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

Tooele Army Depot, Tooele, Utah
Red River Munitions Center, Texarkana, Texas – Scheduled to close in 2011
Quad City Cartridge Case Facility, Rock Island Arsenal, IL – Scheduled to open in 2012
Defense Ammunition Center, McAlester, OK – Ammunition Knowledge and Logistics Support mission
An economically configured ammunition production base capable of supporting war
reserve, training, and emergency requirements is essential. The Army is committed to improving
the utilization and efficiency of the Defense Industrial Base. The FY07 PB funding supported
production base modernization improvements at Radford, Holston, and Lake City Army
Ammunition Plants (AAPs). Further, funding supports Government Owned, Contractor
Operated (GOCO) AAPs and critical machine tooling for the private sector. Investments at the
three Army Working Capital Fund (AWCF) ammunition installations are included in the price of
ammunition. Supplemental funding is required to support critical industrial base improvements
required to support increased GWOT, training, and modularity ammunition production
requirements. 179
A 2007 SMCA/PEO Ammunition Integrated Process Team (IPT) identified over 100 core
ammunition process capabilities. Fifty-one of the core processes were judged to be unique Single
Point Processes with capabilities not found at other facilities within the National Industrial
Technology Base (NTIB). Many core processes were found to be in need of critical
modernization and right sizing efforts. Processes included Milan AAP‟s 40mm ammunition and
the fuze capabilities, Crane AAA‟s demolition block line, many of the Pine Bluff ammunition
capabilities including illuminating mortar and artillery lines, the infrared (IR) mortar lines and
the smoke grenade lines. The Iowa AAP‟s tank training ammunition production capability and
many of the McAlester AAP‟s bomb lines are core processes. Holston AAP propellants and
explosives capabilities for RDX and HMX are core processes with Single Point Process
capabilities not found at other facilities within the NTIB.
The IPT also studied “actual” plant capability and capacity utilization rates for the period
of FY01 to FY03, and "projected" plant capability and capacity utilization rates for the period
FY04 through FY06. A significant number of the plant utilization rates were found to be less
than 50%, some were found to be as low as 10% at Lone Star and Kansas AAP facilities. Two of
the core processes found at Radford and Lake City AAPs were found to have utilization rates
above 60%, one had a utilization rate of 95%. Many of the core processes were also found to be
in need of critical modernizations. They included the Radford AAP nitrocellulose and
nitroglycerin processes, Lake City AAP small caliber ammunition lines and many of the facility
infrastructure assets and steam plants. 180
In FY09, JMC and PM Joint Services submitted over $200 million in infrastructure
efforts to DA in support of a potential stimulus package requested by President Barrack Obama.
Projects identified were extracted from the FY 10-15 Production Base Support Industrial
Facilities program. Additionally, the Installation Management‟s Command‟s (IMCOM) list of
Military Construction Army (MCA) projects totaling $2.2 billion which includes projects from
JMC installations was also submitted for consideration. The JMC‟s MLRC directorate
179 AFSC/JMC History Office. “FY05 Program Executive Office for Ammunition AHS,” AFSC/JMC FY05 Annual
Command History.
180 Ibid.
65