hardware for decades,
and when they get a new project, the odds are there’s some big federal money behind
it. That was the case when NASA commissioned the NOAA-19. Intended for the American National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, it was to be a powerful weather satellite that would
be able to track the climate and make it easier for the government to prepare for harsh weather.
Packing eight instruments for weather and climate prediction, it was the most state-of-the-art
satellite of its kind and eventually launched in 2009. But it almost didn’t get there - thanks to
a costly mishap during production. At the Lockheed Martin facility in 2003,
the satellite sustained massive damage costing $135 million dollars, leading to an investigation
from the government where the company agreed to forfeit its payment from the project.
So what caused the damage? Sabotage? Technical issues?
The investigation shows that the disaster was caused by…the team at Lockheed Martin dropping
the satellite. As the team was turning it from a vertical to a horizontal position,
the tilt accelerated too quickly and the satellite crashed to the floor, sustaining massive damage.
This shouldn’t have happened - but apparently, a technician had removed some key bolts securing
an adapter plate, and no one checked all parts were in place before moving it. A tiny failure
in factory discipline led to a massive disaster that nearly destroyed the future of weather
tracking by the US government and likely led to someone - if not many people - getting fired.
Even after Lockheed Martin forfeited their profit, the US government still wound up
shelling out over a hundred million dollars to get their prize satellite up and running again.
Sometimes it’s not one big disaster. Sometimes it’s a lot of little disasters.
As many times as Lockheed Martin shows up on this list, it’s surprising they’re still in business.
They must be doing something right - but it’s not the F-35 Lightning II. The goal of the government
starting in 1995 was to replace most of their existing fighter jets with a standard model
that all branches of the military would have in common. The F-35 would also be available for
sale to US allies and could be adapted into different variants. Government contractors
went to work - and they’re still working. The F-35 has been plagued by development
problems since the start, and government watchdogs were starting to get concerned.
Not only was the program racking up heavy cost overruns, but it was well behind schedule
and the adaptation of the variants was essentially turning them into completely
different planes. But eventually, the F-35 was ready to take to the skies in October 2000.
The problem was, would it stay up there?
It soon became clear there were far bigger problems than the cost. The much-hyped new fighter
plane didn’t seem to have the same performance as some existing, much cheaper planes like the F-16
Fighting Falcon. Plus, it was a single-engine plane - which meant greater danger to the pilot.
If the fuel tank caught on fire or the engine encountered problems, it was going to be very
difficult to stay airborne. The internal payload was much smaller than other planes
as well - and the plane’s big selling point, its stealth technology, had taken so long to perfect
that many worried it would be obsolete by the time it actually made it onto the battlefield.
Despite these problems, this isn’t a failed project - yet. It might be a failing one,
though. The project is ongoing and is currently estimated to cost over one and a half trillion
dollars over its lifetime. And many government watchdogs are saying bigger isn’t always better.
Sometimes, a split-second lapse can have devastating consequences.
The MIM-104 Patriot, usually just known as the Patriot Missile, has become a staple of the US
military’s defenses. This surface-to-air missile designed by Raytheon is an effective defensive
weapon, but its secret superpower is its phased array tracking radar that makes it
highly effective at shooting down enemy missiles before they hit. It’s the best interceptor in
the US military and has saved countless lives since it was introduced in 1981. It’s been sold
to allies around the world - which made it all the more shocking when it failed dramatically.
It was the Persian Gulf War in 1991, and the US was at war against the forces of Saddam Hussein’s
Iraq. The US bases in Saudi Arabia were under frequent attack from Saddam’s Scud missiles,
and on February 25th one got through and delivered a devastating blow. A direct hit
killed twenty-eight US soldiers inside their barracks, and an investigation quickly began.
Why did the Patriot missile fail this big test?
