Last year, Japan upped its order for F-35s from 42 planes to 147 (making it the biggest single export customer), it also proposed shutting down the Mitsubishi FACO (Final Assembly and Check Out) line, along, presumably, with the associated component assembly arrangements.

Teal Group Corporation's overall, cumulative military electronics Manufacturer Market Shares Forecast for the next ten years (FY18-FY27) shows 33.1% of the total market will be available for new primes (worth a whopping $161.0 billion), when considering that continuing production for most current programs is locked up by the incumbent. Note that a much higher share than this 33.1% will be available for subcontractors.

Teal Group’s Military Electronics Briefing Market Overview forecasts the military electronics market available to U.S. manufacturers will rise steadily with a 4.4% CAGR over the next five years (FY18-FY23), while new-platform procurements will continue to decline over the next decade. Teal Group forecasts a $486.1 billion total military electronics market from FY18-FY27.

This month we focus on the US Army’s AN/MLQ-40(V) Prophet program, born out of the US Army’s failed Intelligence and Electronic Warfare Common Sensor (IEWCS). Prophet has existed since 1998 and is still the primary US Army integrated all-frequency signals intercept/emitter location/countermeasures system which searches, intercepts, locates, identifies, and applies countermeasures to enemy fire control and command and control (C2) emitters. Taking over from IEWCS, Prophet became the major Army ground forces EW program (aside from counter-IED systems), replacing a rag-tag collection of non-interoperable systems which had previously made up the Army’s signals intelli­gence (SIGINT) and electronic warfare capability.