Weapons and Munitions Product Improvement Programs

Abstract

Project ER2: The Close Combat Technology program includes development efforts to upgrade Close Combat technologies, energetics, and munitions, such as counter explosives, grenades, demolitions, shoulder launched munitions, pyrotechnic simulators, countermeasure flares, 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. FY 2017 funds will be used to support the following efforts: MK3A2 Offensive Hand Grenade, improve Claymore Force-on-Force Training Aids, Device, Simulator and Simulation (TADSS) Trainer, Countermeasure Flare Decoy Formulations, AN-M82A Obscuration Grenade, and Non-Lethal Ammunition Obsolescence. Project ER5: The Indirect Fire and Fuze Technology program supports product improvement development efforts to upgrade indirect fire weapon systems and munitions that have already been fielded and/or are in production. Indirect Fire Weapons and Munitions Product Improvement Programs include improved target engagement; increased reliability, availability, maintainability, and safety; standardization and interoperability with weapons and munitions of Allied Nations; defense exportability features under the auspices of Better Buying Power; reduced taxpayer life-cycle costs; reduction of failure mechanisms and supply chain risk through introduction of new and alternative technology and materiel solutions; materiel and technology obsolescence mitigation; improvement of manufacturing methods and their associated production and life cycle support processes; new capabilities in response the evolving and emerging threats and countermeasures; and reduction/elimination of potential environmental and health risks associated with these products and their underlying components, materials, and production processes. This program supports the standardization and interoperability of legacy and new production U.S. weapons and ammunition with Allied Nations to maximize battlefield interchangeability/compatibility under the auspices of the international Joint Ballistics Memorandum Of Understanding (JBMOU). Maximizing standardization, interchangeability, and exportability will also potentially increase Foreign Military Sales (FMS) of U.S. indirect fire Weapon and Munition products to maintain critical mass domestic production and affordable taxpayer costs through increased 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. Project ER6: The Munitions, Survivability and Logistics 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 FY 2016, this program assures complete interchangeability of direct fire ammunition and weapons among all the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries with all of the associated logistic, strategic and tactical advantages of the alliance. The program involves development and testing compliance of NATO standardization agreements (STANAGS) and staffing of the North American Regional Test Center (NARTC). In FY 2017, the NATO Standardization mission transfers to PE 0605805A - Munitions Standardization, Effectiveness and Safety, Project F21 - Direct Fire Technology and NATO Ammo Evaluation. FY 2017 funds are 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, 2017
• Source ID: 0607131A_7_2040_PB_2017
• Service Agency Name: Army

Entities

Organizations

• United States Army

Tags

Communities of Interest

• Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

• Ammunition
• Explosives
• Failure Mode And Effect Analysis
• Fire Control Systems
• Hand Grenades
• Indirect Fire
• Insensitive Explosives
• Manufacturing
• Materials Processing
• Metastable Intermolecular Composites
• Munitions
• Munitions Testing
• Networked Munitions
• Ordnance Laboratories
• Test And Evaluation
• Training Ammunition
• Training Devices

Readers

• Munitions and Ordnance Engineering