It turned out to be the tiniest of flaws - a software error. The system keeps track of
time down to the hundredth of a second - because when you’re dealing with life and death, there’s
no time to spare. But the longer a missile battery is in operation, the greater the chances of a tiny
hiccup. In this case, the system’s internal clock had drifted off by approximately a third of a
second. It might not seem like much - but in terms of a speeding missile, it amounted to a difference
of eighteen hundred feet in intercepting the missile. The system scanned the wrong part of
the sky, found no missile, and didn’t intercept the direct hit. This turned out to be not just
a technical error, but a human one - because the Americans had been warned. The Israelis
had identified the issue two weeks earlier and recommended fixes such as more frequent
reboots. Sadly, it wasn’t followed, resulting in the worst loss of life for Americans in the war.
What’s worse than explaining a failure? How about never finding an answer?
Mars. The furthest frontier NASA has explored in depth. The government agency continues to
work towards landing a manned mission on the red planet one day but to do
that they need more remote intel. That was the purpose of the Mars Climate Orbiter,
a robotic space probe that was launched in 1999 with the intention of mapping the climate,
atmosphere, and surface conditions of Mars. It would also link up to another exploration probe,
the Mars Surveyor, to send data back to Earth. Designed by Lockheed Martin, it was one of the
most advanced probes ever created at the time and took close to five years to develop. There were
big plans for the probe as it launched, including learning about the distribution of water on the
Martian surface. Despite being under seven feet tall, it carried a lot of hopes with it as it
launched - hopes which would soon be dashed, along with all the hard work on the project.
Because the Mars Climate Orbiter would never reach its destination.
It launched from Cape Canaveral on December 11th, 1998, neared Mars in September of the following
year - and promptly went out of contact with NASA. The spaceship was never seen or heard from again,
costing NASA hundreds of millions of dollars and setting Mars exploration back years.
The cause of failure? A combination of human error and the red planet’s climate.
When the Mars Climate Orbiter encountered Mars at a lower-than-expected altitude,
it’s believed it either was destroyed by the atmosphere or simply skipped off the atmosphere
like a rock on water. Blame was ultimately placed on the incompatibility between two
software systems, as NASA used metric units of measurement and Lockheed Martin used imperial
units like feet and inches. This led to irregularities in measurements. And when
dealing with space exploration, the slightest irregularity can lead to total disaster.
The US isn’t the only space agency to run into disasters.
On the surface, the Ariane program seems to be a massive success. The heavy-lift space launch
vehicle developed by aerospace engineers Arianespace for the European Space Agency,
it’s gone through multiple generations before getting to the current model - the Ariane 5,
which has had eighty-two successful launches between 2003 and 2017. But getting there was not
easy, and led to one of the most costly disasters in European space history. It was 1996, and the
model had just recently been perfected. The test rocket would be fired from French Guiana on June
4th and was carrying equipment and cargo totaling over five hundred million dollars. The development
process to get there had been more than seven billion dollars. Hundreds of people gathered
to watch the rocket take flight, and cheered as the flight sequence went off successfully.
They then watched in horror as it burst into flames.
Less than a minute after the Ariane 5 took flight, the rocket veered off its flight path. It started
breaking up and exploded in mid-air. The rocket was a total loss, taking countless pieces of
carefully designed technology with it. The one saving grace was that the rocket was unmanned,
unlike the Challenger disaster a decade earlier. But the damage to the European
space project was massive, and an investigation ensued. They soon found the culprit was - sure
enough - another tiny error. The crash had been caused by the complete loss of guidance
and altitude data only thirty seconds after the rocket’s engine ignition sequence started,
and the source was an error in the inertial reference system. A failed conversion led to
a total system crash, and the rocket was lost. The program charged ahead, and the next launch
was a success - but let’s hope the upcoming launch of the Ariane 6 is more successful.
Sometimes, one little flaw can put a whole project in danger.
