Wittman warns of ‘wasting a year’ with Pentagon’s industrial strategy

A top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee said that the Pentagon’s plan to implement a new strategy for the defense industry may not make it into Congress’ defense bill this year due to months of delay.

The Pentagon rolled out the strategy in January, saying the document would help sync its work with the defense industry while facing a surge in demand. The plan was mostly a list of two dozen recommendations — from increasing stockpiles to training more skilled workers.

A detailed plan on how to implement it would come in March, Pentagon officials said.

It hasn’t. And earlier this month, Laura Taylor-Kale, the Defense Department’s head of industrial base policy, said it would arrive in the summer.

That delay is a problem for members of Congress who want to include the plan in their annual defense policy bill.

“I would prefer to have the implementation plan for [the National Defense Industrial Strategy] now,” said Rob Wittman, R-Va, the vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, speaking at an event hosted by George Mason University.

Taylor-Kale was scheduled to speak alongside Wittman but canceled shortly before it began due to a separate commitment.

The House bill will come to the floor in the second week of June, Wittman said, which will be before lawmakers get the plan. That means the only chance the strategy makes it into legislation this year is if the Senate’s bill — arriving later — includes some of the recommended steps and then they make it into the version that both chambers eventually pass, a process known as conference.

Right now, Wittman said, that leaves members of Congress guessing how best to put the plan into action, and risking an approach different from the one the Pentagon wants.

“I would prefer to have had this upfront to inform our process with NDAA,” he said. “Apparently … that’s not going to happen. I think that’s a lost period of time that we need to do this.”

How the US can reclaim leadership in advanced energetic materials

The past 18 months have seen unprecedented interest among senior defense officials and Congress in the state of the nation’s defense energetics enterprise. Energetic materials — substances or mixtures that release energy rapidly — are used in military applications for explosives, propellants and pyrotechnics to generate the high-energy effects essential for weapon systems.

The legislators’ interest is understandable in view of the results of three major studies by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, the Energetics Technology Center, and the Hudson Institute.

All three decried the sclerotic state of the organizations and processes that develop, test, qualify and integrate new explosives and propellants into defense systems. All three called for a seismic reconsideration of the management and structure of the entire domain. And all three emphasized the need for urgency.

As the ETC study put it, “senior leaders must act immediately and decisively if conventional deterrence of the nation’s competitors is to succeed.”

Attentive members of Congress took heed. The fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act contains provisions intended to begin revitalizing the entire value chain of energetic materials, from basic research to incorporation in weapons systems. At the forefront is the creation of a Joint Energetics Transition Office in Subtitle C, Section 241 of the NDAA, empowered to unclog the transition pipeline and knit together the dozens of elements that comprise the energetics ecosystem.

If properly managed, it could do much to restore what was once American leadership in the materials that most define the lethality and effectiveness of weapons systems.

The FY24 NDAA also authorized a rapid prototype demonstration program for CL-20, one of the most powerful non-nuclear explosive in the world. In 1987, Arnold Nielson, a chemist at the U.S. Navy’s China Lake facility, invented the new molecule in the hope of giving U.S. weapons an advantage against the country’s enemies during the Cold War.

“This is the most significant ingredient to be developed in the past 50 years because it has high performance and has applications for missile propulsion and warheads,” announced Thom Boggs, the head of China Lake’s engineering sciences division at the time. Boggs predicted that CL-20 would begin to show up in propellants and explosives in three to four years.

That was 1993. After 30 years, CL-20 barely features in U.S. weapons systems. The end of the Cold War dampened a willingness to tackle the steep technical challenges of making new energetic materials operational.

To make matters worse, two decades of unconventional warfare further reduced any urgency to develop more lethal and effective weapons. Throughout that period, however, researchers in China and Russia especially have made alarming strides in the development and manufacture of CL-20 and other, even more effective energetic materials.

These developments underscore a significant shift in global military capabilities. Advancements in energetic materials by strategic competitors not only threaten to eclipse the edge historically enjoyed by U.S. forces but pose a challenge to the United States’ ability to maintain a credible defense posture and deterrence capabilities.

Advanced energetic materials can increase the destructive power of warheads. This translates into the ability to neutralize targets more effectively with fewer munitions, allowing for more efficient use of them in combat scenarios. By providing a higher energy output, advanced energetic materials in solid-rocket motors can propel munitions over longer distances. An extended range enables forces to engage targets from safer distances, reducing the risk to personnel and assets while expanding the scope of potential targets.

The incorporation of advanced materials into munitions could enable our strategic competitors to field weapons systems potentially superior in range, lethality and effectiveness.

The accelerated pace of energetic materials research by China and Russia points to a critical imperative for the United States to monitor and respond to our strategic competitors’ advancements. Recent announcements from Chinese scientists about breakthroughs in manufacturing efficiency, alongside Russian efforts to make even more potent and stable energetic materials, illustrate a significant escalation in their capabilities.

