In twin announcements Wednesday (link opens a PDF), the Defense Security Cooperation Agency advised (link opens a PDF) that it has notified Congress of plans to make "Foreign Military Sales" to the United Kingdom of, respectively, 500 Hellfire missiles, and also services providing follow-on support for Tomahawk cruise missiles.
The Hellfire sale involves 500 AGM-114/N4/P4 missiles, manufactured by Lockheed Martin (LMT 1.23%) and valued at $95 million (approximately $190,000 apiece). DSCA says this sale "will directly contribute to the U.S. foreign and national security policies by enhancing the close air support capability of the United Kingdom in support of NATO, ISAF, and other coalition operations," and in particular, improve the U.K.'s ability to support ground troops in Afghanistan.
The proposed Tomahawk contract is more involved and will require contributions from Raytheon (RTN), Boeing (BA 1.51%), SAIC (NYSE: SAI), and Lockheed, and also a subsidiary of U.K. defense giant QinetiQ. Here, DSCA proposes to perform for the U.K. military a series of missile modifications, maintenance, technical assistance, and engineering support, and to supply it with spare and repair parts, system and test equipment, communications equipment, and "personnel training/equipment, and other related elements of logistics support." In total, this contract would be valued at $170 million.
DSCA explains to Congress that this sale is needed to help "the United Kingdom to continue life cycle support of its [Tomahawks] and maintain operational effectiveness. The United Kingdom requests support for this capability to provide for the safety of its deployed troops, regional security, and interoperability with the United States."
