The Army’s top acquisition official on Wednesday said he expects there will be “several big awards” in February and March related to replenishing stockpiles of equipment sent to Ukraine.
Doug Bush, the Army’s assistant secretary of acquisition, logistics and technology, also told reporters while the service hasn’t yet awarded deals utilizing the new multi-year contracting authorities for critical munitions that “quite a few are in the works.”
“We’re working on numerous cases. Some will be new contracts because the timing works out where we can do a new contract that’s a multi-year [deal]. In other cases, we’re going to be modifying existing contracts, or perhaps extending the terms of existing contracts to retain current pricing,” Bush said.
The final version of the fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act included a provision allowing select critical munitions to be procured using multi-year contracts, which Bush noted the Army has mostly used for large programs such as buying aircraft.
More specifically, the provision would allow the Pentagon to use multi-year details for 155mm rounds, AGM-179 Joint Air-to-Ground Missiles, HIMARS launchers, ATACMS missiles, GMLRS rockets, Naval Strike Missiles, PAC-3 MSEs, Stingers, Javelins, AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles, Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles, Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles, SM-6 missiles and AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles.
“That’s another way to get at accelerated production because, with the guaranteed funding stream, industry can do more on their side, working with their suppliers, to buy parts in advance,” Bush said.
Bill LaPlante, the Pentagon’s top acquisition official, has previously cited multi-year deals for critical munitions as an option to ensure supply chain stability in the future as the department looks to refill its inventories of what’s been supplied in larger numbers to Ukraine (Defense Daily, Nov. 7).
On the Army’s efforts to award contracts aimed at replenishing stockpiles of equipment, Bush said new awards can be expected soon now that the latest tranche of funding is in place from the most recent Ukraine supplemental funding bill.
“Overall, we remain well ahead of standard DoD timelines on getting funding obligated in terms of replenishment funds,” Bush told reporters. “We did a lot in the fall. And now that we’ve got the additional funding flow coming from the Ukraine supplemental, I do anticipate a bunch of large awards in February and March.”
The Army has awarded several replenishment contracts to date, including $84 million to Raytheon Missiles and Defense [RTX] for Excalibur 1B precision-guided munitions as well as $430.9 million and $520.8 million, respectively, to Lockheed Martin [LMT] for HIMARS launchers and GMLRS rockets.
The Pentagon in September detailed more than $1 billion in contracts that have been awarded since April to begin replenishing stockpiles of weapons sent to Ukraine, with the department having identified $7 billion in total replacement actions (Defense Daily, Sept. 9).
“That’s why we’re expanding on such a high production rate ramp. That buys us, we hope, time to make sure we can replenish more quickly. Because replenishing is not just replenishing ourselves. My assumption is we will also be helping replenish our allies and also other services, the Marine Corps, for example, has provided a lot of artillery and ammunition,” Bush said.
Gen. James McConville, the Army chief of staff, said last week efforts to replenish stockpiles of equipment sent to Ukraine should focus on bringing in upgraded capabilities rather than buying “new old stuff,” which Bush noted Congress has allowed the Army to do with authorities included in the supplemental funding bills (Defense Daily, Jan. 18).
“[That’s] if we send an older piece of equipment, sometimes it’s not even in production anymore, we are allowed to replace that with a newer one that is in production,” Bush said. “So far, Congress has been very supportive of that approach.”
McConville during his remarks last week cited the example of replacing M113 Armored Personnel Carriers sent to Ukraine with new BAE Systems-built Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicles (AMPV).
“The fact that we’re sending M113s and replacing them with AMPVS has led to, if you look at the replenishment dollar flow, a significant increase in available AMPV funding in FY ‘23. We’re going to put that to good use. I think it’ll help accelerate, I hope, some goals in terms of just getting that fielded more quickly,” Bush told reporters on Wednesday. “There are a few other areas where that might take place. For example, if we send older night vision devices, we can buy newer ones. If we send older versions of artillery shells, we can buy current production new ones. So there are quite a few examples of that.”