Lockheed Martin Vice President Bryan Dunn stated that the company cannot provide US allies with any guarantees regarding the delivery timelines of critical missiles for Patriot air defense systems, despite plans to triple production capacity, the Financial Times reports.
"We don’t control how those missiles are going to be allocated. We cannot tell anybody where you are going to fall in that priority list. Obviously, there is a lot of rhetoric coming from the Department of Defense… about how they are going to reallocate, reorganize, who gets missiles first. We don’t control any of that," he stated, adding, however, that the additional capacity "obviously will be able to satisfy the various user needs in a shorter period of time."
Lockheed Martin agreed to increase production of PAC-3 missiles from the current 650 per year to 2,000 by 2033 as part of a $4.7 billion deal with the Pentagon signed earlier this year.
Demand for these missiles was high even before the conflict in the Persian Gulf placed immense pressure on Western stockpiles.
They are also vital for Ukraine, where, according to analysts’ warnings, Vladimir Putin is exploiting the shortage of interceptors to bombard the country with ballistic and hypersonic missiles. Specifically, the PAC-3 has proven effective against high-speed, hard-to-intercept ballistic missiles, as well as cruise missiles.
Ukrainian weapons manufacturer Fire Point reported last week that it had conducted the first flight tests of a new surface-to-air missile designed as a cheaper alternative to the Patriot system, suitable for mass production.
