A closed hearing to examine low-cost munitions

The committee will come to order. I have an opening statement which I will submit for the record without objection. Senator Reed.

Mr. Chairman, I too will submit my opening statement for the record so that we can begin the hearing.

And so now we begin with our witnesses. Lieutenant and just for for our open hearing earlier and that has been recessed. Now we're in open session and Lieutenant General Whitney, we're going to recognize you first.

Thank you for the opportunity today to appear before you as the Joint Staff's representative on this important topic of low-cost and developmental munitions. I'd also like to thank this committee and all of the Congress for your continued support of the department and our joint force. On the Joint Staff, I oversee the Force Structure, Resources and Assessment Directorate, affectionately known as J8. We support the Chairman, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to enable them to provide their military advice to our civilian leaders. Low-cost and developmental munitions, which we did cover in that preceding classified session. While not going into the details we covered in this open hearing, there is one point I'd like to reemphasize. Low-cost and developmental munitions can complement the traditional munitions in our arsenal, and we call this a high-low mix, and to be perfectly clear, both are needed. Thank you again for the record, and I stand ready with my service colleagues to answer any questions we can in this forum.

Well, thank you very much, and without objection, that statement be added to the record. Admiral Okano.

Chairman Wicker, Ranking Member Reed, and the distinguished members of the committee, good morning. The Department of the Navy is executing a fundamental shift in how we arm the fleet. To compete and win in an era of strategic competition, we need deeper magazines and we need them now. The initial focus of our efforts is strike munitions. As we continue to roll out the strategy, we'll expand this framework to other efforts that will lead to a more capable, resilient, and lethal force ready to meet the challenges of the 21st century battlefields. Our strategy is built on a three-phased approach to ensure stability, foster innovation, and optimize our production capabilities, balancing robust collaboration with our industry partners with this firm accountability to ensure the best value for the taxpayer and the highest readiness of our warfighters. First, we stabilize the foundation of our industrial base. We assessed our most critical production lines like the Tomahawk and Standard Missile 6 and worked with our prime contractors to ensure they can meet demand. We'll provide them with stable multi-year demand signals, but in return, we will demand that they invest their own capital to expand to expand capacity. This approach is backed by significant investment. The 2026 Appropriations Act provided $1.16 billion for the Tomahawk and $1.421 billion for the Standard Missile family. These funds are powerfully supplemented by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which dedicates an additional $688 million to procure and recertify Tomahawks and $250 million to strengthen its supplier base. For the Standard Missile, reconciliation provides another $630 million for new missiles and $225 million to expand production capacity. for the barrier of entry for new agile companies. We use pathfinder programs like MACE and CHAOS to provide to prove we could use flexible contracting to bring non-traditional partners and fill capacity gaps quickly. The Multi-mission Affordable Capacity Effector, known as MACE, is our clean-sheet design for an air-launched weapon that is affordable, scalable, and effective. We challenged industry to deliver a missile for no more than $300,000 per round and be ready to field at scale by 2027. I'm here to tell you that industry is answering the call. New innovative companies are rising to this challenge. Third, we are designing these new systems to scale. Leveraging the the stability and diversity from the preceding phases, we will focus on maximizing production efficiency and driving down cost. The key to achieving the speed and cost targets for programs like MACE is embracing new entrants that prioritize vertical integration, driving down supply chain risk by creating a competitive environment where multiple vendors are developing solutions. We ensure the government does not get locked into a single provider. This allows us to select the most promising and cost-effective designs for full-rate production. This strategy is already energizing the entire defense ecosystem. The clear demand signal for affordable mass has mobilized a new industrial base. We see other innovators developing new capabilities, which further proves our approach is working. By implementing innovative contracting strategies with clear performance incentives, we will ensure our collaboration with industry drives the highest level of performance and accountability. The three-part strategy stabilize, diversify, and scale is how we build a deeper, more lethal magazine and a healthier industrial base to support it. In closing, the Department of the Navy's munitions strategy is a deliberate, multi-faceted, and actionable plan. It's designed to create an industrial ecosystem that is stable, diverse, and optimized for the challenges of today and tomorrow. By balancing collaboration with accountability and by welcoming new innovative partners while strengthening our existing relationships, we are building an enterprise that guarantees the lethality and readiness of the fleet. We are committed to the disciplined execution of this strategy to ensure our nation's enduring maritime dominance. Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.

