The nation needs more Patriots, and not just those who serve in the Armed Forces.
Patriot missiles, known as Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3 MSE) in military parlance, require two years to build and cost nearly $4 million per missile. First used in the 1991 Gulf War, the missiles detect, track and intercept incoming ballistic missiles.
According to the Military Times, 66 percent of the U.S. inventory has been deployed during the conflict with Iran. The Defense Department announced in August an agreement with Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin to expand production for Patriot missiles and interceptor components. The pact is designed to triple production capacity for Patriot missiles and interceptors.
In another landmark development, Raytheon was awarded an unprecedented $22.9 billion contract to accelerate the production of Tomahawk cruise missiles for the U.S. Navy. The Tomahawk is the Navy’s most important strike weapon. The agreement supports the annual production ramp to more than 1,000 Tomahawk missiles for the U.S. Navy and allies.
“Building the arsenal of freedom requires robust, dynamic supply chains at every level of the industrial base,’’ Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Michael Duffey said in a statement.
The push for more Patriot missiles is just one spoke in a fast-moving wheel geared toward building more weapons, faster production times and new artillery. The proliferation of nuclear capabilities in the mid-1940s led to a multi-generation arms race that ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Some industry observers have labeled the current escalation the “new arms race.”
“Modern warfare is going through its biggest transformation since the atomic bomb,” an article published in The Times of India in August claimed. “With power shifting from large-scale firepower to faster algorithms, control of the electromagnetic spectrum and advanced energy weapons.”
Further complicating the defense picture is the difficulty in defending against drones. They are inexpensive to produce, difficult to intercept and are increasingly included in swarms, in which hundreds of the UAVs descend on targets simultaneously.
“Modern drone attacks rarely present a single target,’’ Lockheed Martin wrote on its website in August. “Operators increasingly face multiple threats arriving simultaneously from different directions and domains.”
Metals stand at the heart of the race. “Every military platform draws from the same basket of metals,’’ according to a blog posted by VanEck, a New York global investment management firm. “A fighter jet and a destroyer never share a battlefield, but they compete for the same aluminum, copper, tungsten and rare earths.”
Aluminum, which Alpha Metalcraft Group uses in some of its products, is an essential metal in the development of weaponry. It is lightweight, strong and resists rust, and is used to make components for fighter jets, helicopters, armored vehicles, artillery components and products included on naval and ground systems. War in Iran has sent aluminum prices higher. A report in August said aluminum stockpiles on the London Metal Exchange were at their lowest since 1990.
Unrest, price spikes and the call to arms place significant pressure on manufacturers, such as AMG, which produces multiple products for defense applications including drones, missiles and loitering munitions. These devices hover over a target and use onboard cameras or thermal assets to discover enemy assets.
AMG’s core processes – electroforming, deep drawing and spinning – all contribute to production for mission critical components for defense applications. As the demand escalates, AMG looks forward and stands ready to help manufacturers respond to meet the challenges of the fast-moving and evolving global unrest.