The U.S. Army has awarded RTX’s Raytheon a $676 million contract to continue manufacturing the TOW weapon system.
The tube-launched, optically tracked, wireless-guided TOW system will be in service with the U.S. and allied forces beyond 2050, officials said. The contracts cover two separate awards, one for $430 million in fiscal year 2023 and another for $246 million in 2024.
“Our TOW production line is active, and we can manufacture up to 10,000 missiles annually,” Tom Laliberty, president of Land and Air Defense Systems at Raytheon, said on Oct. 23. “This combat-proven effector is ready to meet current and future anti-tank guided missile requirements for the US Army, Marines Corps, and land forces across the globe.”
Raytheon said improvements to TOW’s design, including modernized fuzing and target detection, were demonstrated in a successful Fly-to-Buy lot acceptance test of the latest TOW 2B variant of the missile. The improvements provide warfighters with the fastest target engagement time in the segment, officials said, and allows TOW to support and excel during complex urban engagements with varied targets of interest while maintaining their primary mission.
The improvements will also help meet environmental requirements to support evolving logistics and terrain challenges. The testing, officials said, ensures TOW users have the latest and most effective weapon system to meet their needs.
To date, Raytheon has provided the U.S. and international armed forces with more than 700,000 TOW weapon systems, and has been used in combat 11,000 times. The U.S. Department of Defense has provided Ukraine with approximately 13,000 TOW missiles, Raytheon said.