Thank you very much. Lieutenant General Lozano.

Chairman Wicker, Ranking Member Reed, and the distinguished members of this committee, thank you for having me here today and for the opportunity to speak on the ways the Army is embracing and expanding competition in the space for companies with non-traditional backgrounds. On behalf of the Army's senior leadership, we thank you for your support of our soldiers, civilians, and their families. Our industry partners are critical national assets that provide our soldiers with the capabilities they need to deter our adversaries, and when necessary, fight and win our nation's wars. The interceptors, conventional artillery rounds, long-range fires that they provide are the backbone of credible deterrence. The character of war and the shape of tomorrow's battlefields are ever evolving, and are doing so at such a rapid pace that we must develop capabilities outside the traditional defense industrial base. Smaller, new companies who have never done business with the Army before are proving new capabilities and providing the department with potential new options in affordability and scalability. Army leadership has made supporting and testing these new technologies at speed a top priority. We are leveraging flexible acquisition authorities, including other transaction agreements, to move ahead of traditional procurement timelines. We recognize the challenges that these new entrants face. Therefore, we are working hand-in-hand with these new companies to walk them through our processes to ensure these new technologies are not stalled and are collecting their feedback throughout the process to improve Army acquisition. One example I'd like to highlight is a company called Castillion, a small, non-traditional, venture capital-backed company. They are on contract with the Army to deliver the Blackbeard ground launch system. A low-cost, high-speed, advanced weapon designed for long-range precision strikes from Army launchers. Castillion is currently constructing a production facility in New Mexico and has executed at least 25 test events over the past year using their own capital. Because we have been able to witness this level of commitment to the mission, we are working to provide greater demand signals in the form of performance-based payments and are providing them with access to Army test infrastructure and range time. We will also provide government-furnished equipment, including HIMARS launchers, so integration activities can be part of the developmental process as early as possible. Additionally, we will integrate warfighter input to ensure we are providing a capability that fulfills their needs. Castillion is part of a growing list of non-traditional companies the Army is pursuing as new entrants. Expanding the industrial base by including and encouraging these new entrants will allow the Army to reduce risk and cost, increase scalability and competition, and increase our munitions stockpiles. Many of these new entrants also have innovative approaches to manufacturing and supply chain management. We believe will drive down progress towards overcoming some of these obstacles to scaling production. Concepts such as designing for scale from the start and relying on rapid iterative cycles will increase the pace of learning. As events over the last several years have demonstrated, modern conflict consumes munitions at an exceptionally rapid pace in sustained operations. The mission of ensuring that our inventories are at necessary readiness levels and investing in the modernization of our capabilities is made possible by partnerships between Congress, the services, and industry. Again, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you on integrating new and innovative companies into Army acquisition. I look forward to your questions.

Thank you, sir. General Lyons.

Chairman Wicker, Ranking Member Reed, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss an extremely important topic of alternative and low-cost munitions. As the portfolio acquisition executive for weapons for the United States Air Force, I lead an extraordinary team that develops, produces, and sustains air-delivered conventional munitions for the U.S. services, allies, and partners. There are three priorities that we talked about in the closed hearing, I'm going to reiterate them for the record. Priorities include support to worldwide operations. We have teams that arrange for transportation of munitions wherever they're needed. We have teams that respond to urgent operational needs, and we'll talk about some of those examples in this hearing. The second priority is to make active production lines for munitions deliver on time, at high quality, and at high capacity. These production lines and their supply chains are national assets. And over the past 18 months, we have worked very closely with industry and the Department of War on what it takes to increase production rates, improve supply chains, and modernize production lines. The third and final priority is to execute both missile programs, the ones that are established programs of record, the exquisite ones, as well as the affordable mass munitions programs with excellence. These low-cost munitions particularly include the extended range attack munition, a fighter-launched cruise missile, and two variants of the family of affordable mass munitions with potential for employment from fighter, mobility, and bomber aircraft. The extended range attack munition and the family of affordable mass munitions, these cruise missiles, represent a new speed of acquisition. For example, idea to contract occurring in four months. From contract award to first flying prototypes of up to six different designs happened in four to seven months. And production for the extended range attack munition occurred 14 months from the first idea, first contract award. Both programs use streamlined acquisition processes, both benefited from the attributes of their design, both benefited from accelerated testing. These affordable mass weapons and many others in work within the Department of War are the decisive complement to existing program of record weapons. Through these programs, we will be able to expand production, build up munitions inventories, and more rapidly replenish munitions stockpiles. And we will be able to most importantly provide more munition options to combatant commanders. Finally, I want to thank the Senate Armed Services Committee for your leadership and support to the United States military and for holding this hearing on low-cost munitions. Thank you, I'm looking forward to the conversation.

