Pentagon Munitions Acceleration Council Allocates $1.5bn to JASSM-ER, LRASM and PrSM Tranche

Technical Summary

The Pentagon Munitions Acceleration Council (MAC) has confirmed allocations against four of the fourteen critical munitions designated as top FY26–FY27 production priorities (the “MAC-14” list previously profiled in this publication). The Department of the Air Force has obligated approximately one billion United States dollars to procure 330 AGM-158B Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile — Extended Range (JASSM-ER) rounds, completing the FY26 annual maximum buy of 860 missiles when combined with prior tranches. The Department of the Air Force has separately obligated approximately two hundred and thirty-six million United States dollars to procure 45 AGM-158C Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) rounds, with the Department of the Navy obligating an equivalent two hundred and thirty-six million United States dollars for 48 LRASM C-3 variant rounds. The United States Marine Corps has obligated fifteen million United States dollars for 10 Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) Increment 1 rounds.

The combined obligation across the four lines is approximately one and a half billion United States dollars for 433 long-range air- and ground-launched precision-strike weapons. Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control is the prime contractor on all four product lines. The current 2026 production rate at the Lockheed Martin Troy, Alabama, final-assembly facility is 396 JASSM-ER airframes annually, with stated maximum-surge capacity of 860 if the shared JASSM/LRASM line is fully directed to JASSM throughput. The replenishment is explicitly traceable to expended stockpiles from Operation Epic Fury and the broader Indo-Pacific deterrence posture.

Approximately one and a half billion United States dollars for 433 long-range precision-strike weapons in a single tranche — 330 JASSM-ER at $3.03 m unit cost, 93 LRASM rounds at $5.07 m unit cost, and 10 PrSM at $1.5 m unit cost. The replenishment is explicitly traceable to Operation Epic Fury stockpile draw-down. Pentagon Munitions Acceleration Council allocation summary, late April – early May 2026

Analysis of Effects

The AGM-158B JASSM-ER carries the WDU-42/B 1,000-pound-class penetrator / blast-fragmentation warhead, with an energetic charge of approximately 110 kg of AFX-757 insensitive-munition-compliant high explosive. AFX-757 is a cast-cure formulation based on RDX, ammonium picrate (Explosive D) and aluminium powder, qualified to STANAG 4439 (IM compliance) with documented passes against fast cook-off, slow cook-off, bullet impact, fragment impact, and sympathetic detonation. Net Explosive Quantity (NEQ) per JASSM-ER round is 110 kg TNT-eq. The airframe and warhead together are Hazard Division (HD) 1.1, Compatibility Group D (HE substance with own means of initiation, propelling charge separate per STANAG 4123 / AASTP-1 Annex C). The AGM-158C LRASM shares the same WDU-42/B warhead family, with maritime-strike sensors substituting for the JASSM-ER terrain-mapping seeker; the C-3 Navy variant is a software / link upgrade rather than a warhead change.

The PrSM Increment 1 carries an unitary blast-fragmentation warhead in the 200 kg payload class, with energetic loading approximately equivalent to the legacy ATACMS Block 1A unitary configuration. PrSM Increment 2 (multi-mode seeker, anti-ship capability) and Increment 4 (extended range to 1,000+ km) are not in the present procurement tranche. PrSM is HD 1.1, CG D for the rocket motor and warhead assembly. From a stockpile standpoint, the 433-round tranche occupies an estimated 3,200 m² of Q1.1 magazine floor space at standard NATO Quantity-Distance, requiring approximately 65,000 kg TNT-equivalent of segregated above-ground magazine capacity at the receiving installations (Beale, Whiteman and Eglin Air Force Bases for the Air Force; NAS Lemoore and NAS Whidbey Island for the Navy LRASM C-3; Marine Corps installations for PrSM).

Personnel and Safety Considerations

AFX-757 IM compliance is the operative safety story in this tranche. Insensitive Munitions qualification under STANAG 4439, MIL-STD-2105D, and the supporting US Joint Insensitive Munitions Test Standards drives stockpile-survivability outcomes that legacy Composition B and TNT cannot match. The JASSM-ER and LRASM warheads, when stored in current Air Force and Navy magazines, present a substantially lower probability of mass-detonation cascade in the event of an external fire, an adjacent-magazine event, or a fragment-impact incident than would be the case for the legacy AGM-86 ALCM Composition-B warhead population they replace. Storage-site safety officers should nonetheless treat the introduction of a 433-round IM-compliant population alongside legacy non-IM stocks as a residual-risk inversion problem: the IM rounds’ survivability advantage is partly negated if they are co-stored with non-IM rounds whose response in an event scenario remains the worst-case driver.

From an EOD and lifecycle-management standpoint, AFX-757-filled warheads recovered as duds or as battle-damaged items present non-trivial render-safe complications. The aluminium content increases post-detonation reaction-zone temperatures and the ammonium picrate component requires explicit cordon and approach-procedure deviation from the legacy Composition-B / TNT default. JSP 482 (UK MOD), DSA 03.OME and the supporting US Joint Munitions Effectiveness Manuals (JMEM) volumes all carry IM-specific render-safe guidance that EOD teams downstream from any in-theatre JASSM-ER / LRASM expenditure must apply.

Data Gaps

DATA GAP: Specific contract numbers — the lot-acceptance-test contract identifiers and the exact obligation date by lot are not yet in the public DoD contract release.

DATA GAP: Delivery schedule — the FY26 delivery profile by quarter for the 330 JASSM-ER, 93 LRASM and 10 PrSM has not been published.

DATA GAP: FMS share — the proportion of this tranche reserved for Foreign Military Sales (Australia, Japan, Netherlands, Poland for JASSM; Australia, Japan for LRASM) versus US Service stockpile is not stated.

DATA GAP: Surge profile — whether the Lockheed Martin Troy line will run at the 396-airframe annual rate or surge towards the 860-airframe maximum is not confirmed.

DATA GAP: Energetic supply — the AFX-757 feedstock supplier (Holston Army Ammunition Plant for RDX, the ammonium picrate sub-supplier) has not been quantified against this tranche.

AI-assisted technical assessment based on open-source material. Not a formal intelligence product. Image attribution noted where applicable.