Spain had high hopes for its new submarines. The S-80 Plus class,
also known as the Isaac Peral after one of the most storied submarines in the country’s history,
were first greenlit in 2003 and would herald the beginning of a new era of hybrid diesel-electric
submarine that would be easier to run, release fewer emissions, and be faster and
more effective than the competition. They would have state-of-the-art weapons and radar systems
along with an air-independent propulsion system that would deliver low fuel rates. The submarine
was designed to operate in isolated areas and move at high speeds without being detected.
Submerging would be easier than ever, allowing the submarine to escape tense combat situations.
But as tests began on the submarines, the designers made a disturbing discovery.
Submerging might be easy - but surfacing was turning out to be a lot trickier than expected.
And it all came down to one little dot.
The submarine was too heavy - specifically, seventy tons overweight, and that made it too
heavy to effectively surface - which could have been fatal in a combat situation. The
culprit? A decimal point in the wrong place, early in the planning process. Somehow,
this mistake had gone completely undetected during the entire design process, and the submarine had
been built without anyone noting the flaw. A lot of people likely lost their job over this,
but there was only one choice for the people in charge - rebuild the submarine from the ground
up. The overweight submarine had to be resigned to add six meters to the ship’s hull, balancing the
extra weight. While this was a costly mistake with a redesign price tag of over ten million dollars,
it did have one benefit - the extended length of the ship made it more buoyant, and the project
went full steam ahead for Spain, with the lead boat officially launching in April 2021.
If you’re going to go into uncharted territory, you’d better get everything right.
It was the dawning of the space race, and every mission was high stakes. In 1962,
the government decided to conduct the first planetary flyby of Venus. The notoriously harsh
planet was a mystery in many ways, and NASA wanted to measure its magnetic fields and temperature.
No humans would be on this mission, but an unmanned probe named Mariner 1 was developed.
Probes had been deployed to the moon, and the nearby planets would be the next frontier. The
project was troubled from the start, with the design having to be changed due to the
Atlas-Centaur launch system being behind development. NASA chose to go with a less
powerful rocket, and a year-long development process began. Finally, the rocket was ready to
launch in July 1962, and many felt the future of the space race was relying on this probe.
That turned out to be a bad investment.
Things went south quickly, as communications between the rocket and the guidance systems
on the ground went awry. The unmanned rocket started veering off course, and NASA had to act
quickly. Fearing a deadly crash on earth, they activated the range safety protocols and used
their own weapons to destroy Mariner 1 - rendering the entire project a total loss. The rocket had
cost over eighteen million to build, one of the biggest expenditures in NASA’s history,
and a full investigation began. The culprit? Someone working on the code had omitted a hyphen
from the guidance system’s protocols, throwing the flight equation off and keeping the rocket
from stabilizing itself. Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke would later refer to it as the
costliest hyphen in human history, and the leaders of the Soviet space program no doubt
rejoiced. But the US would have the last laugh, landing men on the moon only a few years later.
Russia shouldn’t be getting cocky, given this next blunder.
It was 1867, and Russia had expanded its territory. However, one parcel of land
was proving more trouble than it was worth - Alaska, the Tsar’s outpost in North America.
The Crimean War had proven to Tsar Alexander II that defending far-flung territory could
be difficult - especially with the United Kingdom having allies on the continent.
And the United States was more than willing to hear them out - after all, Alaska was massive
and provided a strategic beachhead in the north. But many people, including the Tsar,
viewed the frozen land as essentially worthless. Ultimately, Secretary of State William Seward,
in the aftermath of the American Civil War, signed a deal to purchase the land of Alaska for only 7.2
million dollars. While that’s $133 million in today’s money, that’s still less than half the
cost of one home in the Bel Air neighborhood of LA, which was listed for $295 million!
And it turned out to be a disaster of a deal for Russia.
