Contract For Modern Long Range Anti-Ship Missile

About time. As has been mentioned many times on the blog, the US Navy has a lot of shooters under, on, and over the sea; but the real problem is the Navy doesn't have enough bullets. I think this is positive news.

Lockheed Martin Corp is to develop within 2 1/2 years a new long-range anti-ship missile, the Defense Department said on Wednesday.

The work falls under a $157.7 million contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, which has been responsible for some of the Pentagon's biggest technology breakthroughs, including the Internet's precursor.

The goal is to develop rapidly and demonstrate a ship-launched weapon that can knock out other ships "at significant stand-off ranges," an item in the Pentagon's daily contract digest said, without elaborating.

The work is expected to be completed by April 2013 in a joint effort between DARPA and the Office of Naval Research, the announcement said.

This isn't the first step, rather the phase of the development process where they actually build a missile. The design phase for the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) began last July.

That is still very rapid development though. Is the DoD procurement system even capable of effectively producing a guided weapon system in only a few years without the pressures of a war going on? Why is it always the Navy that is rushing procurement in exceedingly fast time frames?

These are rhetorical questions, but feel free to comment anyway.