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 2019 funds resource improvements to the following programs: MK3A2 Offensive Hand Grenade, AN-M82A1 Obscuration Grenade, M82 Simulant Smoke Practice Grenade Improved Propellant Retainer, and M84 Stun Grenade Design. Project ER5: The Indirect Fire and Fuze Technology project includes 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 Projects include improved target engagement, increased reliability, availability, maintainability, and safety, standardization and interoperability with weapons and munitions of Allied Nations, defense exportability features, reduction of failure mechanisms, and supply chain risk through introduction of new and alternative technology and materiel solutions, improvement of manufacturing methods and their associated production and life cycle support processes, new capabilities in response to the evolving and emerging threats and countermeasures, and reduction/elimination of potential environmental and health risks associated with these products. This supports the identification, study, analysis, and development of fuzing technologies and Safe & Arm (S&A) devices in production and in the field. This project will implement technologies into fuzing systems to preclude obsolescence, maximize standardization, enhance performance, and improve the safety and exportability of existing munitions. The project addresses two major areas: (1) analysis and (2) block upgrades. Analysis efforts will identify second sources for fuzing systems that may reduce costs 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. FY 2019 will support modeling and simulation on medium caliber S&A modifications, will evaluate medium caliber prototype modifications against performance requirements, will conduct studies on mortar fuze design architecture with the latest Fuze safety guidelines to preclude component obsolescence, will conduct studies on hand grenade fuze to reduce the number of critical defects that will improve producibility and increase safety, will conduct engineering tests to prove-out electronic transceiver replacement prototypes for indirect fire and direct fire proximity fuzes, will conduct studies on artillery fuze electronic safe and arm designs for low cost safe and arm performance enhancements, and will evaluate optimized impact switch prototypes. Project ER6: The Direct Fire Technology 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. FY 2019 funds are used for a more lethal and safer design for 40mm grenades that will be built and tested. Warhead improvement and primer improvement for the 30mm Apache ammunition are also under development. A number of studies on potential improvements for training ammunition and environmentally friendly primers will be conducted. Potential improvements to 105mm and 120mm ammunition will be examined.

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Document Details

Document Type
R2 Budgetary Justification
Publication Date
Oct 01, 2019
Source ID
0607131A_7_2040_PB_2019
Change Summary Explanation
Service Agency Name
Army

Entities

Organizations

  • United States Army

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Ammunition
  • Cartridge Cases
  • Explosives
  • Failure Mode And Effect Analysis
  • Grenade Fuzes
  • Grenades
  • Hand Grenades
  • Indirect Fire
  • Insensitive Explosives
  • Manufacturing
  • Munitions
  • Networked Munitions
  • Ordnance Laboratories
  • Propellants
  • Stun Grenades
  • Test And Evaluation
  • Training Ammunition

Readers

  • Munitions and Ordnance Engineering

Technology Areas

  • Microelectronics

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