History of the Ammunition Industrial Base - JMC - U.S. Army

functions. Within the production base, the Army maintained ownership of propellant and
explosives production while contracting with commercial sources for metal parts and fuzes. The
Army then brought all components to Load, Assemble, and Pack GOCO plants for final
assembly. 131
Because of shortages and the need to utilize the best aspects of the active industrial base
and plants that were coming on line, the Army and Navy cooperated in the management of
conventional ammunition items. This cooperation worked smoothly since the Army Chief of
Ordnance and Navy Ordnance Bureau had cooperated in World War II. In the 1930s, primarily
via the Army-Navy Munitions Board‟s procurement planning, the Services had verbally agreed
which Service would procure items in an emergency. By 1941 most of these agreements were in
writing. For example, Frankford Arsenal made 5-inch projectiles, and Navy funding kept the
Arsenal in existence. The Navy considered interservice munitions cooperation as close as
working within the Department. The relationship was especially close in the aviation arena.
While the Army Air Corps (AAC) went its own way and invested significant funds in developing
air-launched torpedoes which the Navy already produced (and which the AAC never used), in
most other areas the Services worked together to standardize armaments. 132 Coordination among
Services became increasingly more formal. Initially loose management concepts between the
Army and Navy buys became tighter as DoD imposed control.
With the publication of DoDD 5160.65 the SMCA became institutionalized. On 14
August 1981, prior to publication of DoDD 5160.65, the Secretary of the Army had issued a
SMCA Charter that delegated SMCA responsibilities to the Commanding General, Department
of Army Materiel Development & Readiness Command-DARCOM (today DARCOM is the
Army Material Command). While many issues drove the issuance of a Charter, the most
pressing was continued Congressional questions on who was the one person responsible for the
SMCA. The question of a single decision maker vice the committee approach of the Joint
Conventional Ammunition Program (JCAP)/CG had been the major determinant in deciding to
create the SMCA in 1975. In response to other pressures, the SMCA Charter directed
DARCOM to establish a jointly staffed Executive Director for Conventional Ammunition
(EDCA) with offices in the Washington DC area. The CG, DARCOM appointed the Deputy
Commanding General for Readiness as the EDCA. 133
In addition, to implementing the EDCA, CG, DARCOM issued a mission order that
assigned execution of the SMCA mission of the Secretary of the Army to CG, ARRCOM. 134
The Secretary of the Army decided to place the execution of the SMCA missions at ARRCOM
level was made by the Secretary of the Army because it caused the least turbulence and least cost
in manpower. 135 While ARRCOM was low in the Army hierarchy, the Secretary of the Army
must have assumed that creation of the EDCA would eliminate Government Accounting Office
(GAO) concerns about organizational placement. The GAO recommended the SMCA report
131 Logistics Management Institute, Condition and Operation of DoD Ammunition Production Facilities, Phase II,
Volume I, July, 1970, 9-10. This Army arrangement is also described in other documents.
132 For the discussion on Army-Navy Cooperation in WWII see Rowland & Boyd, 496-504.
133 Statement from BG Burbules, Deputy Executive Director for Conventional Ammunition, U.S. Army Materiel
Development and Readiness Command, during Defense Department Authorization and Oversight Hearings on
Department of Defense Authorization of Appropriations for Fiscal Year 1984.
134 DARCOM Regulation 10-71
135 Statement from General Wagner during hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations
House of Representatives in the First Session of the Ninety-Sixth Congress.
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