"We're aligned with the U.S. Army on a plan that ensures we fulfill our current foreign military sale order, while replenishing Stingers provided to Ukraine and accelerating production," said Wes Kremer, president of Raytheon Missiles & Defense. "The funding will be used to enhance Stinger's producibility in an effort to meet the urgent need for replenishment."  

   “The current Stinger inventory is in decline,” the service wrote. “The Army plans to begin design, development, and test of a replacement missile in FY23 leading to the production of 10,000 M-SHORAD Inc 3 missiles beginning in FY27.”

While Army officials may have tweaked that timeline and plan since releasing the solicitation in April 2022, broadly speaking they are looking for a soldier portable, all-up round more lethal than the current Stinger missile (with proximity fuse capability). That future missile will be launched from the Stinger Vehicle Universal Launcher to target rotary-wing and fixed-wing aircraft, and Group 2-3 (medium and large) unmanned aircraft systems.

As Army officials like Bush brief lawmakers on their Stinger replacement plan, they are also moving ahead with plans to refill the depleted stockpiles, in part, through a refurbishment effort.

Before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the Army and Marine Corps had not bought Stinger20924 systems for decades, and the Raytheon production line served only a single international customer. But a month into the invasion, the weapon had proven so useful on the battlefield that members of Congress were beginning a push for the Army to create a next-gen replacement, while demanding information on why stockpiles could not be rapidly increased.  

Ultimately, because Stinger is made with a number of components that are no longer in production, there is a finite number of Stingers that could be manufactured with the existing parts available. The Army’s April 2022 solicitation, for example, notes that the Stinger- Reprogrammable Microprocessor (RMP) will become obsolete this year and Stinger Block I is undergoing a service life extension.

Bush said the service has not formulated a refurbishment plan with Raytheon to refill its Stinger stockpiles until a next-generation weapon is fielded.

“We found some ways to buy time in the near term, including, for example, refurbishing older Stinger missiles,” Bush said today. “We think we’ll get at least 1,200 good new Stingers out of that effort, and save a lot of money doing it.”

“That buys us time to make sure Stinger stocks are healthy enough to give us time to get the new program underway,” he added.