Weapons and Munitions Product Improvement Programs

Abstract

ER2 - This program includes development efforts to upgrade Close Combat technologies, energetics, and munitions, such as counter explosives, grenades, demolitions, shoulder launched munitions, pyrotechnic simulators, non-lethal ammunition/systems, networked munitions and mines, that have been fielded or have received approval for full rate production. This program will identify, characterize, study, analyze, test and develop technologies to resolve close combat munition reliability, safety, environmental, storage, standardization, obsolescence and manufacturing/producibility issues. ER5 - Indirect Fire and Fuze Technology: This program will identify, study, analyze and support enhanced lethality, range extension and standardization to improve target engagement effectiveness; increase reliability, safety, and exportability of indirect fires weapons and munitions; and reduce taxpayer costs including elimination of sole source supply of indirect fires ammunition materials as well as studies and analyses of such technology solutions in comparison to current stock pile indirect fire conventional weapons and munitions and their associated production and life cycle support processes. Additionally, environmental impacts of legacy propellants, explosives and metal parts will be studied. Replacement of hazardous materials such as Ammonium Perchlorate, Diphenylamine, Lead, etc. and addition of propellant anti-tubewear additives will remain a focus. This program supports the standardization and interoperability of legacy and new production weapons and ammunition to maximize battlefield interchangeability/compatibility between domestic US and Allied Nations under the auspices of the international Joint Ballistics Memorandum Of Understanding (JBMOU). Maximizing standardization, interchangeability, and exportability will potentially increase FMS sales of US products to maintain domestic production and economies of scale. This program also supports the identification, study, analysis and development of fuzing technologies and safe and arm devices in production and in the field. This program will implement these technologies into fuzing systems to preclude obsolescence, maximize standardization, enhance performance, and improve the safety and exportability of existing munitions. The program addresses two major areas: (1) analysis and (2) block upgrades. Analysis efforts will identify second sources for fuzing systems that may reduce cost by providing competition, and maintain production when sources or parts are no longer available. It will also allow for the performance enhancement of current ammunition items by conducting studies of major fuze components to detect and identify latent defects. The second major area is block upgrades, which will identify and perform studies on improvements to fuzes; increase commonality of fuze components and requirements. Block upgrades will enable the introduction of the latest technologies into fuzing, keep the fuzing design current to avoid obsolescence issues, and add capabilities. ER6 - Direct Fire Technology and NATO Ammo Eval: This program funding will be used to support direct fire ammunition from small caliber ammunition, 40mm grenade, medium caliber cannon ammunition and large caliber ammunition enhancements to lethality, effectiveness, survivability, accuracy and general product improvements. In addition, this program assures complete interchangeability of direct fire ammunition and weapons among all the NATO countries with all of the associated logistic, strategic and tactical advantages of the alliance. Project involves development and testing compliance of NATO standardization agreements (STANAGS) and staffing of the North American Regional Test Center (NARTC). FY 2016 funds will be used for a more lethal and safer design for 40mm grenades that will be built and tested. An improved 30mm training round for the Apache helicopter will allow pilots to see where the rounds strike. Warhead improvements for the 30mm Apache ammunition are also under development. A number of studies on potential improvements for training ammunition and better primers will be conducted.

Document Details

• Document Type: R2 Budgetary Justification
• Publication Date: Oct 01, 2016
• Source ID: 0607131A_7_2040_PB_2016
• Service Agency Name: Army

Entities

Organizations

• United States Army

Tags

Communities of Interest

• Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

• Ammonium Perchlorate
• Ammunition
• Budgets
• Elements
• Explosives
• Grenades
• Indirect Fire
• Insensitive Explosives
• Materials
• Munitions
• Networked Munitions
• Simulators
• Standardization
• Training
• Training Ammunition
• Training Devices
• Weapons

Readers

• Munitions and Ordnance Engineering