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National Security Assessment of the Domestic and Foreign Subcontractor Base: A Study of Three U.S. Navy Weapon Systems
Conducted at the request of the U.S. Navy, this report assesses the extent to which the U.S. Navy relies on foreign suppliers for critical components for its weapon systems. Three representative systems were chosen for analysis: the HARM (high-speed anti-radiation missile); the Mark-48 ADCAP (advanced capabilities) torpedo; and the Verdin communication system.
The study focused on subtier suppliers, the first known study of its kind to do so. Almost 12,000 companies participated in the project. The study found that the supply matrix is not pyramid-shaped, as expected, but is in fact diamond-shaped, indicating that there is a core group of subtier firms unknown to the Navy that could be bottlenecks during a surge in production.
Foreign sourcing was found to increase at the lower tiers of supply but was much lower in general than expected. The number of dependencies were low as well, although there were a total of 115 distinct items reported as dependencies across all tiers and weapon systems. These items varied from raw materials like nickel and chromium to high-tech value-added items such as semiconductor ceramic packaging and needle roller bearing wire rod.