Jury Still Out on Multiyear Procurement for Munitions.

• Author: Carberry, Sean

During a media roundtable in February, Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth touted a provision of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act: multi-year procurement for munitions.

"The real value of the multiyear procurement authority is that it allows us to sign contracts with industry that give them sort of a guaranteed flow over time," she said. "It shows them that we will be a customer over time, and it allows them to make investments as a result of that."

With the United States shipping arms new and old to Ukraine, U.S. industry has been scrambling to boost --and in some cases restart--production of munitions like Stingers and Javelins. Wormuth said CEOs have been telling her they want to help Ukraine fend off Russia, but they need a consistent and prolonged demand signal from the Defense Department if they are going to ramp up production.

"I think we're going to start seeing those multiyear procurements bear fruit. Whether Congress might extend those or broaden those, I think remains to be seen," she said. Congress is probably going to want to see how the department uses the existing authorities to sign two- to five-year contracts before approving additional ones, she said.

"But as I look to future conflicts, I think we all understand now how important magazine depth is," she added.

And the Defense Department is looking to add magazine depth in its 2024 budget request, which seeks $30.6 billion for munitions, including multiyear procurement, or MYP, contracts for 18,000 Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System rockets; 692 Patriot Missile Segment Enhancement missiles; 516 Naval Strike Missiles; 825 RIM-174 Standard Missile (SM-6); 477 Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles (LRASM); and an unspecified number of Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) and Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles --Extended Range (JASSM-ER).

Furthermore, the department is seeking to pilot a new "large lot procurement" concept with the proposed five-year contracts for the AMRAAM, JASSM-ER, LRASM and SM-6. The large lot program is designed so that "synergies in production across different but related programs can generate efficiencies and result in greater production capacity, accelerated delivery and lower unit costs," according to the department's supporting documentation for the multiyear requests.

According to U.S. law--specifically 10 U.S.C. 3501--the department must demonstrate a proposed procurement meets several criteria to qualify for multiyear...