Very good. Let me ask this. The November 2025 Munitions Acceleration Council just a few months ago, that plan allocates approximately 97 percent of funds to exquisite high-cost munitions and only 3 percent to the kind of weapons we're talking about, low-cost, higher-volume alternatives. If we get going on this, given the need to sustain potential peer-level conflict, what balance do you think we need to get to and how quickly can we do that? What's the right mix? 50-50? 60-40? Clearly 97 to 3 is not what we're aiming at. So who wants to start first on that?

Senator, I'll start for the group. First off, I would say that that's an indicator first of all of how quickly these munitions are developing and coming up to speed. I think you'll see as we come forward that balance will shift in favor of the developmental munitions, or at least that amount will increase. I think it's a testimony to our efforts as acquisition professionals and as a department to go out and figure out what that right mix is to present to planners. I also think it's a challenge as we figure out where these are in their developmental stage and we get them fielded. So honestly, I think it's going to be a couple of years before we have a good understanding of what the true end balance is, if you will, for a right mix.

Okay, but that plan, it was a plan and it was released only four months ago. So you're not willing to take a stab at 50-50 or whatever.

Sir, I don't have a crystal ball in front of me to project where I think it's going to end up.

So you're not willing to take a stab at 50/50 or whatever?

Sir, I don't have a crystal ball in front of me to project where I think it's going to end up.

Okay, anybody? I'm not asking for a crystal ball, I'm asking for what would be the right mix if we could get there. I'll just call on each of you. Admiral Okano.

Chairman, I do think that for the MAC, it's really important that we stabilize the industrial base we have right now, and I think that's really important. So putting money to the multi-year procurements, I think, really helps us send that demand signal and start to shift the production lines for the existing missiles we have. In parallel, we are bringing on new entrants, and I think as we bring on the new entrants and test out their capabilities and also introduce them operationally, I do think that you're going to start seeing that percentage shift over time. We do have currently four destroyers in theater that have low-cost munitions on them for counter-UAS, we're already seeing success there. And so we are installing another eight destroyers with that system. So I do think you're seeing that ramp up fairly quickly over time.

Where would you like us to be a year from now as opposed to 97 to 3 percent?

Chairman, I won't give you a specific answer, but I will say that if the acquisition community is doing our job right, we are giving as many options to the operational community as possible. And so flooding the zone with as many low-cost munition options for them to make those tactical choices would be success in my mind.

General Lyons, Zone 5 took 16 months to develop the Rusty Dagger. It's a low-cost cruise missile as opposed to five to 10 years. Sixteen months as opposed to five to 10 years, how'd they do that? How was that possible?

Well, the first thing is the business recipe includes more than just Zone 5, and this same business recipe applies to other companies too, like Co-Aspire, a company called Anduril, and there are others. But it starts with making sure that the people that have the operational requirement give you the essential attributes, it's usually like a half of a paragraph of what matters. So in this particular case, it was 500 nautical mile range. That requirements process was fast. The second one was approaching industry for their ideas. Okay, we have these attributes, what can you build? And in fact, with that where Zone 5 ended up as the finalist, there were over 100 companies that had a chance to put their ideas forward. Seventeen were viable and four were the we took the flight. And we had healthy involvement with them. Zone 5, just like the other companies, approached their design with a focus on building from day one. Usually when you make a prototype, it's a one-off, hard to build, hard to duplicate. The designs fundamentally are focused on fewer tools, fewer parts. The design is also open systems architecture, and Zone 5 had some expertise in that area. What that allows you to do with an open systems architecture is when you have changes in technology and changes on the battlefield, that you can swap in different seekers, different payload packages, and finally is the accelerated test and fielding. So Zone 5, although successful in 16 months, it's a business recipe that involved everyone.