At first, many people in America mocked Seward’s deal. What would America want with a giant parcel
of land in the arctic? But the land nicknamed “Seward’s Folly” brought in a lot of people when
miners discovered gold in 1896. The Klondike Gold Rush kicked off and brought settlers en
masse. Russia lost a lot of money - but they lost something even more important later when
the Cold War kicked off. In an alternate reality where Russia never sold Alaska,
the Soviet Union would have had a massive beachhead into America’s backyard. Not only
would they have been in prime position to attack at the first sign of aggression, but the proximity
would have likely led Canada to align far less closely with the United States - after all, if
you have two bickering neighbors, you don’t want to anger either of them. Seward’s Folly turned out
to be one of the savviest purchases in American history - and one of Russia’s biggest blunders.
How do you make 1.4 billion dollars go up in smoke? Just ask the US Air Force.
The B-2 Spirit stealth bomber was one of the prides of the US Air Force, a modern weapon of war
that could elude sophisticated radar and deliver powerful payloads. It was so good at what it did,
in fact, that no B-2 bomber had ever been lost in operation. That is, at least, until February 23rd,
2008, when disaster struck Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. The Spirit of Kansas,
one of the elite bombers, took off from the base - and soon hit rough air. It spun out of control,
and the two officers on board desperately tried to stabilize it. Soon it spun into the ground,
and with only seconds to make a move, the officers ejected. They escaped safely,
but the bomber crashed into the ground and exploded - a total loss. While one of the
officers was hospitalized with injuries, both survived - and soon found themselves facing an
inquiry for losing one of the most valuable pieces of equipment in military history.
It wouldn’t be long before some wild theories emerged.
Air Force Times, a private magazine, reported that the plane was carrying classified intelligence -
which the military didn’t confirm because it would be classified! The unit commander halted
all flying operations at the base but remained on alert in case the bombers were needed in combat.
The officers would be questioned, but there was no evidence that they had broken any regulations or
acted irresponsibly. Ultimately, the failure would be attributed to a combination of harsh weather
conditions that affected the air-data sensors. This led to incorrect airspeed calculations, which
caused the vehicle to alter its speed and go awry before it could take off fully. Ultimately, all
the conspiracies about the costly loss turned out to be false - that we know of - and the military
had to face the fact that even their most advanced technology can be undone by tiny little flaws.
But the most costly military blunders of all time are usually human misjudgments.
The year was 1982, and Argentina was led by a military junta following a coup in 1976.
But the country was under increased pressure to end the dictatorship and was facing foreign and
domestic isolation. So there was only one thing to do - start a war to rouse public support. And the
perfect target was right in sight - the Falkland Islands, a scarcely-guarded region off the coast
that was currently under British rule but was a subject of ongoing negotiations. The islands,
called Las Malvinas by Argentina, were a point of pride and the public would be likely to support
them being reclaimed. After negotiations broke down, on April 2nd the Argentine forces
launched an amphibious invasion of the islands. While the small British forces put up a fight,
they were quickly overwhelmed and forced to surrender. Argentina took the gamble
that Great Britain would not bother to defend tiny holdings half a world away.
They were dead wrong.
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had been watching events carefully in the Falklands for weeks before
and had already deployed submarines to the region. When word came of the invasion, she
quickly authorized a much stronger response. Soon the Argentinian forces on the Falklands came under
assault from the air, land, and sea by British forces - something they were woefully unprepared
for. The war that ensued was bloody and lasted seventy-two days. It cost over nine hundred lives
total - more than two-thirds being the outgunned Argentine forces - and in the end Argentina was
forced to surrender and return the islands to British control, where the residents had voted
to stay part of the European nation. Not only did this military blunder cost Argentina eight hundred
million dollars, but it was a black eye for the government and sped up the downfall of the junta.
But it doesn’t always take a big mistake - sometimes a split-second
decision is all it takes to change the world.
By all accounts, Henry Tandey was one of the greatest soldiers of the first world war.
Only in his twenties, he would earn the Victoria Cross for his heroism in combat and become one
of the highest-decorated British privates of the war. He was wounded twice in the war, but
never lost his heroic spirit - famously capturing twenty prisoners during the 2nd Battle of Cambrai.
