Convair Gets Order for 160 Cruise Missiles
General Dynamics’ Convair Division in San Diego has received a $188.6-million order to supply 160 Tomahawk Cruise missiles to the Navy in 1991.
The contract, worth more than $1.1 million per missile, is less than the Navy’s order last year when it bought 280 Tomahawk cruise missiles from General Dynamics. But the reduced order will not result in layoffs of any of the 2,000 Convair employees who work in San Diego to make the missiles, a company spokesman said Wednesday.
More than 260 of the Tomahawk Cruise missiles have been fired thus far in the Persian Gulf War. But the Navy order announced Wednesday is simply part of the normal procurement schedule and not meant to replace those used in the war, said a spokesman for the Navy’s cruise missiles project in Washington.
General Dynamics and McDonnell Douglas both manufacture the Tomahawk Cruise missiles for the Navy and each bid competitively for the larger percentage of a 400-missile annual procurement, which is scheduled to run at current levels through 1995. This year, McDonnell Douglas won the larger portion, receiving an order for 240 missiles, a contract worth $253.9 million.
The missiles are launched from submarines and surface ships and use sophisticated guidance systems involving digital maps of the targets to be hit.
General Dynamics spokesman Jack Isabel declined to comment on why McDonnell Douglas got the larger piece of the Tomahawk Cruise procurement this year. But he noted that the two companies historically have see-sawed between getting the larger or shorter shares.
Last year, for example, General Dynamics got an order for 280 missiles, or 70% of the 1990 allocation, while McDonnell Douglas got 30%, or orders for 120 missiles. The previous year, McDonnell Douglas got the bigger share.
There is as yet no indication whether the military will accelerate or add to its procurement schedule to replace the missiles used in the war. Arguing against an acceleration are tight defense budget guidelines and a 2,000-missile stockpile of Tomahawks that the Navy had built up before the Mideast war, a Navy source said last week.