You want to take a stab at my question about 97 percent versus 3 percent?

I do. Now considering a few years ago we were essentially at zero percent, so we're in a better place now with actually taking action. We must have both the exquisite programs of record as well as the affordable mass weapons. Affordable mass weapons by every class, cruise missiles, supersonic weapons, every class of weapon should have the same approach. In terms of a percentage, here's what is going on inside the department. Many of us have been at the table since the summer working on the strategy, looking at the supply chains of all of our known weapons. The discussions are now ongoing with respect to and they have been going on for many months about what we do with new entrants. So although I cannot give you a precise answer on what that percentage should look like, we are definitely at the table, all the services in a collaborative way with the Joint Staff and the Department of War to come up with that optimization. So not in my purview to answer that specifically, but I do know it needs to be greater than zero.

It's apparently not in anyone's purview, but I appreciate you all taking a stab at it. Senator Reed.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. We've spoken today about the benefits of expanding the supplier base for munitions, particularly low-cost munitions, and this is one of the reasons I am somewhat concerned by the department's recent announcement that it will be taking a $1 billion equity investment in L3Harris to spin off its solid rocket motor business. L3Harris, as we all know, is currently only one of two qualified solid rocket motor providers. However, there are many other companies, I believe, that are eager to get into this business, and I'm concerned that this equity deal will inhibit competition at a time when we should be encouraging competition, i.e., there is a DOD entity that's competing with these strictly private entities. What analysis has been done to ensure that this equity deal will not impact sort of the market entry of many others? General Whitney?

Thank you, Senator. The deal you're referring to is an equity deal by L3Harris, they spun off their solid rocket motors and got a billion dollars worth of funding from the government. It was a $5 billion total investment, $4 billion provided by L3Harris. It was part of a larger framework that the deputy has been working on in terms of how to set up our industry base. For specifics on analysis and so forth, I would defer to our acquisition sustainment undersecretary, and I commit to working with him to get you an answer.

When do you estimate that L3Harris will be at a point where they can start producing robustly given the billion we put in and the four they put in?

If I recall correctly, Senator, their spin-off plan was for sometime this summer to the fall and then would begin producing under that.

Admiral, do you have any comments about this operation?

Senator, I would say equity is a financial tool like anything else, like grants or loans. And when you're dealing with solid rocket motors where you've got an industrial, you know, an industry where it's very highly capital intensive, you need specialized tooling, there's not really a commercial market for this. You do need a tool like equity that is appropriate so that, you know, it's not debt burden for the company, they can raise the capital fairly quickly. And what the end state is very high capacity very fast. And so I think in this case, this was the tool that was used to allow that company to raise its own capital as well in order to increase expansion.

Any comment, General Lozano or General Lyons?

Thank you, sir, for your question. What I would offer for your consideration is we're continuing to see multiple solid rocket motor companies emerge in the market space. And so based off of our efforts with low-cost alternative munitions, we believe that we're going to be able to provide opportunities for not only new entrants to design, develop, produce those low-cost alternative munitions and missiles, but that will then trickle down to support and encourage competition at the solid rocket motor industrial base perspective and level. So we believe that there will be plenty of opportunity for many different companies competing in that space to win business and sustain the solid rocket motor manufacturing capability across the United States.

Thank you. Will these companies be asking for equity investments?

Sir, I'm unable to answer that question.

Excuse me, that was somewhat rhetorical, forgive me. General Lyons, what's your take?

My take with respect to the L3Harris deal, having again been at the table for many months and listening to each of the primes talk about what they needed in their suppliers, in that particular case when you look at the number of programs that are supplied by that company for rocket motors, there's more efficiency in terms of concentrating all that activity rather than having it divided up in separate contracts. So that was the premise of the strategy. As to whether or not other companies will get the same shot at it, I do know that just like that particular case, we examined what other solid rocket motor companies can do, what their ideas were to expand or do better, and those conversations will continue. So I don't think it rules out that others will be able to be involved, but that's an active conversation ongoing.

