WASHINGTON ―
The Pentagon plans to invest more than $20 billion in munitions in its next budget.
But whether the industrial base will be there to support such massive buys in
the future is up in the air — at a time when America is expending
munitions at increasingly intense rates.
The annual
Industrial Capabilities report, put out by the Pentagon’s Office of
Manufacturing and Industrial Base Policy, has concluded that the industrial
base of the munitions sector is particularly strained, something the report
blames on the start-and-stop nature of munitions procurement over the last 20
years, as well as the lack of new designs being internally developed.
Some
suppliers have dropped out entirely, leaving no option for replacing vital
materials. Other key suppliers are foreign-owned, with no indigenous capability
to produce vital parts and materials ― setting up the risk that a conflict with
China could rely on Chinese-made parts.
And the
military’s desire to tinker with existing designs rather than create band-new weapons
has left the industrial base with a lack of design experience, which means
“design skills for critical components within the missile sector industrial
base are at risk,” the authors write.
All this is
happening as the U.S. is expending munitions at a rapid rate. For instance,
the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction concluded that
1,186 munitions were dropped in that country during the first quarter of 2018 ―
the highest number recorded for the first three months of the year since
tracking began in 2013; that number is also more than two and a half times the
amount dropped in the first quarter of 2017.
Mackenzie
Eaglen, a defense expert with the American Enterprise Institute, said figures
in the report line up with worries from senior military leaders over the last
two years.
“This report
puts a bunch of solid facts and figures, and real companies and impact, behind
the anecdotal concerns of leadership,” Eaglen said, who added that the overall
facts show “munitions production is then at risk.”
Without
access to such minerals, our precision-guided missiles will not hit their
targets, our aircraft and submarines will sit unfinished in depots, and our
war-fighters will be left without the equipment they need to complete their
missions.
By: Jeffery Green
Parts and
pieces
An overall
issue identified by the report is a lack of diversity in the industrial base,
as well as a lack of knowledge on how to develop new systems.
“The loss of
this design and production capability could result in costly delays,
unanticipated expense, and a significant impact to many current and future
missile programs, damaging the readiness of the Department [of Defense] and
negatively impacting a foundational national defense priority by placing the
ballistic missile production capability at risk,” according to the report.
While there
are a pair of new projects underway ― the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile and the
Joint Air to Ground Missile ― neither is truly a new design as much as it is
modernization for existing capabilities. Neither program features “significant
design work,” the authors note, adding that the DoD “remains concerned that the
design engineering capabilities needed for tactical and strategic missile
systems may not be readily available in the absence of a long-term demand
signal.”
As to
diversity in the industrial base, well ― there isn’t any, with the authors
concluding that Raytheon and Lockheed Martin account for about 97 percent of
the DoD’s munitions and missile procurement funding.
But while
those two firms are doing well, there are concerns about sub-tier suppliers in
the realm of “thermal batteries, SRMs [solid rocket motors], fuzes, jet
engines, inertial measurement units (IMUs), GPS receivers, seekers, and
warheads,” as well as how healthy that base will remain in the future.
Four
industrial areas stand out as “high risk” areas of concern:
·
Solid rocket motors. A
military-only technology, SRMs are basically split between Orbital ATK and
AerojetRocketdyne. However, Orbital is set to take on a broader section of this
production, essentially leaving the U.S. with only one producer of this vital
equipment, which the authors warn “can lead to cost increases due to lack of
competition, decreases in internal research and development efforts, and risk
of security of supply if a catastrophic accident should occur.”
·
Thermal batteries. Used in all
DoD missiles and guided munitions, there is one (unnamed) manufacturer of these
technologies who controls about 80 percent of the market. Should something
happen to that company, the DoD’s munitions stock could be endangered. In
addition, the near monopoly means there has been a lack of investment in
improving the technology.
·
Fuzes. Used on all munitions, there is
actually an excess of fuze capacity in the industrial base, due in part to
improvements in other areas making the fuze less important. “Excess capacity
limits manufacturers from being cost competitive and limits investment in
improvements to fuze technologies, including sustaining a viable design
engineering cadre,” the authors write.
·
Small turbine engines. There are
currently two companies involved in this sector, but one ― Teledyne
Turbine Engines ― has announced it will be leaving the business in 2018,
leaving only Williams International to supply this capability.
Overall, the
authors found that of the 121 second-tier suppliers for munition capabilities,
98 percent of them were single/sole source. And of the 73 third-tier suppliers,
98 percent were also single/sole source.
<img src="https://www.armytimes.com/resizer/P7lqSHF49ioZCi6WlI4Yy-tZLJo=/600x0/filters:quality(100)/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-mco.s3.amazonaws.com/public/N6HA4L4XUJEIPOU2P2NZUHMGZU.jpg"
alt="America's supply of bombs and missiles may be imperiled in the future
thanks to a lack of suppliers and a reliance on Chinese companies to provide
key materials. (Paul Weatherman/U.S. Navy)"/>
America's supply of bombs and
missiles may be imperiled in the future thanks to a lack of suppliers and a
reliance on Chinese companies to provide key materials. (Paul Weatherman/U.S.
Navy)
Material
readiness?
There are
also concerns about materials used in the systems. For example, the department
is facing rising costs for ammonium perchlorate, used in almost all DoD missile
programs. The sole producer, American Pacific, is only operating at 10-15
percent of capacity due to limited demand; as a result, there have been large
increases in cost per round of chemical compound, a trend likely to continue
into the 2020s.
Another
example: Dechlorane Plus 25, a component in the insulation of weapons. “There
is no domestic supplier for this material; the sole source is Occidental
Chemical in Belgium,” the authors write. “Even more concerning is that the
pre-cursor to make Dechlorane came from China. The Chinese source can no longer
produce that pre-cursor and so there is now no source for Dechlorane in the
world.”
And the sole
producer of dimeryl diisocyanate, a key propellant ingredient used in systems
like the AIM-9X and AMRAAM missiles, has informed the Pentagon it will be
leaving the business shortly, leaving the DoD with “no qualified source” of the
material.
The Pentagon
is left to scramble to find potential replacements for these materials, which
the authors optimistically conclude could be “the beginning of what could serve
as a model for mitigating material obsolescence in the future.” But Eaglen
thinks the issue of foreign suppliers needs to be dealt with quickly, or risk
getting out of hand.
“It’s
worrisome enough for a capability that is essential in hostilities that
policymakers will likely want to start considering special protections and/or
subsidies when needed,” she said. “I’m not sure the bell can be un-rung in the
case of Chinese suppliers.
“We may be
too far down the path to resurrect an authentic munitions industrial base. So
then the question becomes: Now what?”
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About
this
Author
this
Author
About Aaron
Mehta
Aaron
Mehta is the Senior Pentagon Correspondent and Associate Editor for Defense
News, covering policy, strategy and acquisition at the highest levels of the
Department of Defense and its international partners.
http://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2018/05/22/the-us-is-running-out-of-bombs-and-it-may-soon-struggle-to-make-more/
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