Author Description

The end of the decade finds the United States (U.S.) domestic industrial base for weapons in transition. After almost eight years of increasing demand from the Department of Defense (DOD) for ammunition, explosives, small arms, missiles, and rockets, the industry is now awaiting a predicted downturn. The change in U.S. presidential administrations, a rapidly expanding budget deficit, and the declared intention of the U.S. to withdraw from Iraq by August of 2010 all point to a "topping-off" of weapons expenditure increases. The Obama administration has already announced the scaling back of the U.S. Army's Future Combat System, significant reductions in Ballistic Missile Defense, and the end of supplemental spending bills for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Global War on Terrorism in general. Since Congress has the final say on weapons procurement, the Secretary of Defense's proposed cuts to major weapons systems are not final until Congress concurs with DOD recommendations. In addition, the fifty year-old design of the M-16 rifle and its variants are showing their age and a new generation of automatic rifles is currently being readied for the U.S. Army's Carbine Competition anticipated to be announced in the summer of 2009. As the U.S. plans to rampdown in Iraq, the administration's intention is to increase troop levels in Afghanistan; thus, any reductions in the volumes of munitions consumed there may be made-up elsewhere. Overall, the last decade has brought to light a number of deficiencies in the production and management of conventional ammunition for U.S. forces. For example, the U.S. Army as the Single Manager for Conventional Ammunition (SMCA) has responsibility for all small arms ammunition for DOD. As has been repeatedly noted and sometimes addressed, the single nitrocellulose production facility, the Radford Army Ammunition Plant (RAAP), is an aged, decrepit, single point of failure for the Army, DOD, and the nation as a whole. Although a partial