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

Small Caliber Ammunition
The JM&L LCMC increased production in areas needed despite reduced infrastructure
of the base and reports several success stories. In 2001, Lake City AAP (LCAAP) was the sole
government-owned contractor-operated small caliber ammunition production capability in the
industrial base. The operating contractor, Alliant Techsystems, ATK met the challenges of
completing stringent requirements in response to urgent wartime demands. After September
11 th , 2001, requirements surged to support training and OEF. As troops began their deployment
to Southwest Asia (SWA) and other areas around the world, the requirement for additional,
immediate use small caliber ammunition increased tremendously. Lake City was awarded $19.2
million in Defense Emergency Relief Funds (DERF) to increase Total Plant Volume (TPV)
capacity from 800 million to 1.2 billion rounds a year for contract life; and to accelerate delivery,
provide additional plant capacity for links, and other quality improvements. LCAAP shipped
over 58 million cartridges in direct support of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) in the early weeks
and months of the conflict.
In FY03 LCAAP continued its ramp-up of small caliber ammunition for all the military
services and produced over 600 million rounds. Because JMC still encountered stockpile
shortages for items critical to combat operations, several second source or urgent buys were
completed in FY04. In addition to procuring 1.2 billion rounds from LCAAP valued at $354
million, JMC also conducted ten urgency procurements to buy 312 million small caliber
ammunition rounds from suppliers around the globe. In order to address the shortfall, JMC also
invested $28.8 million into LCAAP modernization to further improve and increase its
capabilities.
By FY05, JMC managed the production and delivery schedule for 1.34 billion rounds of
ammunition produced by LCAAP, valued at over $487 million. JMC also awarded contracts
were awarded for production of 300 million rounds of small caliber ammunition to General
Dynamics Ordnance Tactical Systems (GDOTS) as its second source supplier. Urgent buy
contracts were awarded to Israeli Military Industries for 70 million rounds of 5.56mm M855 ball
and 31.4 million rounds of 7.62mm blank; and to Olin Winchester for 70 million rounds of
5.56mm M855 Ball. Further actions to mitigate the urgency, included the procurement of 79
million rounds of 5.56mm and 41 million rounds of 7.62mm from the United Kingdom. In total,
215 million rounds were procured as urgent buys in FY05. Other methods of increasing the
small caliber ammunition stockpile included the execution of maintenance programs for .50
caliber to recapture 10 million rounds of A576 (4API/1API Tracer w/M9 Link) from March 2005
through Jan 2007 at Blue Grass Army Depot. Rounds were acquired from the USAF via crossleveling
and from the Army demilitarization account. This resulted in the successful recovery of
2.8 million rounds by the end of September 2005. Aggressive acquisition strategies kept pace
with urgent requirements. In FY08 small caliber production rose to 1.4 billion rounds and
capacity was being increased to 1.6 billion through modernization projects.
TNT
In FY03 significant demand for TNT, used primarily in support of USAF general purpose
(GP) bombs, depleted existing inventories of TNT at an unanticipated rate. This required the
development of an acquisition strategy for this critical item. History showed that Radford and
Holston Army Ammunition Plants had been filling TNT requirements from the SMCA stockpile
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