Facts & Figures

Adam Geibel reports the latest JDAM production figures on StrategyPage:

The St. Charles, MO Boeing Corporation factory added a second shift of workers earlier this year to increase production from about 1,000 kits per month to 1,500. The company plans to boost further production, to 2,000 per month by the end of 2002 and 2,800 per month by the middle of 2003. That would add another 20,000 plus JDAMs to the U.S. arsenal within a year and about 37,000 by the end of 2003. At it’s highest rate, Boeing could make enough JDAMs to satisfy the 40,000 stockpile in about 14 months.

Frankly, I’m disappointed. From what we’d read last spring, I thought monthly production was already supposed to be up aroun 2,000. Surely, a nation that can produce Pentium 4s in the millions can make some electronic bomb-tail doo-dads faster than this. There is, after all, a war on.