His greatest moment would be leading a bayonet charge that drove thirty-eight enemy forces
into his unit’s line of fire. But even amid the horrors of war, he never lost his compassion,
and he wouldn’t shoot an unarmed man. Reports say that one night at the French village of Marcoing,
he was patrolling when he came across a weary-looking German soldier. The wounded
man didn’t seem to be armed, and Tandey ignored the man and let him go unharmed.
The man’s name was Adolf Hitler.
Was this truly a mistake? Tandey had been following the rules of war by not shooting
an unarmed man, and he had no way of knowing that a lowly German private would one day
become a monster. In later years, Hitler would identify Tandey as the man who spared his life,
but no one was able to corroborate it on Tandey’s end, which leads some historians to classify this
as an urban legend. Was it Tandey? There is no way to know for sure, but the incident of Hitler being
spared by a British soldier was corroborated by the Nazi dictator - and any soldier who
realized what they had done decades later was no doubt haunted for the rest of their life.
Of course, Hitler himself was no stranger to regrets.
World War II had begun in earnest. Countries across Europe were falling like dominoes to
the Nazi regime, and Hitler’s arch-nemesis Great Britain was finding itself isolated
and under constant bombardment. Hitler was winning the war, boosted in no small amount
by their non-aggression pact with Russia. The pact provided Germany a geographic advantage by
making sure the war only had a single front. Any rational military leader would have realized this
was an important state of affairs to maintain - but Hitler wasn’t rational. All he saw was
Russia’s vast, vast territory - and he wanted it. He planned to conquer the western Soviet Union,
fill it with Germans, and exterminate the native Slavic people. And on June 22nd,
1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa.
It would be the most costly mistake of the war.
For one thing, you never invade Russia in winter! Hitler didn’t invade in winter - but
winter came around sooner rather than later, and the Nazi forces found themselves mired in hostile
territory. But the biggest problem was that the Russians had many more troops than the Germans,
and now they had reason to deploy them. While the German forces were better trained and better
armed, and inflicted far more casualties on the Russians, the front ate up a massive amount of
German resources. When the United States entered the war that same winter, Germany’s enemies had
now tripled. While there was no single cause to Hitler’s defeat in the Second World War,
most historians consider Operation Barbossa the single most costly mistake of the war.
But it may not have been the most costly German mistake in a world war.
The year was 1917, and World War I was raging across the European continent. Germany had entered
the war on behalf of their allies, and quickly became the driving force of the conflict. And half
a world away the United States wanted no part of it. The US President had recently been re-elected
on the slogan “He kept us out of war”, and isolationists wanted no involvement in the large
European territorial skirmish. Even disasters like the sinking of the Lusitania couldn’t move the
isolationist sentiment, but Germany was worried. A US entry into the war could be devastating to
them, so they decided to strike first. German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmerman dashed off
a coded message to his counterparts in Mexico, offering them a shocking deal. If the US entered
the war, Mexico would invade, and Germany would help them reclaim Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico.
It was a bold deal - but it didn’t stay secret.
British intelligence intercepted the telegram and decoded it, in what many consider the greatest
triumph of British spy agencies during the war. Not surprisingly, the United States
was enraged - and it galvanized the pro-intervention forces. After all,
if Germany was planning for war against the US, why shouldn’t the US do the same? Soon,
the US entered the war, and the tide of the conflict turned decisively against Germany.
They were ultimately defeated, and forced to sign a surrender and a treaty that required them
to pay massive reparations. This included over ten percent of the territory they held before the war,
and other penalties that devastated their economy. They wouldn’t recover from the loss for decades,
making this failure of diplomacy and coding the costliest mistake in military history.
For more shocking blunders in combat, check out “10 Crazy Assassination
Attempts That Failed” for a look at how the assassination of Hitler was botched,
or watch “What If Kamikaze Pilot Survived?” for a dark tale of failure on the Pacific front.