Let me change slightly the focus. We're now trying to create a significant supply chain for low-cost munitions. Have you done any analysis about how do you go about and do that? What are the incentives? I mean, we had this equity investment for the small rocket motors, but is that analysis been done?

General Lyons.

Yes, sir, there has been analysis about the incentives. In our particular contract type, they're fixed-price contracts, and those contracts also have hooks in there for production. The desire to get production allows some of those companies to look at their own capital investments and what they want to do in order to deliver on that business. So we have at least three contracts right now where our contracting professionals looked at those arrangements and brokered those types of deals to get those companies to deliver, and we want to replicate that.

Just a final quick question. One of the choke points in every system that I've observed is a skilled workforce. Is that a problem with respect to these munitions productions?

I'm going to say that it's yes in terms of the attrition of the types of skill sets that we need on problems like this and having them in sufficient numbers. Things like engineers, people that know how to cut steel, solder, all of those skill sets are the things that are needed. In the particular programs that we have at the scale that we have, even though we're going to scale up, I have not been told that we have a problem specifically with those programs. But writ large is that need to bring that talent back into this type of work.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Senator. Senator Budd.

Thank you, Chairman. Something about this morning, I feel like I'm just a little closer to you on the dais, maybe someone's missing, I'm not sure. So, General Lozano, thank you all, thank you all for being here. So about the directed energy weapons, I'm eager to hear your thoughts. You know, they've been, I just want to know what kind what what is your what is your thought as on their highest return on investment? Is it going to be lasers? Is it going to be high-powered microwaves? Where do you think that's headed?

Thank you, Senator Budd, for your question. We do believe from an Army perspective that there is a place in the layered defense from an air and missile defense perspective for not only directed energy, but for electronic warfare capability as well as high-power microwave. I'm fond of saying that there's no silver bullet in a layered defensive posture and it takes multiple different systems working collectively together to attrit threats in depth, whether they're group one, two, or three UAS systems or medium-range and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. And so I do believe that there is a place on the battlefield and as a primary course of action we are running programs supporting directed energy and electronic warfare systems, but I think those are systems that are also complementary from a low-cost interceptor perspective as well as from a more exquisite Patriot PAC-3 MSE perspective, sir.

What about on a smaller scale for a group one through four UAS in defense of the homeland?

The first thing I want to say is that particular example begins with having profound insight about operations on the battlefield. It was fall of 2024, team went over to Europe, talked to a the USAFE commander about what were the threats over in Europe. So we learned about that and we learned about the potential of using an air-to-air weapon that's $500,000 to a million dollars to take out a a one-way attack drone. We know that that threat is proliferated around the globe, so it starts with having a profound insight into the combat operations. Next is to having an institution postured for speed. Now there's some stories here that are not well known about how fast we can actually go to integrate those weapons on the F-15 and on the F-16. And it's a true testament to the Air Force, multiple wings, both operational and people that do program management, lab, and industry to make that happen. With that as the context, when you talk about scaling that type of product, the the APKWS 2.75-inch rocket, we're going to start with the appropriation that the Congress gave us in 2026 to go buy a lot more of those. We're also going to examine what other allies and partners in the world have interest in that and then that sets conditions to rapidly increase the production. In terms of the future, the threat is going is not going away, so we're going to need multiple tools to handle that threat. One of those is these kinetic rockets that are 40 to 50K and continuing to improve those.

Thank you. And General Lyons, continuing on, talk to me about efforts to develop a palletized low-cost palletized munitions. In the interest in North Carolina, we have C-17s in the Air National Guard, I'm interested in how they could play a part in the joint force.

So the palletized cruise missile, it's been in work for over 14 months. We took we are beginning to do that design and test effort for the the next jump in that demonstrated capability this spring. One of the things that we have to do is determine where are we going to do testing, who is going to do testing. So with respect to that, we've had really great success with the active duty, both at Eglin Air Force Base and other places, but we I have also in the last two months had conversations with Air National Guard about their capabilities and there's a range of ways that they might they may be involved. They may be the people that do test planning, they may do test execution. So the Guard is a place that we're going to look to.

