The Navy has sent Congress a $7.4 billion unfunded priorities list, highlighting the service’s continued need for munitions and future fighter aircraft development, according to documents obtained by Inside Defense.
The UPL is much larger than the $2.2 billion the service identified last year.
The Navy’s No. 1 priority, according to the UPL submitted to Congress, is “targeted munitions,” totaling $841 million and highlighting the need to increase procurement of the Standard Missile-6 ($62 million), the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile Maritime ($35 million), the Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile ($694 million) and the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile ($50 million).
The UPL document notes SM-6 munitions are “heavily relied upon for integrated air and missile defense and have been expended in the recent Red Sea conflict.”
Meanwhile, the list flags $1.3 billion for Air Wing of the Future (AWOTF) investments in the Navy’s sixth-generation strike fighter to replace the aging F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler.
“Since [Presidential Budget Fiscal Year 2021], the Navy has significantly invested in the research and development of the 6th Generation Strike Fighter because of its critical role to effectively counter” China, the document states. “The current 6th Generation program has stable, validated requirements, backed by extensive data analysis and approved Initial Capabilities Documents that demonstrate a platform that can establish temporal air superiority and conduct necessary strikes in a highly contested environment.”
The document notes that while the F-35C Joint Strike Fighter is a “highly capable aircraft now and into the near future,” the Navy’s sixth-generation fighter will be “better equipped to penetrate adversarial Anti-Access Area Denial environments to ensure the Navy can project power and maintain air superiority.”
The aircraft is envisioned to feature manned-unmanned teaming and “contributes to warfighting advantage by incorporating innovative technologies and capabilities.”
As a third priority, the UPL states the Navy would also like to see an additional $1.4 billion investment in the munitions industrial base.
“The Navy continues to expend priority munitions at a high rate,” the document states. “The munitions industrial base is unable to keep pace with the growing demand for increased production, requiring significant investment to build infrastructure and maintain requirement inventories.”
The proposed funding would “address bottlenecks” among lower-tier munitions components like turbine engines, rocket motors, warheads and boosters.
The funds would go toward expanding existing suppliers and second-source vendors ($200 million), procuring long lead time materials for SM-6 and medium range air-to-air missile variants ($100 million), adding a “scalable second source” for Tomahawk cruise missile motors ($143 million), accelerating development of the LRASM Offensive Anti-Surface Warfare capability and investing in sub-tier suppliers to increase production from 120 per year to 240 per year ($129 million); accelerating the integration of Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) into Navy’s Aegis Weapons system ($220 million), and other investments.
The fourth item on the list is for $235 million to develop “non-traditional sea denial expeditionary loitering munitions.”
Further down the list, the service also identifies an $871 million unmet need for procuring six KC-130Js for the Navy reserve to recapitalize the fleet by 2030.
The service also included a separate $1.6 billion list detailing unfunded military construction priorities.
Originally published Inside Defense
