Lockheed Martin Corporation plans to increase the production of Javelin anti-tank missile systems against the background of their mass delivery to Ukraine, but this will take some time.

This was stated in an interview with CBS by the company's CEO James Tyclet.

“Our current production capacity is 2,100 Javelin missiles per year.

We are aiming to raise this figure to 4 thousand per year, and this will take months, and maybe even a couple of years, since we also need to increase the capacity of our supply chain, ”The Hill quotes him as saying.

Tyclet recalled that US President Joe Biden recently visited the corporation's plant in Alabama, where the head of state was shown a production line for manufacturing Javelins.

During the visit, Biden told the workers that they were giving Ukraine "an opportunity to defend itself" by sparing the United States the risk of becoming involved in a third world war.

The President added that Washington

has already sent 5,500 Javelin anti-tank systems to Kyiv, and since the beginning of the special operation of the Russian Federation, the Ukrainian side has received military assistance from the United States in the amount of more than $3 billion.

Earlier, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that the US Department of Defense is studying whether it is necessary to increase the production of Javelin and Stinger complexes.

The Pentagon is working closely with industry to assess the state of arms production lines, she said.

Weapon overrun

Already in mid-April, the US media began to appear materials that the United States could use up its stocks of anti-tank systems, continuing to send them to Ukraine at the same pace.

Thus, analyst Hal Brands published a column on Bloomberg, in which he stated that the Pentagon had already transferred a third of its Javelin stocks to Kyiv.

It noted that Washington had no way to increase supplies without seriously depleting its own arsenals.

It may take years for a significant increase in the production of these weapons, the observer wrote.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) published a report with similar conclusions.

It indicated that the United States did not officially make public how many Javelin complexes are in the arsenals.

According to the budget documents of the American army, since 1994, 37,739 shots have been fired at these complexes.

According to CSIS experts, 20-25 thousand Javelin ATGMs could remain in the American arsenals, 7 thousand of which the United States transferred to Ukraine.

“The United States is stockpiling in case of various global conflicts that may arise and lead to a confrontation with North Korea, Iran or Russia itself.

At some point, these stocks will be so depleted that military planners will question the feasibility of military plans.

It is likely that the United States is approaching this stage, ”the report says.

Javelin complexes are not the only American weapons whose stocks may be depleted in the near future due to the situation in Ukraine.

At the end of April, the head of the American defense giant Raytheon, Greg Hayes, said that it would be years before the company could resume production of Stinger man-portable air defense systems.

  • American military man with Stinger MANPADS

  • AFP

  • © USMC / US MARINES

Hayes said the company had not produced a new missile of this type for the US military in nearly 20 years.

At the same time, there are no necessary materials for the manufacture of new Stinger MANPADS to replenish stocks after sending the complexes to the Kyiv regime, the head of Raytheon added.

To produce the Stinger again, the electronic components for the missiles and their guidance heads would have to be redesigned, Greg Hayes explained.

Logistical problems

The American expert community has previously drawn attention to the fact that the US production base may not be able to cope with the task of manufacturing weapons and military equipment in the required quantities.

So, back in March 2018, the Pentagon published a report that spoke about problems in the production base of the arms industry that serves the needs of the US military.

It was noted that the lack of production capacity was formed due to the uneven nature of the procurement of various weapons, as well as the lack of new samples, for which it would be necessary to open new production lines.

In addition, some suppliers have completely left the market for specialized components, making it impossible to replace some of the necessary materials.

This leads to the fact that they will have to turn to foreign companies, the report noted.

  • Pentagon

  • Gettyimages.ru

  • © Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc.

Bloomberg in 2021 also drew attention to the fact that the state of the production base of the American military-industrial complex has deteriorated significantly.

“The US military is still the most advanced in the world, but the manufacturing base it relies on has deteriorated.

Industrial consolidation, coupled with a decline in domestic production and inefficient allocation of federal funds, has led to a reduction in competition throughout the defense supply chain, which undermines the readiness of the armed forces and may jeopardize national security, ”the publication emphasized.

The needs of the military-industrial complex

Enterprises of the US military-industrial complex want to extract as much money as possible from the federal budget, taking advantage of the situation in Ukraine, military expert Viktor Litovkin said.

“They need much more funds than they have received to date, and they are pumping more and more money out of Congress for the production of these weapons, hiding behind the fact that they are supplying these systems to Ukraine.

This is despite the fact that both Javelin and Stinger are quite old weapons and, of course, it has long been necessary to replace them with new ones, ”the expert said.

Moreover, these corporations are not engaged in charity - all deliveries will need to be paid for, Litovkin recalled.

“Ukraine will then have to return this money.

And under the Lend-Lease program, which was approved by Congress, the supply of weapons will be on credit: they will supply you with weapons today, and you will then pay for it for decades.

Therefore, all these statements are based on the idea that more money needs to be given, because they are not able to fulfill the order that they are given, ”Litovkin emphasized.

In turn, military expert Oleksandr Khrolenko believes that it will be really difficult for the United States to restore stocks of weapons that were sent to Ukraine in a short time.

“If we talk about the technological line, we must understand that the Americans have been accumulating their Javelins in warehouses for many years, there were thousands of units.

They have been collected over time.

So long that some of them turned out to be unusable, ”the expert noted.

Captured Ukrainian servicemen say that some Javelin systems end up with dead batteries, faulty electronics or missiles, Khrolenko recalled.

“You can write any advertising statements about these “wonderful” Javelins, but reality shows the technological level and level of reliability of these weapons.

This is clearly obsolete weapons that did not live up to the hopes placed on it, ”the RT interlocutor emphasized.

He added that the United States has not been involved in parity conflicts with modern armies for a long time and therefore was not ready for such a rate of weapons spending.

“Naturally, they could not objectively assess the necessary costs of weapons, because such conflicts are not tantamount to actions against, for example, lightly armed militants in Afghanistan.

The fact that they cannot now quickly establish the production of such weapons suggests once again that the theory of the exclusivity of their military complex is far-fetched, ”concluded the military expert.