These advancements suggest that these nations are not only matching but potentially exceeding U.S. capabilities in the development of advanced military systems. Their rapid innovation in this key area points to an urgent need for the U.S. defense acquisition processes to adapt and accelerate. Keeping pace with these innovations is vital for maintaining the United States’ competitive edge and ensuring our military’s effectiveness.

The strategic and tactical advantages afforded by these materials are too fundamental to ignore. As the global security environment becomes increasingly competitive, the U.S. must strive to reassert its leadership in the development and application of advanced energetic materials. The effectiveness of U.S. forces — and by extension the nation’s ability to deter and, if necessary, prevail over future adversaries — depends on it.

The establishment of the Joint Energetics Transition Office, as authorized by the FY24 NDAA, represents merely the starting point. The campaign requires a coordinated effort across the entire defense ecosystem, encompassing research institutions, the defense industry, the requirements process, program offices, service acquisition leadership and military end users.

Furthermore, the rapid prototype demonstration program for CL-20 underlines the need to not only catch up with the advancements made by competitors but leapfrog to the next generation of energetic materials. The security and superiority of U.S. military forces hinge on leading the charge, ensuring that America remains prepared to meet and surpass the challenges posed by global strategic rivals.

Robert Kavetsky is the CEO of the Energetics Technology Center.

Lithuania eases red tape for defense firms looking to set up shop

MILAN — The Lithuanian government has approved new procedures designed to lower administrative hurdles for foreign defense looking to open production facilities in the Baltic state.

The moves ride on a wave of demand in Europe for anything from artillery shells to drones that shows no sign of ebbing amid support for Ukraine and nations’ eagerness to replenish their own stockpiles.

Officials in Vilnius earlier this month ratified a series of amendments that seek to short-circuit established procedures and reviews in the interest of time. The new language introduces “a new category of investment projects” that counts large-scale manufacturing projects in the defense sector as addressing “pressing national security needs,” Agnė Raščiūtė, head of communications at Invest Lithuania, an organization of the country’s Ministry of Economy, told Defense News.

Under the latest policies, these projects will benefit from certain managerial exemptions that will allow companies to shorten the setup time of their facilities from two years to six months.

For example, the package includes a provision whereby European defense producers could begin the construction of their plants in Lithuania without a permit, needing to obtain one only before the build completion.

Ramping up the production capacity of Europe’s defense industry has been at the forefront of priorities for the European Union and its member states since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

While companies have begun building new manufacturing plants, it will take years for them to pump out the amount of equipment that military leaders say is needed. Industry lobbyists have seized on what they consider bottlenecks in construction permitting or environmental reviews, for example, that limit a more comprehensive ramp-up of the bloc’s defense manufacturing.

“Administrative and regulatory hurdles often hinder European defense industry from rapidly increasing its production — red tape can severely impact the EU’s ability to respond promptly to crises and changing geopolitical dynamics,” a spokesman at the Aerospace and Defense Industries Association of Europe told Defense News.

According to some officials, greasing the wheels of bureaucracy is easier for smaller European countries where fewer people are involved in such processes, such as Estonia.

“We have a very quick political decision-making process where once the government has allocated to us the funds, we are efficient at putting this money on the markets right away,” Tuuli Duneton, Estonia’s undersecretary for defense policy, told Defense News in an interview last year.

“[Whereas] with some much bigger countries, we can see that it takes a lot of time and is quite bureaucratic, with complicated procedures,” she added.

In Germany, the defense-industry association BDSV has floated the idea of using the fast-tracked process for the construction of liquid natural gas infrastructure, hastily constructed at Germany’s North Sea and Baltic Sea coasts after shutting off Russian gas imports, as a blueprint for the defense industry.

A new legislative package enacted specifically for LNG projects skirted certain environmental impact assessments and shortened the time period for public feedback based on the urgency argument in supplementing Germany’s energy mix.

Sebastian Sprenger in Cologne, Germany, contributed to this report.

Soaring US munitions demand strains support for Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan

The U.S. has transferred tens of thousands of its bombs and shells to Israel since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.

But it hasn’t given Israel everything it wants. That’s because the U.S. military lacks the capacity to provide some of the weapons Israel requested, according to Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“We do make recommendations based on what their ask is and how that impacts our readiness if it’s going to come from our stocks,” Brown told reporters during a Defense Writers Group event in May.

Put simply, the U.S. assesses the health of its own inventories before sending weapons abroad. At times, those stocks don’t have any margin — and in some cases, the U.S. is even dipping below minimum inventory requirements, according to congressional staffers and former Pentagon officials.

In addition to Israel, the Biden administration has sent an enormous quantity of materiel to Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion. Meanwhile, the U.S. is gearing up to rush an influx of arms to Taiwan in hopes of deterring a possible Chinese attack on the island, which Beijing considers a rogue province.

