The U.S. military's key missile inventory faces dual challenges of insufficient reliability and accelerated production increase

The picture shows the US military AIM-9X missile. (DVIDS)

[Reporter Wu Zheyu/Comprehensive Report] The U.S. military's key missile inventory faces two major challenges: "insufficient reliability" and "accelerated production increase." The latest procurement report of the US Department of Defense shows that the combat availability rate of the AIM-9X Sidewinder Block II air-to-air missile widely used by the Air Force and Navy has not reached the 86% standard, and the Air Force has only 58%. On the other hand, the US military is significantly expanding the production capacity of the AGM-158 JASSM stand-off missile, with the goal of increasing the annual production to 1,880 missiles in 2032.

Military news website "Air & Space Forces Magazine" reported that the U.S. Air Force's AIM-9X Block II operational availability rate is currently only 58% and the Navy's is 78%, both below the 86% requirement. Related problems have even affected pilot training, resulting in an insufficient number of Captured Aerial Training Missiles (CATMs) with actual seekers and guidance units.

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In this regard, the U.S. Air Force and Navy plan to purchase more than 11,000 AIM-9X Block IIs. However, the latest AIM-9X-4 configuration has reliability problems when integrating new circuit processors, which not only affects the reliability of the missiles, but also leads to the suspension of testing. The 10.4 version of the combat flight software originally responsible for integrating the advanced guidance control unit and inertial measurement unit has also been cancelled. The report pointed out that the follow-up software that truly solves the problem will not be completed until September 2027 at the earliest.

At the same time, the US military is rapidly expanding another main weapon, the AGM-158 JASSM and its anti-ship derivative LRASM. As of April this year, the U.S. Department of Defense has received 5,348 JASSMs of various types. The current annual production capacity is about 600 pieces, which will be increased to 860 pieces in the near future, reaching 1,280 pieces in the 2030 fiscal year, and increasing to 1,880 pieces in 2032.

LRASM has also increased production simultaneously. In March this year, a US$52 million contract modification will increase its annual production from 240 to 320 coins starting from the 2029 fiscal year. The U.S. Air Force will invest US$200 million in fiscal year 2025 to establish a second engine source for JASSM-ER and LRASM to reduce supply chain bottlenecks.

However, JASSM also had maintenance problems. After the US military inspected 1,356 missiles, 49 were listed as requiring factory-level maintenance and renovation. Most of them involved invisible coating defects. The related problems are not expected to be completely resolved until 2029. Lockheed Martin has changed the original matt gray paint to a semi-gloss black stealth coating to reduce radar and visual signatures.

In the face of rapidly increasing demand, Lockheed Martin is expanding and modernizing more than 20 production facilities in 5 states in the United States. In addition to expanding production of the existing JASSM, the company also recently announced the modular AGM-158 FLEX, which can change the warhead front section and launch mode, allowing the same missile architecture to respond to different missions. This shows that the US military is simultaneously expanding its long-range precision strike inventory from production capacity, supply chain and modular design.