Great. Thank you all.

Thank you. Senator Sheehy.

General, you mentioned where we're going to test some of these capabilities. I've both in uniform and in industry before I came back to the government side and as I talk to various contractors, it's routine to hear that range time and range access are a bottleneck across the board. Whether it's space systems, hypersonics, or regular old artillery shells or CUAS, even if it's electronic warfare, the ability to access ranges where they can test the full spectrum capability of these weapons, sometimes they're waiting years to get access. And this is nothing new, this has been going on for a long time. So aside from industrial base, understand none of you own the ranges yourselves, but how do we communicate the demand signal that we have a big problem in range access? Our industrial base needs range access to iterate those systems to make them not just combat capable but improve upon them constantly. How do we make those two demands meet in the middle so our contractors and our assessment commands can actually get these systems in the field and test them? That's open to anybody.

So access to government ranges has been a topic by many of our industry partners. One thing that we've been able to do is we're doing a lot on the low-cost cruise missiles on contractor ranger ranges. And we ring it out and we have government active duty military test planners embedded with those teams to make sure that we can maximize as much data collection before we ever approach a range. Number two, there are certain things that are decisive when it comes to test acceleration and that is the contribution from the leaders. So for example at the the 96th Test Wing, which is at Eglin Air Force Base, when they when that teams knows that it's a priority, they make it the top priority and it's amazing what can happen. In this particular case with the extended range attack munition, there were test there was test that was supposed to happen in October of 2026, those tests completed last month. That's an acceleration based on the decisive contribution of leadership. In terms of the iteration, there are a number of things that we're looking at in terms of processes inside of the test range ranges and we've got great professionals doing that. That's everything from what they call a safety review board, technical review board, and working with the industry partners about what exactly they want to do. The but the contention rain the access to ranges may continue to be an issue going forward and we're working it hard.

Admiral, specifically for you, torpedoes. We don't use them very often, we haven't had to use them very often for 80 years. Used a couple a few weeks ago, I know, but how do we make sure that our industrial base that makes those is able to continue to making them when we actually need a lot of them pretty quickly?

Senator, we actually have two efforts of new entrants into low-cost torpedoes. One is our low-cost undersea effector, it's a low-cost version of our Mark 54, and then we also have a low-cost version of our Mark 48 called the Raptor. We're testing both of those right now, we're partnering with DIU on one and SCO on the other to to make sure that we've got low-cost munitions in all domains for the Navy.

Do we have a good understanding of of what our cost, for example, a 155 shell, what it costs us to make it per unit, what it costs China to make their equivalent per unit?

Sir, thank you. I currently a 155 shell in production ranges anywhere from about $30 to $60 a round. I cannot comment and I do not know what it takes China to make an equivalent round in manufacturing and production, sir.

You guys have the same for a Hellfire or a Mark 48, the delta between what it costs us to make it and China to make it or Russia?

I don't know what the cost is, sir, for China to make a Hellfire-like equivalent. We currently produce it at about $160,000 per round, sir.

I would encourage all of you to to the extent you can get smart on it. Information I've seen indicates that even Russia makes artillery shells for roughly 8 percent the cost that we do. Part of that's mass and quantity, part of that's their appropriations and funding function, which essentially they don't have to go through the complex process that we do. And from a missile technology standpoint, understanding that that China 5 to 10 percent roughly is what it can cost them to make an equivalent munition. I don't believe that cost comes from a capability gap. I don't believe their munitions are 10 percent as good as ours and ours are 10 times better, nor do I believe it comes from inherently metal is going to cost more there than here. It comes from our process. It comes from the fact that we put every single thing that we buy through an incredibly rigorous sclerotic process that doesn't end up making the product better for the warfighter in the field and ends up costing more money and taking more time. So your job is not acquisition reform, that is our job, but I'd ask that you get as smart as you can on the cost delta because warfare on the battlefield, you know, amateurs talk tactics, experts talk logistics, the key component of logistics is economic warfare. And if it costs us 10 times more to do the same thing the enemy does, eventually that's going to be bad for us. Thank you.

