The move addresses a bottleneck, as Lockheed Martin has been winding down ATACMS output at its Camden, Arkansas, site while prioritizing newer missiles.
You answered it yourself. Good enough is good enough and quantity has quality of it’s own. Specially when it comes to artillery munitions. Most likely USA wasn’t willing to hand over the technical package for PrSM. Too new and valuable (classified etc.).
Germany didn’t want just access to the munition on terms and timelines USA sets, they wanted independent capability to make them. See recent cases of “ohhh whooopsie we shot lot of our missiles. Remember that delivery date we promised you. Well that is delayed. Need to stock up national stockpiles first.”
Good enough missiles available on schedule one controls are better than amazing missiles that don’t arrive on time to be useful.
I wonder why they are gearing up ATACMS production when PrSM, the replacement for ATACMS that uses the same launcher, is already out.
That said, ATACMS is a good missile and I’m happy to see Germany getting their ass moving.
You answered it yourself. Good enough is good enough and quantity has quality of it’s own. Specially when it comes to artillery munitions. Most likely USA wasn’t willing to hand over the technical package for PrSM. Too new and valuable (classified etc.).
Germany didn’t want just access to the munition on terms and timelines USA sets, they wanted independent capability to make them. See recent cases of “ohhh whooopsie we shot lot of our missiles. Remember that delivery date we promised you. Well that is delayed. Need to stock up national stockpiles first.”
Good enough missiles available on schedule one controls are better than amazing missiles that don’t arrive on time to be useful.
Germany has not ordered ATACAMS. This is a private venture, but obviously they hope they can sell them.
Basically Germany gets the old ATACMS production line and the factory in the US is converted to produce PrSM. There is massive demand, so why not.
Also ATACAMS is shorter range then PrSM. It is good enough against Russia, so it gets a lot of orders.