The U.S. Army has asked for a big boost to its Patriot air defense stockpile in the 2026 budget request, as the service drives to increase its “magazine depth” for various munitions.
The acquisition goal for the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile segment enhancements would quadruple—from 3,376 to 13,773—if Congress grants the Pentagon’s request, according to procurement justification documents released by the Army.
“It’s going to be really sporty. It’s going to be really interesting,” Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said during an event Tuesday. “It kind of feels like this is a little bit of an ‘oops’ moment where, like, okay, now we actually do need to get serious about munition capacity.”
Karako’s comments came during a discussion about Iran’s attack on Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar as retaliation for June 21 U.S. strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities. During that attack, two Patriot missile batteries defended the base from the barrage.
“We’ve been admiring the problem of air and missile defense capacity for years and years,” Karako said. “Now we have in writing that, no kidding, our objective is going to quadruple.”
The Army has been anticipating an increased need for Patriot defense this year, moving two batteries that had been deployed to the Indo-Pacific over to U.S. Central Command amid U.S. strikes on the Houthis in Yemen.
“There is this giant sucking sound in CENTCOM, for all kinds of munitions in recent months,” Karako said.
The investment in Patriots comes as the Pentagon is doing a wider review of its weapons stockpiles, which resulted earlier this month in a temporary pause of promised munitions transfers to Ukraine.
The Pentagon declined to say which munitions it had concerns about.
“We have what we need. That being said, the question of how much do you need is an unanswerable question,” Steven Warren, an Army spokesman, told reporters Tuesday. “We always want more. More is better, but we are confident that we have what we need to meet the threats on the battlefield.”
The Army has been working to beef up its production of 155mm artillery rounds since the war in Ukraine began, with the understanding that it would be sending much of its output to help the Ukrainians beat back Russia’s invasion.
The original goal was to get to 100,000 rounds a month by October of this year, up from 14,500 in early 2022. Today, ammunition plants are moving about 40,000 a month.
“While on one hand we are very pleased with the progress that we’ve made, we understand that that progress is slow,” Warren said.
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