The U.S. Defense Department already struggled to maintain robust munitions levels in the decades before the recent wars in the Middle East and Europe. But the shipment of arms to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan has placed intense pressure on the Pentagon’s inventory, forcing it to make challenging risk management assessments as it tries to move the defense industry from peacetime production to a wartime footing.

“The [Defense Department] is likely drawing down close to that minimum number that they would need for multiple ground scenarios that could happen simultaneously,” Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute think tank, told Defense News.

“And depending on how the leadership has decided to manage risk, they may have gone below that two-scenario number already, but they would certainly not go below the number needed for one scenario.”

Total munitions requirement

At a March conference in downtown Washington, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer opened with a message for America’s adversaries.

“You do not want to go to war with the United States,” said Bill LaPlante, the undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment. “Our stocks are not depleted.”

Perhaps more important was his reason why.

“Every time that we make a decision, we’re looking at our stocks and saying: ‘Can we do this and take the risk?’ ” he said. “If we do, it means we’re OK.”

In short, the Pentagon has a system, and the public should trust it, the argument goes. That system, known as the annual munitions requirements process, has three phases: choosing what to target, how to target it and what to buy.

The first part starts with the Defense Intelligence Agency, which considers the targets America would need to hit if it went to war against another country. The agency sends its list to the relevant combatant commands, which handle U.S. military operations around the globe.

The commands then develop their plans around these targets, and then assign each target to the military services, who study how to best hit each one.

“The services say: ‘What’s my best way to deal with this target?’ ” said Chris Michienzi, a former Pentagon official who spent years working on this process. “ ‘Do I use this airplane with this missile?’ ”

Pentagon officials then use a classified formula to calculate how much of each different munition they need per year, which is known as the total munitions requirement.

Analysts, former defense officials and congressional aides said it’s been difficult to produce enough weapons to execute the Pentagon’s National Defense Strategy around the globe.

“Pre-Ukraine, we had munitions requirements that were in almost every important case — particularly for the Indo-Pacific — not even close to being met,” a Republican congressional staffer told Defense News, speaking on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the topic. “For the most important [Indo-Pacific] munitions, we haven’t hit the total munitions requirement.”

The shortages are in part symptoms of a chronic issue, said a senior defense official, granted anonymity to discuss the closely held process. The Pentagon has long used munitions as a “bill payer,” neglecting their purchase in favor of platforms like ships or planes in the annual budgets, the official added.

Over time, the low orders led to some companies exiting the market, which in turn reduces the number of businesses that will build those munitions and the speed at which they come off the line.

“There are very few places where we have what you might call surplus stockpiles,” said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. “It’s a question of how much risk do you want to accept in our own war plans. That has been the driver in a lot of the decisions about what to give to the Ukrainians and the Taiwanese.”

For example, the U.S. could use Javelin anti-tank missiles or Tomahawk cruise missiles against at least four major competitors: China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. But the military doesn’t necessarily expect to fight all four adversaries at once and may calculate requirements based on fighting two enemies at a time.

“So you can choose a couple of scenarios and say, ‘Here’s two scenarios that are very stressing,’ and they’re going to form the basis for a number,” Clark said. “For example, the number for the Javelins is probably driven by Russia and North Korea. It depends on the weapon.”

‘Do we have enough?’

But sometimes these projections fall short. In 2016, for instance, the Air Force said it lacked enough munitions — including Hellfire missiles, Joint Direct Attack Munition kits and Small Diameter Bombs — during its campaign against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

The shortages prompted the Air Force to decline some allies’ requests to buy the in-demand munitions.

The U.S. often serves as a “backstop” for European allies, Clark noted, pointing to NATO’s heavy reliance on American munitions in its 2011 Libya campaign.

“It’s not so much, are we going to have enough weapons to sustain our own capacity for a ground war, because we probably do,” Clark said. “It’s, do we have enough to sustain our own capacity to fight and also support our European allies who may need augmentation because clearly they don’t maintain the magazines to sustain themselves.”

Others interviewed about the munitions requirements process also noted it lags behind real-world events and is closely tied to the Pentagon’s war plans, which usually project short conflicts instead of the reality of longer, protracted wars.

But the U.S. could still quickly run through certain munitions even in a short conflict with a major adversary like China.

A wargame conducted by the Center for a New American Security think tank and the House Committee on the Chinese Communist Party last year found the U.S. would run out of long-range, precision-guided munitions in less than a week in a fight with China over Taiwan. Outgoing committee Chairman Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., subsequently told Defense News that America’s inventory of long-range anti-ship missiles stood at 250 last spring, noting a conflict with China would require at least 1,000.

Since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, the U.S. has also used weapons that could be relevant to an Indo-Pacific battle, like the Standard Missile-6 and Tomahawks, to respond to Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes off Yemen’s coast.

