U.S. Struggles to Replenish Weapons Stockpiles as Ukraine War Drags On
Munition supplies are drained at the same time Pentagon, defense industry look to deter China
More than a year after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, U.S. plans to increase production of key munitions have fallen short due to shortages of chips, machinery and skilled workers.
Arms makers have added factory shifts, ordered new equipment and streamlined supply chains to boost output of Javelin antitank missiles, artillery shells, guided rockets and much more, which Ukrainian forces are firing by the thousands at the Russian invaders.
Years of stop-start Pentagon funding for munitions led companies to close production lines or quit the industry, while output of many components and raw materials moved overseas. Defense Department chiefs estimate the decline will take five or six years to reverse.
“We want to get the fragility out of the system, so if this ever happens again, it’s six months instead of three years to get a meaningful improvement in capacity,” said Jim Taiclet, chief executive officer of Lockheed Martin Corp.
The U.S. has committed to giving Kyiv more than $36 billion in arms
to fight the Russians, including hundreds of thousands of rounds of
munitions for howitzers, tanks, portable rocket launchers and advanced
guided missile systems. The U.S. arms—and weapons provided by European allies—have
kept Ukraine in the fight, enabling it to push Russian forces back to a
swath of ground along the Black Sea and in the eastern Donbas region.
The Ukrainians have been firing as many as 3,000 shells a day at Russian positions, and stocks are low in both the U.S. and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies, especially in 155mm howitzer shells, an ammunition that has been crucial to repelling Russian forces.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon and the defense industry are looking at the next major national security challenge: deterring, and if necessary, fighting, China in the Indo-Pacific region.
Howitzer shells are a big focus of the defense industry’s push: The major manufacturers plan to boost production sixfold by 2028. The munitions are mainly made in aging, government-owned facilities run by private companies, including General Dynamics Corp. and American Ordnance, a unit of Day & Zimmermann.
The U.S. Army has committed $18 billion over the next several years, adding $3 billion over the past year, to revamp bomb-making factories and the facilities that service military equipment, which Army Secretary Christine Wormuth described as “vintage” in a congressional hearing on April 19.
The Army investments include $1.1 billion this year and $2 billion the following for new machinery and tooling at a plant in Scranton, Pa., that makes shell casings; another in Radford, Va., that adds propellant; and the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant near Middletown, where workers pack explosives and prepare the finished munition for distribution.
General Dynamics is outfitting its plant in Garland, Texas, with new machinery to support three shifts producing 155mm shells.
Under pressure from lawmakers and Pentagon leaders, the Army and defense companies hatched broad plans last summer to double output of some of the most widely used munitions over the next two years. Production is rising, but at a slower pace than originally hoped.
Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies Corp. aim to boost annual production of their Javelin antitank missile to 3,500 in 2026 from around 2,000 currently. For the advanced Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System, or GMLRS, credited with enabling Ukrainian forces to bog down Russia’s advances with its long range and accuracy, Lockheed Martin and the Army have raised its targeted annual output to 14,000 in 2026, from 10,000 currently. The company this week secured a $4.8 billion deal to produce more over the next three years, by far the largest contract for the munition.
The Pentagon is also awarding contracts for items such as steel, alongside efforts to bring back production of raw materials used to make explosives and batteries.
Funding alone isn’t sufficient to boost production, said defense executives. Precision weapons such as the GMLRS are more complex to manufacture than artillery shells and require solid fuel rocket motors that have been in short supply.
Making
even basic artillery shells is a complex, multistage process carried
out in far-flung locations with aging machinery. Casings aren’t just
lumps of steel, but highly engineered objects to ensure shells are the
same size and can be fired reliably. Some also have sensors and
electronic systems to improve range and accuracy.
It takes around a month from ordering the steel to make shell casings for the metal to arrive. The Army facility in Scranton takes about three days to machine the parts. The finished casings are shipped to Iowa, where it takes another three days to load and pack them with propellant and explosives.
Douglas Bush, the Army’s acquisition chief, attributes the slower-than-expected rise in production to issues of capacity rather than a shortage of materials.
The Pentagon last year launched its Munitions Industrial Base Deep Dive to analyze production levels and capacity, as well as weaknesses in the supply chain. And last month, the Defense Department established a new office called the Joint Production Accelerator Cell to help identify better production methods, including the use of 3-D printing to speed making parts that have become obsolete.
These efforts are giving the Pentagon fresh eyes on what it needs to wage and deter future conflicts, more closely tying military strategy with the ability of industry to support defense planning.
“We’re going back and we’re reviewing all of our estimates for logistic lessons for all of the key munitions, or munitions that are required for various contingency plans,” said Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a congressional hearing this month.
Defense companies said they still need more clarity on future demand, even with the promise of multiyear contracts to encourage more investment and hiring.
“We have more than doubled the capacity with the investments we’ve laid in or plan to make,” Northrop Grumman Corp. CEO Kathy Warden said this week. “For the government to go even further than that, we are suggesting that we can support that, but would look for government funding to complement it.”
Write to Doug Cameron at Doug.Cameron@wsj.com