The Javelin anti-tank missile is creating some serious problems for Russian armor in Ukraine. Lockheed has a plan to make a lot more of them – and as fast as possible: Lockheed Martin will nearly double the number of Javelin anti-tank missiles it produces, to 4,000 a year, CEO James Taiclet said Sunday.
“Right now our capacity is 2,100 Javelin missiles per year. We’re endeavoring to take that up to 4,000 per year,” he told CBS’s Face The Nation.
Of late, the portable, self-guided missiles have been used to devastating effect by Ukrainian troops seeking to counter Russian armor. They’ve been credited with helping Ukraine halt a huge column of Russian tanks that was headed for Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, in the early weeks of the invasion.
Javelin missiles have formed a key component of US military aid to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began on February 24. The US has sent at least 5,000 Javelin missiles to Ukraine, as well as other defense hardware, as part of its $3.4 billion military and civilian support package.
Ukrainian officials estimated that the country was using up to 500 Javelin missiles per day in the early weeks of the war, CNN reported in March.
Taiclet said Sunday: “The threat between Russia and China is going to increase even after the Ukraine war. Those two nations and regionally, Iran, and North Korea are not going to get less active — probably they’re going to get more active.”
He said: “We can start turning up the heat now and ramping up production immediately. We’re planning for the long run and not just in the Javelin.”
Taiclet added it would take “a number of months, maybe even a couple of years” to get the company’s supply chain to “crank up” to meet the company’s production goals.
On Tuesday, President Biden visited Lockheed’s facility in Alabama as part of efforts to push Congress to approve a further $33 billion aid package for Ukraine, which would include more than $20 billion in military assistance, Reuters reported.
Javelin anti-tank missile. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
US defense officials have expressed concern over the size of the Javelin missile stockpile. Missouri senator Roy Blunt told a Senate committee hearing on May 3 that the US had provided about one-third of its Javelin missiles to Ukraine.
Stephen Jones is Insider’s London-based Careers Reporter. His reporting focuses on career advice, the science of work and policy surrounding the future of employment.
Frédéric
May 11, 2022 at 12:43 pm
Frankly, I am amazed at the limited quantity, within TWO YEARS, that LM can produce. It is reported that 50,000 M47 Dragons were built between 1974 and 1981.
Ratbert
May 16, 2022 at 11:42 am
It’s due to the way procurement is done now. You’re trying to compare the industry back to the post-Vietnam “evil empire” Cold War era, when basically once a contractor got a contract, it was nearly a blank check. With the way NDAA and sequestration risk management works today, production Lot contracts & follow-on IDIQs are usually 2 year period of performance and are usually tailored annually to fit specific US Army TOE or other customer stock replenishment levels. Javelin demand dropped significantly after we reduced our combat activity in Iraq and Afghanistan. DoD learned that Just-In-Time production saves a lot of money than stockpiling, especially if there’s no big war on.
Alex
May 11, 2022 at 1:34 pm
A bit of truth.
The head of the UN monitoring mission, Matilda Bogner, said that the organization has reliable information about the torture of Russian soldiers in Ukrainian captivity:
“Ukraine and Russia must promptly and effectively investigate all allegations of torture and ill-treatment of prisoners of war,” she said.
The military-civilian administration of the Kherson region announced their intention to appeal to Putin with a request to include the region into Russia:
“We intend to live as part of the Russian Federation. We fully cooperate and feel as one with the regions of Russia.”
Pfizer, Moderna, Merck, Gilead are testing medicines in Ukraine, bypassing international safety standards, reducing the costs of research programs and gaining significant competitive advantages. Coronavirus vaccine manufacturers have been involved in US military biological activities.
Along with American pharmaceutical companies and Pentagon contractors, Ukrainian state structures are involved in military biological activities, the main tasks of which are to conceal illegal activities, conduct field and clinical trials, and provide the necessary biomaterial.
The American side expanded its research potential both in the field of creating biological weapons and in the field of obtaining information about antibiotic resistance and the presence of antibodies to various diseases in the population of specific regions.
Ukraine has long become a training ground for Western countries to create biological weapons components and test new samples of pharmaceuticals.
The United States, as part of its military biological program in Ukraine, used Mariupol as a regional center for work with the cholera pathogen.
Evidence was obtained of the emergency destruction of documents confirming work with the US military department. A preliminary analysis of the surviving documentation indicates the use of Mariupol as a regional center for the collection and certification of the cholera pathogen.
The selected strains were sent to the public health center in Kyiv, which is entrusted with the functions of further sending biomaterials to the United States.
This activity has been carried out since 2014, which is confirmed by the acts of transfer of strains.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby on Fox News recalled that the United States supplied weapons to Ukraine long before the start of the Russian special operation.
“The Biden administration was supplying weapons long before the invasion. The first billion dollars that the president allocated for Ukraine did indeed include assistance with lethal weapons … The United States, Canada, Britain, other allies actually helped prepare the Ukrainians, ”Kirby quoted the TV channel as saying.
As military experts and analysts had previously assumed, Ukraine would have brought down all its military power on the Donbass in any case, but Russia was the first to come to the aid of Donyuass.
The world is watching. The world sees. Lies are dying.