More recently, the US Army has taken steps to ramp up its munitions production from 14,000 155 mm shells per month to 20,000 by spring 2023 and 40,000 by 2025. It does not anticipate reaching this figure until 2026, the company told Janes. At the same time, the company is attempting to ramp up its annual production of Javelin missiles from 2,000 to 4,000. According to Janes, there were 200 LWCLUs on order in October, with the first deliveries expected in 2025 – three years after the order was placed. The LWCLU includes the sight and fire control system that enables the Javelin missile to be fired. To give a recent example, in June 2022 the US Army awarded a Lockheed Martin–Raytheon Javelin Joint Venture company a low-rate initial production contract for a new Lightweight Command Launch Unit (LWCLU) for the Javelin missile. How will this order impact the wider availability of the munitions fired by both HIMARS and the UK’s GMLRS? Not to mention the six current HIMARS users – including the US Army – and six potential future users, as well as the 15 MLRS/GMLRS users. For example, Poland is in the process of negotiating the procurement of 200 additional M142 HIMARS rocket launchers. It follows that while new orders may be welcome, there may be challenges in pushing them to the front of the queue and gaining quick results. Some manufacturers of complex munitions are already operating with order backlogs valued in the billions: MBDA's backlog stands at $18.3 billion Raytheon's defence businesses have a backlog valued at $63 billion, including several missile projects and Lockheed Martin’s Missiles and Fire Control states it has a backlog of $28.077 billion. So, it does not follow that the existing base could be used to create an immediate increase in productivity. Adjusting them to allow for much greater quantities would require different manufacturing processes. In addition, the machine tools used to make complex guided weapons are generally configured for limited series production, as opposed to mass production. The small production output limits the ability of defence manufacturers to increase their output in a short space of time because the infrastructure does not exist, and nor do the staff or the materials. Boeing, for example, produced 31 of its 737 Max airliner per month in 2022, alongside production of many other airframe types. Defence manufacturers are not set up to produce at scale or speed, and even large production lines such as Lockheed Martin’s F-35 factory, which is expected to produce and deliver 169 F-35s in 2022 out of a total of approximately 3,200 aircraft, are small when compared with commercial production. Defence manufacturing is similar to boutique fashion: its outputs are specialised and expensive, and one should expect to wait for them. However, the commitment required to achieve this is less well appreciated. The need is clear and generally understood by serving personnel and policymakers alike. The UK must increase its production and procurement of munitions and complex guided weapons, not only to ensure it can fight a peer war and win, but also to give its deterrence posture credibility. The UK government has asked BAE Systems to replenish its stocks of artillery ammunition, but these are provided by multiple manufacturers, many of whom are facing similar challenges. The UK has contributed more than 5,000 of the Saab Next generation Light Anti-tank Weapon (NLAW) to Ukraine, as well as 16,000 rounds of artillery ammunition, likely straining its own stocks and leading Defence Secretary Ben Wallace to observe that there might be challenges in refilling the UK’s NLAW stocks. Stinger is not the only system to be raising concerns: the US has also indicated its discomfort at the quantity of missiles and rockets being sent to Ukraine for the HIMARS multiple launch rocket system, as well as FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank missiles, and even 155 mm artillery ammunition. The state of the US’s war stocks of this system – which has proven itself to be very valuable in Ukraine – is therefore uncertain.

Raytheon signalled in April that it would be unable to manufacture new FIM-92 Stinger missiles until 2023 due to supply chain shortages. The defence industry itself has made its unease clear. The war in Ukraine has triggered alarm bells in the West as ministries of defence (MoD) take worrying looks at their ammunition stockpiles, and compare them with those being spent by Russia and Ukraine.

Government ammo stockpile