Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on specific hardware and software development risks for the Navy's AN/BSY-2 combat system.

GAO found that: (1) an independent defense consultant identified three critical technical risk areas involving the immaturity of the system's enhanced modular signal processor, incomplete data-base management design, and potentially lengthy network reconfiguration times; (2) most of those risks still existed, and the consultant believed those unresolved risks could significantly impair system development through increased costs, schedule delays, and degraded system performance; and (3) the Navy did not implement five of the consultant's six recommendations to mitigate those risks.