The US plan to increase the production of Patriot air defense missiles is likely to be changed.
The United States is struggling to ramp up production of Patriot missiles supplied to Ukraine due to a shortage of a critical component made by Boeing. Reuters wrote this on Sunday, July 21, citing four sources of information.
“In order to expand the production of Patriot missiles in Japan, the United States needs to increase additional supplies of homing heads for them made by the American company Boeing,” the agency pointed out.
Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) already produces about 30 missiles annually under license from defense contractor Lockheed Martin and could increase that number to 60, two Japanese officials said and two industry sources to reporters.
“It may be years before MHI ramps up production due to shortages of critical components,” said one of the industry sources.
As Reuters notes, even with sufficient supplies of homing heads, expanding annual production of Patriot missiles in Japan by more than 60 units will require MHI to increase capacity.
Because of this, the agency wrote, MHI or the United States would have to find money to build a new missile factory, which could cost at least tens of millions of dollars, a Japanese government source said.
Earlier, Ukraine received a second batch of Patriot anti-aircraft missiles from Spain.
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Source: korrespondent
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.