JSFfan,
According to General Charles Davis in 2008, slides at: -
F 35 Production
LRIP6 was meant to produce 118 aircraft not the 36, less than a third of the initial plan that have now been authorised.
LRIP8 was meant to produce 132 aircraft not the 35, just over a quarter of the initial plan that have now been authorised.
As far as I can work out this is not the result of sequestration but the result of concurrency not going to plan.
If I was running a small business making parts for the JSF I would have had to jump through many hoops to prove to LM that I was a suitable contractor, I had the capacity to produce the widgets at the projected rates etc, now to find my expensive new plant running at a third to a quarter of the level I had expected before any sequestration cuts would really scare me.
No doubt LM will be looking for extra funding to do stress tests on their supply chain soon...