“Is it a sustainable, long-term strategy to use million-dollar munitions to shoot down drones and loitering munitions that are $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 a piece?” Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., asked Gen. Michael Kurilla, the U.S. Central Command leader overseeing forces in the Middle East, during a House hearing in March.

Kurilla stressed the need for the services to create more “cost-effective” counter-drone systems based on directed-energy and laser technology to use against Houthi attacks, instead of launching costly missiles.

The Standard Missile-6 and Tomahawk weapons cost several million dollars per unit. Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro told Congress in April the service is “approaching $1 billion in munitions” it needs to replenish as a result of its Red Sea operations.

Meanwhile, Israel and Ukraine both need U.S.-supplied air defense systems, including the Patriot, a system Taiwan also uses.

Cancian said there’s “moderate” overlap in the munitions each of the three security partners needs.

“There is some overlap and some risk that one or the other partners is going to have to live with, but there’s also many elements that are not overlapping,” he noted. “Conflict in the Western Pacific is going to be mostly air and naval, whereas what we see in Ukraine is mostly ground.”

Most of the weapons the U.S. has transferred directly to Israel are tens of thousands of air-to-ground munitions to drop on Gaza — bombs Ukraine can’t use as effectively given Russian air superiority.

Ukraine has struggled to bolster its air defenses, partly because an additional $48 billion in security aid was stalled in Congress for more than six months after President Joe Biden submitted his foreign aid request last year. Congress ultimately passed the supplemental spending package in April, which includes $14 billion for Israel and another $4 billion for Taiwan and Indo-Pacific allies, among other non-security initiatives.

Israel receives most of its U.S.-provided weapons through congressionally subsidized arms sales, which allowed the Biden administration to continue arming the nation without the supplemental spending package.

Right now, Taiwan also receives most of its U.S. weapons through arms sales. But constraints on the American industrial base — such as workforce shortages and supply chains hiccups — have contributed to delivery delays for some munitions orders from the island.

Expanding capacity

The Pentagon hopes the foreign aid legislation will allow it to continue large-scale arms transfers to friendly countries. And as the department replenishes systems to those three partners, it hopes the additional munitions demand will pump resources into lagging munitions production lines. A significant chunk of that will go toward increasing domestic munitions capacity in the U.S.

“The further we go along in this and get additional capacity, [the more] the defense-industrial base picks up its pace, then you can actually … take a little bit more risk because you’ve got a capability coming behind,” Brown, the Joint Chiefs chairman, said in May. “The conversation I’ve had with many of our NATO countries is they’re also looking at how to increase their defense-industrial base and capacity.”

But even with the foreign aid legislation, expanding industrial base capacity is no simple task.

“There is such a gap between where the collective West is and where it needs to be in terms of munitions stockpiles,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters in April. “There is a need for replenishment on all of these systems that extends out years.

“If anything, I believe that our defense industry is still underestimating, rather than overestimating, the need regardless of the precise duration or course of the war in Ukraine.”

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told Congress in October that some contractors have required employees to work additional shifts to keep up munitions production rates, highlighting labor shortages in the industrial base.

“What they’ve done in a lot of cases to meet urgent needs is double and triple shifts so that they can, in some cases, crank out munitions and weapons at a much greater speed,” Austin told Congress at the time.

“There are some limitations in terms of how quickly they can do certain things,” he added. “There will continue to be workforce challenges. And when you expand capacity, there’s this issue of the time it takes to build the capacity and make sure the lines are running smoothly.”

A former senior Pentagon official who now works in the defense industry, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the individual was not authorized to talk to the press, told Defense News the Pentagon is generally willing to take more risks on munitions inventory levels than in other areas, expecting that Congress will quickly fund replenishment efforts.

“The mentality in the Pentagon is if I do get in a fight, Congress is going to be real responsive to give me as much money as I need,” the former senior defense official said. “Right now, we’re having a problem replenishing artillery for a war in Europe that we’re not even in.”

“The thing that scares the living crap out of me is right now a large number of that capacity is depending on these supplementals.”

Only the most senior leaders in the Defense Department can adjust munitions inventory requirements, and they rarely do, according to the Republican congressional staffer. The staffer noted that lawmakers may try to address what they consider an excessive focus on short-term conflicts as they draft the annual defense policy bill in the weeks ahead.

The Pentagon in 2022 asked Congress for a critical munitions acquisition fund, which would allow it to buy important weapons before they are transferred and maintain a continuous order of munitions, rather than backfilling them. However, congressional appropriators were cool on the idea, viewing it as a slush fund.

Instead, Congress authorized multiyear contracts for critical munitions to ensure a steady demand signal to industry — a mechanism usually reserved for big-ticket purchases like ships and aircraft. Defense appropriators funded six of the seven multiyear munitions contracts the Pentagon sought for fiscal 2024.

The current senior defense official said the Pentagon intends to submit a revamped proposal for a critical munitions acquisition fund in the coming weeks, calling this version a munitions readiness account.

