Dated March 2023, the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller)/Chief Financial Officer released a PDF document detailing the funding and quantity of equipment and weapons acquisitions for all U.S. military branches.
Titled “United States Department of Defense (DoD) Fiscal Year 2024 Budget Request, Program Acquisition Cost by Weapon System,” the PDF showcases the Fiscal Years 2022, 2023, and 2024 with funding in the millions of dollars and the quantity purchased or will be acquired during those three fiscal years. While the March 2023 PDF is extremely detailed and comprehensive with information ranging from procurement of armor, warships, drones, helicopters, aircraft, radios, weapons and munitions, this Naval News story will focus on some of the precision guided munitions (PGMs) for naval long-range precision fires (LRPF).
The Naval News’ story on the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ (CSIS) hypothetical tabletop wargame of China invading Taiwan in 2026 warned that some Western PGMs could be severely or entirely depleted in the first week(s) of any potential peer nation conflict. The U.S. Navy (USN) and U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) took note of this CSIS wargame report, and other analysts’ recommendations and studies in regards to their weapons inventory, and have taken measures to address the inventory shortfalls.
According to the DoD Comptroller’s March 2023 report, “The FY 2024 request reflects a 24 percent increase over the amount requested by the Department in FY 2023, and procures at high rates of production, thus fully utilizing the available industrial capacity”. The FY 2024 request includes procurement for the AIM-120D Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM), the AGM-158B Joint Air-to-Surface Missile (JASSM), the AGM-158C Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM), the Standard Missile – 6 (SM-6), the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM), AGM-114 Hellfire missiles and the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) I & SDB II, the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) and the Army’s new long-range Precision Strike Missile (PrSM).
In FY 2024, five types of PGMs [Precision Guided Munitions] will be procured with a multiyear strategy: JASSM, LRASM, SM-6, AMRAAM, and Naval Strike Missile (NSM). Naval News sent the U.S. Navy’s CHINFO an inquiry in May 2023 asking for further clarification and comment on the DoD’s FY 2024 Budget Request PDF. CHINFO replied with the following statement:
“The Department’s FY 2024 budget request makes significant investments, over $2 billion, in munitions to get after inventory shortfalls. We have requested four multi-year procurement contracts for AIM-120 AMRAAM, SM-6 and jointly with the Air Force for JASSM and LRASM weapons. We are also increasing the quantity for Maritime Strike Tomahawk and existing Tomahawk refresh and recertification, along with notable increases in MK-48 torpedoes.“
“In the FY 2024 budget request, the Department is initiating a Multiyear Procurement [MYP] strategy these systems under the Large Lot Procurement (LLP) concept, in which individual MYPs would be executed in a concurrent and overlapping multiyear strategy, so that synergies in production across different but related programs can generate efficiencies and result in greater production capacity, accelerate delivery, and drive unit costs down. LLP represents an evolution of the existing MYP contracting and financing strategy, that leverages the savings generated through the use of Economic Order Quantities (EOQ) financing to procure additional lots of missiles under a Buy-to-Budget concept, to further improve efficiencies and yields.”
U.S. Navy CHINFO Spokesperson, May 2023
Naval News Comments
According to the DoD’s FY 2024 Weapons Acquisition Budget Request, the following U.S. Navy (USN) and U.S. Marine Corps’ (USMC) PGM quantities for LRPFs are presented. Those entries that don’t have USN or USMC denote allotments for all branch services that the munition will serve in (such as the U.S. Army or the U.S. Air Force).
- Mark 48 torpedo entry was not included in the FY 2024 PDF
- JDAM, USN: FY22 = 944, FY23 = 3,037, FY24 = 1,464
- SDB I for use on fixed targets: FY22 =793, FY23 = 356, FY24 =874
- SDB II for use on moving targets, USN: FY22 = 164, FY23 = 445, FY24 = 250
- JASSM: FY22 = 525, FY23 = 550, FY24 = 550
- AIM-9X, USN: FY22 = 152, FY23 = 128, FY24 = 147
- AIM-120(D), USN: FY22 = 78, FY23 = 337, FY24 = 374
- LRASM, USN: FY22 = 48, FY23 = 58, FY24 = 91
- Precision Strike Missile: FY22 = 54, FY23 = 42, FY24 = 110
- SM-6: FY22 = 125, FY23 = 125, FY24 =125
- NSM, USN: FY22 = 32, FY23 = 39, FY24 =13, USMC: FY22 = 69, FY23 = 115, FY24 = 90
- Tactical Tomahawk Cruise Missile, USN: FY22 = 70, FY23 = 55, FY24 = 0, USMC: FY22 = 0, FY23 = 13, FY24 = 34
- AARGM-Extended Range: FY22 = 54, FY23 = 98, FY24 = 83
