Those plans hinge on emergency spending for Ukraine that Congress already approved, but also on the more than $600 million in industrial investments in the next\u00a0tranche of aid<\/a>\u00a0and multiyear authorities in the annual defense policy bill still under debate in Congress, according to\u00a0Doug Bush<\/a>, the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, technology and logistics.<\/p>\n \u201cFunding is already in place, contracts are underway to basically triple 155mm production,\u201d Bush told Defense News on the sidelines of the\u00a0Reagan National Defense Forum<\/a>. \u201cThere\u2019s funding on the Hill, in the supplemental, to more than double that again. That would take a period of years.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to be able to build our stocks not just where we started the war, but higher. We\u2019re posturing for a pretty \u2015 over a period of three years \u2015 a dramatic increase in conventional artillery ammunition production.\u201d<\/p>\n Army Secretary Christine Wormuth separately\u00a0told reporters<\/a>\u00a0that the U.S. will go from making 14,000 155mm shells each month to 20,000 by the spring and 40,000 by 2025.<\/p>\n The service in recent days awarded contracts to three private companies to produce and deliver 155mm artillery: General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems, American Ordnance, and IMT Defense.<\/p>\n The push comes as the U.S. has supplied Ukraine with more than 1 million artillery rounds, and as Pentagon officials see the war in Ukraine continuing indefinitely, further draining stocks for the U.S. and allies. Bush said it\u2019s unclear what the Ukrainian military\u2019s mid- and long-term needs will be, and the U.S. Army wants to be ready.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are in a position to support Ukraine, but it\u2019s more the mid and long term,\u201d Bush said. \u201cBy creating this capacity … if this war goes three or four years, we\u2019ll be in a position to just vastly\u00a0outproduce the Russians<\/a>\u00a0all by ourselves \u2015 and if you combine that with our allies, then we\u2019re just dwarfing their capability. They won\u2019t be able to keep up.\u201d<\/p>\n Bush noted the Army is paying to expand and improve production capacity at its ammunition plants in Scranton, Pennsylvania; Kingsport, Tennessee; and Middletown, Iowa. Army officials also aim to contract with defense firms outside the U.S. for artillery shells for Ukraine, a step in line with talks between senior Pentagon officials and their foreign counterparts about greater industrial cooperation.<\/p>\n Beyond artillery shells, Bush said he is pushing to double production for the most in-demand precision munitions for Ukraine:\u00a0Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System<\/a>\u00a0rounds for the Lockheed Martin-made\u00a0High Mobility Artillery Rocket System<\/a>\u00a0and Javelins, the portable anti-tank weapon jointly made by Lockheed and Raytheon Technologies.<\/p>\n The Senate-passed version of the sweeping\u00a02023 National Defense Authorization Act<\/a>\u00a0aims to authorize massive purchases of high-priority munitions using multiyear contracts to help Ukraine fight Russia and to refill U.S. stockpiles; the bill would also provide waivers to speed up the process. A compromise bill was still under negotiations between the House and Senate on Monday.<\/p>\n While approval for multiyear purchasing authorities for munitions through the NDAA would be the starting gun for the Army to begin planning those buys, the effort must also get approval in next year\u2019s appropriations legislation, Bush said.<\/p>\n The defense industry\u2019s lack of robust production capacity for ammunition is a product of historically \u201clumpy\u201d purchases by the military,\u00a0Ellen Lord<\/a>, a former Pentagon acquisitions chief, told reporters. She said that without steady demand over time, defense firms haven\u2019t been making capital investments in their plants.<\/p>\n \u201cSo we have to be clear about the demand signal and the volumes over multiple years, and then industry will develop that capacity,\u201d said Lord, who now works in the private defense sector. \u201cBut industry [executives] can\u2019t go to their board of directors and say: \u2018Hey, I think there\u2019s going to be a lot of orders out there, so let\u2019s spend $50 million to build a plant and hope.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n At the conference, Raytheon\u2019s chief executive,\u00a0Greg Hayes<\/a>, said that the war\u2019s consumption rates so far have vastly outstripped industrial capacity. Since the start of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine in February, donation efforts have used up five years of Javelin production and 13 years of production for portable anti-aircraft Stinger systems, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cSo the question is: How are we going to resupply, restock the inventories?\u201d Hayes said.<\/p>\n Speaking on a panel with Hayes, Wormuth said the contracts for a production boost have already begun. She pointed to the service \u2018s $1.2 billion\u00a0award<\/a>\u00a0to Raytheon for six National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System batteries for Ukraine and a $431 million\u00a0award<\/a>\u00a0to Lockheed to replenish donated HIMARS launchers.<\/p>\n \u201cThanks to Congress … we\u2019ve actually pushed $6 billion out to industry to help us with replenishment, which is going to enable us to not only continue to supply Ukraine but also to replenish our own stocks,\u201d Wormuth said.<\/p>\n The Army, she added, is now \u201cworking closely with industry to increase their speed and capacity\u201d and resolve \u201cchokepoints\u201d in supplies.<\/p>\n \u201dWe\u2019re working on it, and we\u2019re going to ramp up,\u201d she said, adding that the Army is also compressing training for Ukrainians to use donated weapons.<\/p>\n Hayes credited Army and Pentagon officials with compressing contracting and delivery processes, from months to days, for NASAMS \u2015 once U.S. President\u00a0Joe Biden<\/a>\u00a0made the decision to send them.<\/p>\n But Hayes also said that because NASAMS, which are co-produced with Norway, were infrequently manufactured, \u201cwe\u2019re going to have ramp up production from zero here.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/RHM4AM7AZZBW7JCFJEKERWYBJQ.jpg\")