“As we’ve noticed with Ukraine when we go to stockpile these back into our own stocks, it is two to three years that it’s going to take for us to even replenish what we have provided, even if it’s an upgraded system,” the official said.

How the Pentagon can more rapidly buy and field the latest tech

The United States cannot afford to fall behind in advancing technologies — like artificial intelligence, quantum computing, hypersonics, biotechnology or autonomous systems — against a near-peer adversary like China. The ongoing conflict in Ukraine and the recent Iranian strike of Israel demonstrate that military applications of advanced technologies are accessible and proliferating.

When the Department of Defense identifies promising new technologies and capabilities that will help meet the national security challenges, it struggles to acquire and incorporate those technologies to warfighters. One reason for this is the over 60-year-old Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution system, or PPBE.

With rare exceptions, the DOD cannot acquire new technologies and systems in a timely manner; cannot upgrade systems with modern software, sensors or microelectronics; and cannot even get technologies and companies it has shepherded with its own research dollars into production contracts.

For decades, the DOD relied on innovation flowing from government labs and the defense industry’s biggest companies, generally funded through the Pentagon research budget. Now, innovation flows increasingly from the nondefense commercial sector, which moves at a pace that far exceeds government processes. The commercial investment in some critical defense technology areas, such as artificial intelligence or biotechnology, is often much larger than the Pentagon’s research budget.

PPBE reform is required to take advantage of this new technological landscape. Complex and inconsistent rules have twisted the DOD into a Gordian knot that makes the basic commercial practice of modernization through rapid iteration unachievable.

For example, in the three years it takes to get through the PPBE process, computer processor speeds will have easily quadrupled, multiple generations of advanced drone systems will have been manufactured, and thousands of new biological materials useful in a wide range of military applications will have been developed.

For the DOD to modernize at the pace of emerging technologies, it needs to move toward more frequent, smaller advances. This approach requires greater agility and decision space for those closest to the problem and solution space.

The congressionally established Commission on PPBE Reform offers 28 actionable recommendations in its final report to reform the current PPBE process, which will give the DOD the ability to attract, capture and field innovation at a relevant pace. These include:

Delegate more authority within the DOD to make faster decisions. The delegation of authority streamlines decision-making and reduces bureaucracy, enabling a company to operate with greater speed and agility. The department can provide personnel and organizations with more ability to make quicker decisions on reprogramming actions, communicate about program status with Congress, and perform other financial management functions currently executed at higher levels of authority.Update values for below-the-threshold reprogramming, or BTR. The commission has recommended a series of increases in funding thresholds to give program managers and program executive officers the authority they need to move money where they believe it’s needed. Congress has taken the first step in this area, already increasing BTR levels in the fiscal 2024 defense appropriations legislation.Consolidate budget line items as well as research, development, test and evaluation budget activities. Consolidation provides greater flexibility and minimizes unnecessary delineations in funding. This can be done in a way that preserves transparency of spending for both internal oversight officials in the Pentagon and for Congress.Allow for the more modern use of color when it comes to funding. By allowing procurement, RDT&E, and/or operations and maintenance funds to be used for the full cycle of technology development, acquisition and upgrades, the DOD can harness the full power of rapidly moving technologies as the driving engine of today’s defense and weapons systems.Permit more departmental innovation activities under continuing resolutions. The artificial limitations placed on new-start programs under a CR can have a deadening impact on the DOD’s ability to bring new technologies and innovation into its budget. Allowing appropriation decisions already made by congressional defense committees to go ahead under CRs will help the Pentagon resource timely innovations to keep our country safe.

Budget and resource allocation reform alone can’t guarantee the success of any DOD program. But without reform, the key to success to today’s multi-threat environment — having the agility to grow defense systems at the speed of innovation — will get harder and more expensive, while our ability to defend ourselves and our allies comes increasingly under question.

Arun Seraphin and Diem Salmon are commissioners on the Commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution Reform. Seraphin is also the executive director of the Emerging Technologies Institute at the National Defense Industrial Association. Salmon works at autonomous systems specialist Anduril Industries as the vice President for air dominance and strike.

Marine unit found metal shavings in F-35 fuel, plastic tool in wing

Metal shavings in contaminated fuel, incorrectly assembled parts, and a plastic scraper protruding from a wing fold were among the faults discovered in five new F-35C Joint Strike Fighters delivered to a U.S. Marine Corps fighter squadron in California last year, according to a memo obtained by Defense News.

Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 311, or VMFA-311, at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, California, discovered an array of problems with its Lockheed Martin-made F-35s that ultimately required more than 700 hours of work to fix and wasted more than 169,000 pounds of fuel, the Jan. 7 memo said.

On Dec. 7, for instance, a plastic scraper was discovered protruding from the wing fold of one of the squadron’s jets, after the jet had flown, the memo noted. The 5.5-inch scraper was discovered during a post-flight inspection on the jet and fell to the ground.