Does anyone wish to respond to that? How are the Ukrainians doing? They're they're obviously pressed and and they're having to be as innovative as they possibly can. But in this area of of of complementing exquisite weaponry with low cost, how are the Ukrainians doing in that regard? Who'd like to comment?

Senator, I'll start and then I'll actually open up for General Lyons to comment for just a second.

All right.

I think the the biggest thing we've seen coming out of Ukraine is the rapid pace of innovation and how quickly they turn new concepts. In terms of, you know, they'll they'll fly things and they'll test them and then they'll they'll iterate and constantly improve it. I think General Lyons has...

That would that would be exquisite and low cost.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Just as a general way of doing business, their level of innovation is is out of this world. And I defer to General Lyons if he has some specifics.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Yes, sir.

General Lyons. General Lyons, General Whitney has called on you.

I was in Europe, I've been in Europe twice over the last 18 months. I was there last month and had a chance to get some insight about what was going on on the front lines over there. The number one takeaway that I left with was that the battle the ability to iterate on your product based on changes in the threat environment is paramount. They have demonstrated, the Ukraines have demonstrated the ability to make changes to their products sometimes within a couple of days. If you compare that with what we do in the United States, that's a lot faster. So I'm coming away with some lessons on what we need to do to be able to do that product iteration a lot faster. And again, it it requires your design to be open, requires your ability to scale, requires you have multiple vendors with the ability to to scale things. And there's some ideas we have about how to do things based on those lessons to speed up acquisition. So when you talk about how they're doing in terms of it being, you know, how well they're doing, the speed of their innovation is exemplary.

Chairman, can I make a comment on that quickly?

Absolutely.

I'm heartened to hear you say that, but I'm also a little frustrated, not with you personally, but, you know, during the JIEDDO days when we had to rapidly innovate to protect ourselves from IEDs, you know, we saw our enemy iterate at the pace of the threat. They would change the design of the IED daily, every other day. And they'd watch how we disarmed it, how we mitigated, and the next day they'd adjust to that. And we learned and we started adjusting at that pace too. We stopped taking two years to solve a two day problem because we knew it would cost lives. And JIEDDO, although not perfect, was an organization that prioritized iteration to save lives. Unfortunately, as soon as that threat was gone, we promptly wadded up that organization, threw it in the trash can, and went back to the way we used to do things. So I think you're absolutely right, but we we do have goodness in in the DOD that's done this before and we shouldn't have to relearn the same lessons that we learned the hard way 20 years ago. And I think you're saying exactly the right thing, but we shouldn't have to go all the way to Ukraine to learn a lesson that we learned ourselves in Iraq and Afghanistan. And we still have some of that DNA, I'm sure, buried somewhere in the five sided building. Let's let's dig it up and rejuvenate it because it's there somewhere.

If you can point to specific areas in that five sided building to help these witnesses, that would be much appreciated. Thank you, Senator Sheehy. Senator Fischer.

Maybe the the third floor bathroom in the corner.

[Laughter.]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for being here today. This is a very, very important issue and I'm happy to see the the committee, the services, the administration address the seriousness of it. I would ask this of any witness to begin with. What are you seeing as key barriers to increasing weapons production from an acquisition standpoint? General Whitney?

Yes, ma'am. I would start with I think there's a number of different things that go into the development of munitions and each one is a unique situation. I'm sure my colleagues will have specific examples, but I can see supply chain challenges that are different for each each product. I could see life cycle sustainment issues that they would address, but I'll defer to them for specific examples.

Admiral?

Senator, I I think the first thing is we've got to stabilize the production that we've got right now with our existing systems. And so the first piece is a stabilized demand signal and we thank the committee for supporting the multiyear procurement authorizations that has really helped us with stabilizing that demand signal. We've got to aggressively get after the supply chain risks and the bottlenecks associated with that. Solid rocket motors is one for for us. Guidance sections is another that we've really got to get after and and be able to ramp up. And then bringing in new entrants and competition really helps get after that and that's really the non-traditionals that we're bringing in everything from all up rounds to in the subcomponent level in solid rocket motors, canisters, and then just ruthlessly focusing on scale is going to is going to let us allow us to get after that problem.

