The Army will look to formally start its Stinger missile replacement program in fiscal year 2024 as part of its upcoming budget request, according to the service’s top acquisition official.
“We’re going to work with Congress in FY ‘24 about potential options for starting it in that year. It’s a clear requirement and the Army is going to move out on that,” Doug Bush, the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, said during a Defense News
discussion on Wednesday.
President Biden is expected to roll out the administration’s FY ‘24 budget request on Thursday, to include topline spending figures, while more detailed budget documents are planned for release on March 13.
Bush cited replacing Stinger missiles as an example of the Army’s push to take “maximum advantage” of new authorities for replenishing stockpiles of equipment sent to Ukraine with upgraded systems.
“Ukraine dynamics certainly affect conversations about timelines for starting new programs,” Bush said. “In the case of Stinger, we found some ways to buy time in the near-term, including, for example, refurbishing older Stinger missiles. We think we’ll get at least 1,200 good new Stingers out of that effort and save a lot of money doing it. That buys us time to make sure the Stinger stocks are healthy enough to give us time to get the new program underway.”
As of March 3, the U.S. has committed to providing over 1,600 Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to support Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s ongoing invasion, according to the Pentagon.
The Army last March released a Request for Information for its effort to find a replacement for the Raytheon Technologies [RTX]-built Stinger missiles, detailing a goal to start production of 10,000 new missile systems in FY ‘27 (Defense Daily, April 11 2022).
Army officials in the RFI detailed the need for a replacement system “to meet increasing demand and growing threat capability,” noting the Stinger-Reprogrammable Microprocessor will become obsolete in FY ‘23 and that the “current Stinger inventory is in decline.”
Last July, Bush said the Army was confident in moving toward a Stinger missile replacement competition after the RFI yielded a “lot of really good responses with high-technology readiness levels” (Defense Daily, July 27).
Bush was also asked Wednesday about recent comments from Gen. James McConville, the Army chief of staff, that efforts to replenish stockpiles of equipment sent to Ukraine should focus on bringing in upgraded capabilities rather than buying “new old stuff” (Defense Daily, Jan. 18).
“That’s a key flexibility that Congress has given us here that is very advantageous,” Bush said. “We’re doing it with munitions going over [too]. If we send an older version of say a TOW missile…or something [like] a Javelin, we are able to replace it with just the latest thing in production that’s the best thing for the U.S. Army. That’s really important that Congress allowed us to do that and we’re taking maximum advantage of it.”