The F-35C is the Joint Strike Fighter variant flown by the Navy and Marine Corps, and each plane costs $94.4 million. It can take off from and land on aircraft carriers, and its wingtips are able to fold up to allow more compact storage on aircraft carriers.

The memo was written by VMFA-311 commander Lt. Col. Michael Fisher, who described a pattern of “persistent aircraft delivery discrepancies and premature component failures occurring at Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 311.” Fisher’s memo was approved by Col. William Mitchell, commander of Marine Aircraft Group 11.

“F-35 readiness continues to plague the Marine Corps and degrade our ability to be the nation’s stand-in force,” Fisher wrote. “The number of failed components, expended man-hours and lost sorties is unacceptable to maintain a baseline level of proficiency and consistency at the operational level. An F-35 ready room and maintenance department needs to believe in the quality and production of each F-35 aircraft.”

The severity and scope of the problems the memo described are “very surprising” and “frankly disturbing,” said Dan Grazier, a former analyst for the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight who specializes in defense programs.

Multiple flaws tallied

The quality problems and foreign object debris discovered in these five F-35s snarled the Marine Corps’ effort to stand up VMFA-311, nicknamed the Tomcats, as its second F-35C squadron. The jets had total flight hours ranging between 14 and 157, according to the memo, which was sent to the commanding general of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, Maj. Gen. Michael Borgschulte.

The Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 311 was previously known as Marine Attack Squadron 311, which flew AV-8 Harriers, and the Corps redesignated it as an F-35C unit in April 2023. Then in September, the service declared the squadron “safe for flight,” meaning it had the necessary maintenance programs, processes and trained Marines on hand to be able to conduct flight operations.

But as the revamped squadron began to receive its new F-35Cs, it became apparent each had something wrong with them, according to the memo.

Marine Aircraft Group 11 received the F-35s directly from Lockheed Martin’s factory, and VMFA-311 then conducted acceptance inspections.

All five jets had fuel contaminated with Krytox, a high-temperature lubricating grease, the memo said, and three jets also had metal shavings in their fuel. The jets had to be defueled and refueled two or three times to get the fuel quality up to an acceptable level, with the jets that had metal shavings requiring an extra defueling cycle, the memo added.

Fisher, the VMFA-311 commander, wrote that this meant the squadron had to dispose of more than 169,000 pounds of contaminated fuel.

The seals and segments on multiple jets were not installed correctly, the memo said, and needed to be removed and reorganized.

And multiple parts in the jets — including power and thermal management system controllers, electronic units, and an electric-hydrostatic actuator on a jet’s trailing edge flap — failed, forcing the squadron to remove and replace them, the memo added.

One jet’s left main gear brake assembly also failed, another fighter’s panoramic cockpit display failed and yet another jet’s backup oxygen system bottle was leaking, the memo stated. All components also needed to be removed and replaced.

“This is not an all-inclusive list and other component failures have occurred since this report,” Fisher wrote.

In a statement to Defense News, Lockheed Martin said it is working closely with the Marine Corps, the government’s F-35 Joint Program Office and the Defense Contract Management Agency to address concerns raised in the memo.

“We take pride in the quality of the aircraft we deliver to customers around the world and assess all reported customer feedback on production quality and parts reliability,” the company’s statement said.

Lockheed Martin said it averages fewer than one missed production quality problem per F-35. The company said it closely monitors the reliability of F-35 parts and works with the joint program office to fix parts that fail early. Lockheed Martin also said parts on the F-35 typically last twice as long as those on fourth-generation jets.

The F-35 Joint Program Office declined to comment about the memo and VMFA-311′s F-35s, but said it takes steps to fix problems with new jets delivered to units.

“The JPO and DCMA have various means and teams that are engaged on a recurring basis with industry to evaluate and work corrective actions for quality issues that are reported from the field,” the office said.

Asked whether Lockheed Martin covers the costs of repairs or maintenance stemming from issues found in factory-delivered jets, the office said: “Costs of repairs or maintenance depend on the specific issue.”

The Marine Corps declined to speak to Defense News, saying it would not comment on documents that haven’t been officially released.

The 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing declined to comment on the maintenance issues described in the memo, citing operational security.

Fisher said that to make sure such problems are promptly fixed in the future, a direct communication line should be set up between the F-35 Joint Program Office and Lockheed Martin to those units accepting new F-35s, with responses coming no more than 24 hours after a unit reports a problem.

This needs to be in addition to and outside of the standard action request and occurrence reporting process already in place, he wrote, which “seldomly provides timely feedback or external assistance to repair gripes recorded by the accepting unit.”

Fisher also noted Lockheed Martin “should be accountable and responsible for aircraft discrepancies found during the unit’s acceptance process and functional flight check.” Furthermore, he explained, problems discovered with newly accepted aircraft, including premature component failures, need to be relayed across the entire F-35 fleet, including to other services and units.

