The Russian invasion of Ukraine is reinforcing the value of simple, shoulder-fired missiles. As Western arsenals empty their stockpiles, flowing some 17,000 “fire-and-forget” missiles into Ukraine, the small rockets risk being consumed faster than the West can currently replace them.
As America focuses on shipping missiles into the fight, strategic thinkers are eyeing America’s vulnerable and aging missile industrial base, mulling the challenges of readying old production facilities to meet the unexpected demands of wartime production. Few realize that advanced Javelin anti-tank and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles are backed by an aged and insecure production infrastructure, riddled with potential bottlenecks, vulnerabilities, and supply challenges.
For air threats, America’s well-known portable antiaircraft missile, the FIM-92 Stinger, is out of production in the U.S. and cannot be replaced easily. The missile system was first produced in the 1970s, and with tens of thousands of updated Stingers sitting in the U.S. inventory, the missile wasn’t expected to be replaced until the 2030s. The Ukraine conflict may well change the supply calculations, forcing the United States to accelerate replacement plans.
The anti-tank FGM-148 Javelin started entering U.S. service in the mid-1990s, and, today, with 45,000 missiles produced or on order, plenty are available. In 2019, the Pentagon awarded the program, a joint venture between Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, a contract for 2,100 advanced “F-Model” Javelins, that combine “multiple features such as blast fragmentation and high-explosive anti-tank into a single warhead,” allowing fighters to employ the Javelin against both armored and “soft” unarmored targets. With the first “F-Models” arriving in mid-2020, and a new, lighter-weight “G-Model” entering testing, Javelin production was winding down, replacing training rounds spent as U.S. soldiers worked with a missile set to be in U.S. service through 2050.
Today, the Javelin production line may merit reinvigoration. Production cuts have been substantial over the past decade: between FY 1999 and FY 2001, the U.S. procured some 9,848 Javelins, while, in the most recent three-year period (between FY 2020 and FY 2022), missile procurement shrank to a total of 2,037.
With reports suggesting that Ukraine forces expended 300 Javelins in the first week of the war, U.S. shoulder-fired missile production must to ramp up to keep up with consumption.
Root Out Single Points Of Failure
One particular concern is the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, near the small southeast Iowa town of Middleton, where melt-pour explosive experts craft
Stinger and Javelin warheads. First opened in 1941, the plant has seen little investment since.
The facility is showing its age. In 2017, U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack (D-Iowa), warned that the “nation’s primary large caliber ammunition melt-pour facility” was outdated, “requiring manual touch labor and lacking the adaptability needed for implementing new manufacturing technologies.” His concern—stemming from the facility’s history of lethal industrial accidents—was well-founded, and, in late 2018, the aging plant was
rocked by an explosion.
That incident helped spark a wholesale renovation of the Army’s ammunition industrial base. In Iowa, old, unsafe structures are coming down and the sprawling site’s roads, rails, sewer system and other utilities are being replaced.
In 2020, the Army held a groundbreaking for a centralized solid and hazardous waste facility. More improvements are on the way.
But the renovations, when coupled with added manufacturing demands, will stress one of America’s few small rocket warhead production lines. If more missiles are needed, the the plant will need to speed up, likely incorporating new and inexperienced workers. Mothballed equipment may need to be brought back online. And, if the Stinger replacement needs to be accelerated, the plant’s warhead production lines may need substantial retooling to address production of both missiles. That’s hard enough to do with an established plant, let alone one that is undergoing a wholesale renovation.
Realize Idyllic Iowa Is Now A Military Target
If the conflict in Ukraine drags on, site security must increase as well. The Russian government has been quite pointed in threatening countries that aid Ukraine and has shown no qualms in expanding the Ukraine conflict, previously attacking critical munitions infrastructure in other countries.
The risk of Russian mischief in Iowa may be slight, but it is real. In 2021, investigators studying the movements of Russian assassination squads through Europe linked Russian agents to a decade-long
string of mysterious explosions at Eastern European arms depots and munitions plants.
Securing the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant may not be simple. It is a sprawling, 19,011-acre facility, with only a small group of Army officials available to provide contract oversight. The plant itself is run by American Ordnance, a subsidiary of the privately owned
Day and Zimmerman conglomerate, so additional security enhancements may well be tied to the Pentagon’s plodding contractual infrastructure. With the aged infrastructure and the prospect that additional manufacturing and rehabilitation demands will require recruitment of new, rather lightly-vetted employees, both cyber security and insider threat assessment capabilities may need more attention.
These security concerns are making their way into
Iowa’s U.S. Senate race. One Democratic candidate, retired Admiral
Mike Franken, cautioned, “Attacking an ammunition plant like Middletown’s, regardless of how secure it is, can be construed as victory even without a disruption to the facility if the attack is paired with a false social media effort. As it is, Iowa has a perfect setting for its ammunition facility. And as its next Senator, I will work to ensure that it is secure, up-to-date, and properly staffed and hardened.”
After thanking Middleton residents “for helping with the defense of the nation,” Franken urged wider investment in America’s munitions infrastructure, stating, “Redundancy in specialty warhead casting is something the services ought to consider. More cross-purposing of warhead and general munitions work should be enacted so that any disruption to a manufacturing line cannot be construed as a victory by an opposing entity. American military might, when called upon, should not be constrained by a lack of resiliency at home.”
