ARTICLE

August 2004

Army Will Boost Supply of Small Cal Ammo, Weapons

by Roxana Tiron

Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are consuming small caliber ammunition at rates the U.S. Army has not seen in years. Troops will be using approximately 1.5 billion small caliber rounds a year for the next several years, said Kevin Fahey, deputy program executive officer for ammunition.

For urban battles, the most needed ammunition ranges from the .50 caliber, 5.56 mm, 7.62 mm to 40 mm, Fahey said.

“We are not using a lot of large calibers, like tank and artillery rounds,” he told National Defense. “We are using some mortars.”

Training requirements also add to the growing demand. “The first goal is to give them enough ammunition to train. That is our number one priority,” he said.

The PEO Ammunition is “having trouble just keeping up” with the most pressing needs, Richard Audette, deputy program executive officer for soldier systems, said in an interview.

Fahey denied that the Army is facing ammunition shortages in conflict areas. The challenge, Fahey acknowledged, is to triple the peacetime production.

“We have the capability, but whenever you ramp up from 500 million to 1.5 billion, it takes time,” he said. “What happens is that war reserve goes down as you ramp up.”

The M67 hand grenade, for example, proved to be critical in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Fahey. At the time of the attacks in September 2001, the M67 grenade had not been produced for seven years, said Fahey.

“We are now in the process of producing the grenades and getting more and more money for them every day,” he said at a recent National Defense Industrial Association international armaments symposium.

Meanwhile, the heavy barrel M2 machine gun, which uses .50-caliber ammunition, still is a troop favorite, said Fahey. “Who would have thought? They use it all the time.”

The Army, which is the single manager for all of the Defense Department’s conventional ammunition, now has started work on a single integrated database for ammunition, said Fahey.

“There are 70 databases in ammo,” he said. “The biggest challenge is to figure out what the investment strategy should be.”

The PEO for ammo has received $1.3 billion for 166 service items, said Fahey.

The tremendous use of ammunition in Iraq brings with it the wear and tear on soldiers’ weapons.

“We are putting lots [of ammo] down range, so we are wearing out weapons faster than we would ordinarily,” Audette told National Defense.

Because the soldiers are dealing with a desert environment, weapon maintenance and lubrication is critical, said Audette. The Army, through the rapid fielding initiative (RFI), is sending a series of lubricants to Iraq to prevent weapons from jamming, he said.

Additionally, the Army’s Tank Automotive and Armaments Command is setting up small arms repair centers in the field to help out where traditional armor units can’t manage, said Audette.

Through the RFI, the Army also is trying to send soldiers new magazines for their M16 and M4 rifles. “I am not saying a new designed magazine. We just need new magazines,” he said. “We are buying brand new magazines.” The current magazines have been in use for years, he said. The goal is to give every unit new magazines.

Because of frequent city patrols, the soldiers in Iraq are requesting an array of combat optics to be able to dominate the streets. The RFI is buying 10,000 close-combat optics a month, said Audette.

“The key thing that we hear over and over again is ‘get us optics’ … ‘get us mini-binos,’” he said. “If I can have an optic on my gun, give me an optic on my gun.”

At PEO Soldier, meanwhile, efforts are under way to upgrade soldier weapons during the next four years.

Gradually, old weapons such as the M16 A4, M16, M203 rifles, the M4 carbine, the Mk 19 grenade machine gun, the M2 .50-caliber machine gun and the M249 squad advanced weapon will be replaced.

One of the new systems is the M107 long-range sniper rifle, which uses .50-caliber ammunition. For the last year and a half, the Army has been sending over 50 rifles to soldiers in Afghanistan every month, according to Audette. The service has a total of 650 M107 rifles fielded, he said.

“It was an 80 percent solution,” said Audette. “We are going out, we are doing the slight retrofitting that is needed. We got a new telescopic sight.”

Another new capability, the common remotely operated weapons station, or CROWS, was delivered to soldiers in Iraq last Christmas. However, the system—installed on military police Humvees and armored security vehicles—was sent there solely for evaluation and feedback.

Also in the works is the XM8 lightweight assault rifle, which is supposed to go out to the troops in about 15 months, according to Audette. The XM8 is a derivative of the XM29, the old objective individual combat weapon. The XM8 is the rifle portion of the OICW, which fires 5.56 mm bullets. The other piece of the XM29 fires high-explosive air-bursting rounds.

Four XM8 variants are being developed, which include a baseline carbine, a sharpshooter variant, an automatic rifle variant and the ultra-compact carbine variant. The soldiers can reconfigure the weapon from one variant to the other to meet changing mission requirements.

Soldiers can exchange the barrel, hand-guard, lower receiver, buttstock modules and sighting systems. The XM320 detachable single-shot 40mm grenade launcher can be added to the XM8 by the soldiers in the field without tools.

Soldiers in Iraq find that it is extremely difficult to swing around an M16 to the back of a Humvee, if it comes under fire, said Audette. “It is almost impossible,” said Audette. A preferred option would be a more compact weapon, with a nine and a half-inch barrel, to fire from shorter ranges.

The Army leadership wants to see about 7,000 XM8 weapons by June 2005, he said.

Another advanced system now in development is the XM25 airburst weapon. The biggest challenge is reducing the weight, said Audette. “If you put a 5.56 mm and a 25 mm high explosive airburst together it is heavy,” he said. “It weighs more than 21 pounds, and we got it down to 17. We need more time to work the two together to get the weight down.”

The Army is planning field the XM25 in 2008, said Audette. The first prototype will be fired in September at the Army’s infantry conference.

Another development is a crew-served weapon known as the XM307 or XM312, depending on the kit. The “big brother” of the XM25, as Audette calls it, can fire the 25 mm and .50 caliber ammo. This weapon is meant to replace the M2 and the Mk 19.

The XM312 potentially could be installed on top of the Stryker light armored vehicles. “We are testing it right now,” said Audette. The Army recently awarded a contract to General Dynamics to continue with the development and demonstration.

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