Bloomberg in October reported another Marine Corps unit — Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 542 at Cherry Point, North Carolina — had to repair four F-35Bs shortly after arriving.

Grazier said it’s hard to tell whether the reported problems with new F-35s at VMFA-311 are simply a “bad batch” of problematic jets or a sign of a deeper problem.

“But the fact that all five of this squadron’s aircraft have shown up from the factory with problems like this — that certainly indicates a pattern,” Grazier said. “It should be addressed immediately.”

The problems — particularly the massive amounts of contaminated fuel that had to be disposed of — also represent a waste of taxpayer money and Marines’ time and effort, he added. Grazier said a program such as the F-35, which has been in the works since 2001, should have been able to work out such quality issues a long time ago.

“We’re still dealing with problems like this,” he added. “That’s not the way this process is supposed to work.”

Raytheon picks Spain’s Sener to make Patriot interceptor parts

COLOGNE, Germany — RTX’s Raytheon selected Spanish engineering and technology group Sener to make a key component of the Patriot air-defense system’s interceptor missile at its Madrid site.

The contract, announced by the companies on April 29, covers the electro-mechanical control section of the GEM-T missile, one of the interceptor options for the system’s global customer base. The part “provides precise, high-speed steering control for the missile while in flight to intercept,” a spokeswoman for RTX said.

Raytheon’s move to localize component production in Europe follows a contract with NATO, under the COMLOG joint venture together with pan-European missile maker MBDA, for 1,000 GEM-T missiles. The deal, announced in January, could be worth as much as $5.6 billion.

The mega order is expected to boost the existing Patriot-related industrial ecosystem in Europe, in which Raytheon and MBDA have cooperated for decades. “For example, COMLOG will expand the production and assembly capacity for the GEM-T missile to include production of the rocket motor, propulsion sections and other components in Germany, and the control section by Sener in Spain,” the spokeswoman told Defense News.

Engineers from Sener and Raython will work to “co-develop” the missile control component so that the Spanish company can eventually produce it at its site in Tres Cantos, Madrid, according to a Raytheon statement.

Raytheon’s Spain connection is the second industrial tie-up in that country related to Patriot announced in recent days. Lockheed Martin last week said it would work with Madrid-based Grupo Oesia to make “specialized cables and harnesses” for its PAC-3 MSE missile, a newer and pricier Patriot interceptor that promises greater in-flight maneuverability against incoming threats.

Air defense capabilities are in high demand in Europe and Ukraine following Russia’s targeting of Ukrainian infrastructure and population centers. The Patriot system, in particular, is considered a hot, but scarce commodity, and production lags far behind demand.

Italy has given Ukraine long-range missiles, says UK defense minister

ROME — Britain’s defense minister has stated that Italy has sent Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine, lifting the lid on months of secrecy surrounding Italy’s supply of weaponry to Kyiv.

Grant Shapps made the announcement while touring the factory in the UK where missile maker MBDA manufactures the Storm Shadow, which has been used by Ukrainian forces against Russian targets in Crimea and elsewhere.

“I do think the Storm Shadow has been an extraordinary weapon,” Shapps told The Times of London.

“It’s the UK, France and Italy positioning those weapons for use, particularly in Crimea. These weapons are making a very significant difference,” he said.

Britain has previously announced sending Storm Shadows to Ukraine, while France has announced sending its version of the missile, known as the SCALP-EG. But Italy has mostly declined to give any details on arms it sends to Ukraine and has never reported dispatching the MBDA missile.

On Monday a spokesperson with the Italian defense ministry declined to comment on Shapps’ remarks when asked by a Defense News reporter.

Italy first purchased the Storm Shadow from European missile house MBDA in 1999 and has received around 200, using them during NATO’s operation in Libya in 2011.

In January, Italy’s parliament voted to extend the supply of weaponry to Ukraine through 2024, despite disquiet amongst voters and opposition from some parties within parliament.

Hitherto, the country’s right-wing government has kept its list of arms packages for Ukraine secret, although it has reportedly planned to send Stinger surface-to-air missiles, mortars, Milan or Panzerfaust anti-tank weapons, Browning heavy machine guns, MG-type light machine guns, systems for countering improvised explosive devices, multiple-launch rocket systems, PzH 2000 howitzers and vehicles.

Last year the government announced it would send one Samp-T air defense system in conjunction with France.

Entering into service with the Italian Army in 2013, Samp-T is a truck-based tactical antimissile system designed to tackle cruise missiles, manned and unmanned aircraft and tactical ballistic missiles.

Italy has five systems.

Asked this month if Italy would respond to Ukrainian requests for another system given the uptick in Russian missile attacks in Ukraine, Italian foreign minister Antonio Tajani was noncommittal, stating, “We are doing everything we can to help Ukraine and give answers through the instruments we have.”

Speaking to The Times in the UK, Shapps also criticized Germany for holding back on sending Ukraine its Taurus cruise missile.

