Maj. Gen. Chris Mohan, US Army Sustainment Command commanding general, and Army Secretary Christine Wormuth tour the Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois on June 6, 2022. (US Army/Linda Lambiotte)
AUSA 2023 — A funding influx last year helped the Army get a jumpstart on its 15-year organic industrial base (OIB) modernization plan, and this year the organization is striving to maintain focus on improvements to its ammunition facilities amid political dysfunction and growing inflation challenges, according to a senior official.
Service leaders had planned to move out on their $16 billion OIB plan in fiscal 2024 that would make improvements at 23 depots, arsenals and ammunition plants managed by Army Material Command. But lawmakers’ concern about the US industrial base and the war inside Ukraine, prompted them to kick start the effort in FY23 with an additional $2.5 billion spread between supplemental spending and congressional add-ons, Marion Whicker, Army Materiel Command’s executive deputy to the commanding general, told Breaking Defense during a Sept 27 interview.
“The focus was really across the ammunition plants [in FY23] and really to facilitize the expansion of capacity for the 155mm ammunition rounds,” she said ahead of the Association of the United States Army conference in Washington, DC.
More specifically, the Army used those dollars to spread funding around depots and ammunition plants around the county including:
- $174 million toward the Holston Army ammunition plant (AAP) in Kingsport, Tenn.;
- $181 million for the Radford AAP in Virginia;
- $160 million for the Iowa AAP in Middletown, Iowa;
- $243 million for the Scranton AAP in Pennsylvania;
- $201.5 million for a facility in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.;
- $115 million for a plant in Garland, Tex.; and
- $127 million for the Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois.
Plans for FY24, which began on Oct. 1, remain in limbo since Congress has not sent President Joe Biden a defense spending bill, and the Department of Defense is currently operating under a 45-day continuing resolution that strips money for Ukraine. It remains unclear what will happen once that CR runs out.
If lawmakers are unable to pass a spending bill and opt to shut down the government, Whicker said she anticipates a “minimal impact” on OIB plans, at least initially. However, if a shutdown drags on, it will prevent the service from awarding new contracts.
While she did not provide specific FY24 contracting plans, the OIB goal for this year is to continue shoring up those Army ammo facilities and building capacity for the service’s ground systems, including several planned projects at the Army’s Watervliet Arsenal in New York that builds cannon tubes.
Regardless of what lawmakers decide to do, though, Whicker said the command is grappling with the higher cost of doing business.
“We always know that inflation is going to impact … [but] the impact of inflation has been far greater than we thought it would be,” she said, noting that this problem expands to lingering supply chain disruptions and the construction work force is “maxed out.”
The combo has led to high project costs across the board that is exceeding the inflation buffer built into projections. As in past years, the command plans to conduct a “wargame” for all its projects in November and update inflation variables.
“A couple things [could] happen. … We will certainly ask for some additional funds, if it’s available, and if we can get it, we will continue to proceed,” she explained. “If we have to do like most of America does, and tighten our belts a little bit, we may have to push a project or two to the left.”
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As Whicker and other Army leaders move out on OIB modernization plans, they are working towards a goal of being able to produce 100,000 155-mm artillery munitions each month by the end of FY25, Army acquisition head Doug Bush confirmed last month. In the last two weeks of September alone, the service said it awarded $1.5 billion worth of contracts to increase 155-mm production capacity and inventory.
From that pot, funds were awarded to bolster the industrial base production capacity to produce the M795 — a 155 mm high-fragmentation, steel (HF1)-body projectile — and a trio of multiyear procurement contracts for M1128 load, assemble, and pack (LAP) artillery rounds, and modular artillery charge system LAPs, according to an Oct. 6 press release.
Those dollars were also used to buy 14.2 million pounds of bulk energetics, 270,000 primers, 678,000 fuses, 2.7 million modular artillery charge system (MACS) combustible cartridge cases, load assemble and pack of 1.6 million MACS propellant increments, and load assemble and pack of 451,000 M795/M1128 projectiles.
