USA Plans to Produce Missiles According to the "McDonald's Model"
Against the backdrop of recent military actions against Iran, the USA is rethinking its approach to arms production. According to information from the Financial Times, the Pentagon aims to establish fast, cheap, and mass production of missiles, comparing the new concept with the operating principles of the McDonald's chain — standardization, speed, and scalability.
Illustrative photo. Photo: lockheedmartin.com
One example is the American company Co-Aspire, which uses 3D printing to manufacture missile parts. According to the company's head, Doug D'Andrea, this significantly accelerates production. The company assembled its first missile in four months and plans to complete the second in five.
The Financial Times notes that the conflict has revealed a problem: the USA produces a relatively small number of expensive missiles. For example, approximately 600 Tomahawk missiles are produced annually, each costing about 2.6 million dollars. PrSM and JASSM missiles are also estimated at approximately 1.6—1.9 million dollars per unit.
Another company, Castelion, has already received a Pentagon contract to produce more than 12,000 hypersonic missiles over five years. In the future, it plans to produce up to 6,000 missiles annually at a price of about 400,000 dollars per unit, using widely available components from the automotive industry.
According to former Pentagon official Michael Horowitz, the American military industry has long focused on expensive and complex weapons systems, but modern warfare requires mass production.
In the next five years, the US Air Force plans to spend about 12 billion dollars on the procurement of 28,000 missiles. In addition, there is a program to acquire 10,000 ground-based missiles over three years.
Along with the development of missile production, the USA is also expanding the production of drones. The Pentagon admits that new, cheaper missiles may be inferior to expensive counterparts in accuracy and reliability, but believes that the ability to quickly replenish stocks is becoming an increasingly important factor in modern conflicts.
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