The defense contractors are Lockheed Martin ($LMT), Northrop Grumman ($NOC), and RTX Corp. ($RTX). All filed their first-quarter earnings releases within a few minutes of each other on Tuesday morning, crammed with interesting disclosures. 

Calcbench wanted to focus specifically on order backlog. Why? Because (a) all three companies report order backlogs, although each one in its own unique way; (b) order backlog can be an important sign of a defense contractor’s long-term health; and (c) order backlog could also become an even more important sign in the future, as countries spar with the United States over tariffs and military alliances. 

Anyway, we pulled up the order backlog disclosures for all three companies going back to Q1 2023. The result is Figure 1, below.

As you can see, Lockheed Martin seems to dwarf Northrop Grumman and RTX for order backlog, but that’s only somewhat true. These are defense-related backlogs, and RTX actually has a far larger commercial backlog not shown here. 

If we included commercial and defense-related backlog together, RTX would have quarterly backlog well above $200 billion — but that wouldn’t be an apples-to-apples comparison of defense orders, so we excluded the commercial numbers. 

We can also see that while Lockheed’s defense backlog is far larger than RTX and Northrop Grumman, that backlog dipped noticeably from late 2024 to first-quarter 2025, while the backlog for RTX and Northrop held steady. Then again, those two companies also had notable dips from one quarter to the next in 2023 and 2024, and subsequently recovered; one quarter’s dip does not a worrisome trend make.

Anyway, this data (and much more) is there for the taking. You can find it in any of several ways. On the Recent Filings page, you can click on the Earnings Model option on the right side of your screen, which will immediately conjure up a spreadsheet with each disclosure neatly listed and tagged. You can find the backlog item, and then start looking backwards to previous periods’ filings to see how the number has changed over time. 

Alternatively, you can use our Disclosures & Footnotes database to pull up the earnings releases of these three companies (or any similar company) to see what they report for backlog. 

As we noted above, each of our three companies today reports backlog data in its own unique way. For example, Lockheed reports total order backlog and backlog of four separate operating units; Northrop Grumman reports total backlog as well as “funded” and “unfunded” segments (Figure 1 reflects total backlog)); while RTX reports defense and commercial backlog (so, as discussed, we excluded commercial backlog). 

Now consider what backlog might tell us. If backlog starts going higher, is that because customers are placing orders like crazy, or because supply chain restrictions leave defense contractors unable to finish the goods? If the number starts falling, is that because the defense contractor is getting more goods out the door quickly, or because customers are canceling orders? 

Calcbench doesn’t know the answers to those questions. We do, however, have the data to help you frame such questions and evaluate the answers more effectively.