Thank you. General Lozano?

Thank you, Senator Fischer, for your question. The first thing I want to start off is by saying is thank you to the committee for many of the past authorities that you've granted us from an authorization perspective that have allowed us to go fast. Middle tier of acquisition rapid prototyping, middle tier of acquisition rapid fielding have really enabled us to streamline processes and procure and rapidly prototype at a much faster rate. So thank you for that. Two efforts that we're undertaking very aggressively in the Army is B-line consolidation of funding line consolidation, condensing the number of lines that we have for different weapon systems. And then budget flexibility, something we're requesting of the appropriators is an ability to buy what we need to buy in the year that we need to buy it and not being beholden to what I put into a form or a budget request two years ago because the dynamic nature of combat changes, we on the acquisition side need to be as flexible and agile to change as well so that we can buy what's relevant for our Army and our warfighters. Again, also I'd like to talk about the multiyear authorities, those authorities go a long way in ensuring a long consistent demand signal for many of the new entrants who have to very quickly generate a rate of return based on the capital that they're borrowing to stand up their companies and their production facilities, ma'am. consistent demand signal from many of the new entrants who have to very quickly generate a rate of return based on the capital that they're borrowing to stand up their companies and their production facilities, ma'am.

Thank you. General Lyons, anything to add?

As a portfolio acquisition executive, a new one, I am I want to start not with the frustration but with the positives. Since last summer, a lot of us here on this table have been at the table with the top of the Department of War going through every aspect of munitions in a collaborative way with the joint team to synchronize what we want to do for the industrial base. In terms of authorities, some authorities have been pushed down. We saved five months on the definitization of a multi-billion dollar contract because the authorities were pushed to the PAE and that was excellent. Now on the frustration part, I am learning that the decisive element to fielding timelines, the thing that matters most is the access to the funding, the US funding. It is industrial scale once we get it. There are certain problems with battlefield iteration that I would like to address the first minute that I learn about it. But in terms of being able to get the resources to act in that first minute, we have to spend a lot of time building a a staff package. It it goes through a pretty good process, sometimes it's really fast.

As as a new acquisition executive, I'd like to ask you how do you change the culture? How do you change the culture of the department so that you can move quicker? How do you how do you all move forward to be able to embrace technology that's commercially available so you can move quicker? Because I think that goes to culture.

Yes, Senator, I'll start first. I absolutely agree. I think one of the things you this committee has helped us with is the requirements reform piece. And in doing so, we set requirements based on what what is needed, not not based on unique niche requirements, but based on what we can quickly field. And that's been a culture change as well.

Senator, I would I would say that acquisition reform is about focusing on the mission. And so within the Navy aligning the PAEs towards a mission has been really crucial. We have these things called systems commands and we are moving about 70 percent of those of those folks into the PAEs so that they are mission aligned and not, you know, not compliance aligned, I would say.

Senator Fischer, in leveraging the authorities in the FORGED Act, what I would offer is that standing up the portfolio acquisition executives and bringing to the PAEs unity of command and unity of effort associated with key functional enablers like contracting, Army Test and Evaluation Command, requirement developers, logisticians, G8 programming, and science and technology systems center labs. Having those all under the purview of the PAEs enable us to start to go faster and achieve unity of command against a common objective that we're trying to achieve, which is ultimately victory on the battlefield through low cost munitions and other capable weapon systems.

In terms of changing culture, a key element is to make sure that everyone involved in that mission, wherever you are inside of the executive branch, legislative branch, the defense industry, the organic industrial base, everyone that touches this mission to know why we're doing it. And when we have leaders walk the production lines and acknowledge the contributions of the great Americans that are doing that work, it lifts their spirit up and they dive in even more. As a leader in the government and as an active duty leader, the way the culture is changed is to describe the why, to go where the the combat operations are occurring and learn about it firsthand. It's the lieutenants and captains that are executing the low cost cruise missile programs that you heard about today. They're very junior and they're leaving with a profound experience that they'll take for their entire careers. So there's a lot to this, but it's about injecting that energy into everyone involved in the mission.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.