ORIANA PAWLYK
The U.S. Air Force wants more, albeit steadier, production of precision-guided bombs.
The service is racing to buy more Joint Direct Attack Munitions, or JDAMs, as well as GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs, as the Pentagon grapples with a growing bomb shortage driven in part by the war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
Lt. Gen. Arnold Bunch, the Air Force’s military deputy for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Acquisition at the Pentagon, confirmed on Tuesday the Air Force is looking to acquire 45,000 new JDAM tail-kits — which, via GPS, guide the bombs to their intended targets — a jump from the current annual production level of 36,500 kits. Bloomberg News first reported the increase earlier this month.
And the Air Force also wants to know as soon as possible whether companies are short on technologies or processes to meet this goal, the service’s top acquisition official said.“Weapons are a big focus area right now across the Department of Defense, particularly those that are precision-type that we are utilizing so much of in the fight around the world today,” Bunch told audience members during an Air Force Association breakfast in Washington, D.C.
“We are taking a very holistic look at this — it’s not just the tail-kit, it’s the bomb body, it’s the energetics that go with it, it’s all aspects of this,” Bunch said. “So if you are in this industry and you are contributing to what is going into the weapons portfolio, and you believe you’re running into issues based on production, or you’re running into quality, we’ve got to know that really quickly.”
The Air Force — which flies more than half the sorties for Operation Inherent Resolve, the name of the operation against ISIS — in December 2015 revealed bomb stockpiles were decreasing in light of the air war that began the previous year.
https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/10/17/air-force-wants-steadier-production-of-precision-bombs/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dodbuzz+%28DoD+Buzz%29&comp=7000029710983&rank=1
