US Army awards largest single-year Javelin contract to date: $1.3B
By Jen Judson
Friday, Aug 30,
2024
A Ukrainian soldier places an American-made Javelin missile in a fighting position on the front line on May 20, 2022, in the country's oblast of Kharkiv. (John Moore/Getty Images)
The U.S. Army awarded a
joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Raytheon a $1.3 billion contract to
produce Javelin antitank weapons, the
companies announced Thursday.
The contract, which is the
largest single-year deal to date in program history, is the first follow-on
award of a production order dated May 2023. The Javelin Joint Venture (JJV)
began to ramp up production activities of the man-portable, anti-armor weapon
last year to boost production of all-up rounds, an industry term that describes
complete munitions, to 3,960 annually by late 2026, a JJV statement notes.
Demand is increasing for
Javelin worldwide, particularly as Ukraine continues to use the weapon
extensively in its fight against the Russian invasion which began in February
2022. It has proven effective against Russian armor.
Part of the new contract
covers the production of 4,000 Javelins to replenish what was sent to Ukraine.
The joint venture supports
more than 25 international customers globally, including
Kosovo, one of its newest customers, and has produced more than 50,000
Javelin missiles and more than 12,000 reusable command launch units, the
companies reported.
In addition to Kosovo,
since the start of the war in Ukraine, the JJV has received a large number of
orders from new international customers including Albania, Latvia, Romania,
Bulgaria, Morocco, Thailand and Brazil.
Last fall, Poland’s
state-run defense group PGZ announced it had signed a memorandum of
understanding with the American joint venture to jointly
produce Javelin weapons.
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