“France, Britain, and Italy have all shown that the Taurus, Storm Shadow, or Scalp are highly effective. While they’re in limited supply, Germany has many available. Therefore, yes, they should absolutely be provided. It would clearly make a significant impact,” he said.

France offers to buy strategic assets from struggling IT firm Atos

PARIS — The French government offered to buy the defense-strategic assets from struggling information-technology company Atos to keep them from falling under foreign control.

Atos received a non-binding letter of intent from the French state on April 27 to buy all of its business in advanced computing, mission-critical systems and cybersecurity, representing about €1 billion (US $1.1 billion) in sales last year, the company said in an April 29 statement.

Atos builds the supercomputers used in France’s nuclear-deterrent program, designed the Scorpion combat-information system being rolled out to equip the country’s land forces, and was picked in 2019 to lead development of a big-data platform for the French Armed Forces Ministry. The company posted a record loss in 2023, and has been in talks with its banks to restructure an unsustainable level of debt.

“The aim is to keep Atos’ strategic activities under the exclusive control of France,” Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told broadcaster LCI in an interview on Sunday. “We’re taking the initiative, because it’s the role of the state to defend Atos’ strategic interests, and to avoid that sensitive technologies that are crucial in terms of supercomputers or defense, could depend on foreign interests at any time.”

France and Germany sign off on future battle tank system

Airbus in March ended talks to buy Atos’ Big Data & Security unit, prompting the French finance ministry to say it would find a national solution to protect the company’s strategic activities. France is targeting assets accounting for about two-thirds of the BDS unit, representing an enterprise value of between €700 million and €1 billion, Atos said.

“The group welcomes this letter of intent, which would protect the sovereign strategic imperatives of the French state,” Atos said.

Due diligence will start “shortly,” in view of a confirmatory non-binding offer by early June, the company said. The letter of intent provides for limited exclusivity regarding the targeted assets until either July 31 or the conclusion of a global restructuring agreement, whichever comes first, Atos said.

Le Maire said state-shareholding agency APE will buy the strategic Atos assets, though other French sovereign players could participate, along the models of French warship builder Naval Group and nuclear-reactor supplier TechnicAtome.

The French state owns 62.3% of Naval Group, with Thales holding a 35% stake. APE owns 50.3% of TechnicAtome, whose reactor power France’s aircraft carrier and submarines, with other shareholders including Naval Group and state-owned electricity company EDF.

“We’ll have to wait and see what other shareholders might participate,” Le Maire said. “And I mean only French shareholders working in strategic fields, for example in defense or aeronautics.”

France has extensive shareholdings in its defense companies, including a 26.1% stake and 35.4% voting share in publicly-traded Thales, and half of French-German weapons maker KNDS. French law requires foreign investors to seek approval from the Ministry of the Economy before investing in sensitive sectors or strategic assets, so-called covered activities.

“We’re going to take control of all Atos’ strategic activities, and that’s a big decision,” Le Maire said. “When we see a threat to a private group involved in strategic activities, I take my responsibilities, and I guarantee that these strategic activities will remain French.”

Sierra Nevada wins $13B contract to build Air Force ‘doomsday plane’

The Department of the Air Force on Friday said it awarded Sierra Nevada Corp. a $13 billion contract to replace the service’s aging E-4B Nightwatch “doomsday planes” that would fly during a nuclear war.

The company will develop and produce the Survivable Airborne Operations Center, the name for the aircraft that will succeed the E-4B, and is expected to finish the work by July 10, 2036. The Air Force is obligating $59 million in research, development, test and evaluation funds to Sierra Nevada to start work on SAOC right away.

“The development of this critical national security weapon system ensures the department’s nuclear command, control, and communications capability is operationally relevant and secure for decades to come,” an Air Force spokesperson said in an email.

The E-4B, officially referred to as the National Airborne Operations Center, is designed to allow the president to direct forces in the event of a nuclear war or other devastating emergency that destroys command-and-control centers on the ground. The Air Force’s four E-4s have been flying since the 1970s and are approaching the end of their service lives.

Sierra Nevada’s contract to develop and produce SAOC will cover the delivery of engineering and manufacturing development aircraft, production aircraft, associated ground systems, and interim contract support, the Pentagon’s contract announcement said. The company will perform work on SAOC in Englewood, Colorado; Sparks, Nevada; Beavercreek, Ohio; and Vandalia, Ohio.

The Air Force said Sierra Nevada will build SAOC out of a hardened and modified version of a commercial derivative aircraft. And it will use a modular open system approach to include modern secure communication and planning capabilities.

SAOC’s ground support systems will include trainers for aircrew, mission crew, and maintainers, as well as ground support equipment, test and sustainment system integration laboratories, and other systems.

The contract includes cost-plus-incentive-fee, fixed price incentive and cost-plus-fixed-fee components, the Pentagon’s contract announcement said.