PROCUREMENT: Why There's a Bullet Shortage

StrategyPage.com ^ | January 12, 2004

[John Jorsett]

The U.S. Army produces or procures 350 different types of munitions (bombs, bullets, grenades, rockets and so on.) Currently, it has shortages in 25 of those items, the most noticeable being fragmentation grenades and blank ammo for the M-16 rifle and SAW light machine-gun. The Department of Defense produces all of its small arms ammunition at one factory, in Lake City, Missouri (the largest plant for 5.56mm-20mm ammo in the world). But this facility is now running 24/7 and Congress is under pressure re-open older, smaller, mothballed plants. The Lake City plant can produce over a billion cartridges (mostly various types of 5.56mm ammo) a year, so why the shortages? A large part of it has to do with troops getting ready for duty in Iraq. This involves a lot of infantry training, and that requires a lot of blank 5.56mm ammunition. There was apparently a lack of coordination between the people in the Pentagon deciding to greatly expand infantry training, but no one told the Joint Munitions Command so that production of munitions used in training could be increased. This sort of thing was not a problem during the Cold War, when there were always large "war reserve stocks" of ammunition. This was necessary because the main threat was the Warsaw Pact (the Soviet Union and it's East European allies) that threatened to invade Western Europe. A war there would last a while and require huge quantities of ammo to keep the troops supplied while munitions plants increased production. So thousands of tons of ammunition was always kept in stockpiles. But this ammo would degrade with age. Thus every year there were large quantities of "use it or lose it" ammo reaching the point where you either fired it off or recycled it. Once the Cold War ended, so did the need for the large war reserve stocks of ammo. Billions of dollars a year could be saved by sharply reducing the war reserve stocks, and that was what happened. Unfortunately, there were some miscalculations in doing that, and there have been periodic shortages of 5.56mm ammo over the last few years. No one at the Pentagon will give a straight answer as to why this is happening, but whatever planning system they are using, it needs a little tweaking.

[DeFault User]

Doesn't it seem really, really stupid to rely on a single point of supply for bullets? Whose idea was this? Think anything will change given this problem?

Agreed. Any competentently run large corporation would not rely on one supplier for critical parts. ..... Whoops. We are talkin' guvmint here. Almost forgot.

[BushMeister]

[CDHart]

There's a factory in Sedalia, MO, that makes bullets -- called Sierra Bullets -- wonder why they couldn't let a contract to them?

Carolyn

[ccmay]

Shelf life is indefinite for ammo when stored correctly.

Jobs for the boys. Whose Congressional district is this ammo factory in?

-ccm

[SJSAMPLE]

Sierra makes only bullets, not the complete cartridge. Coincidentally, Sierra makes the 77gr MatchKing bullet which is being loaded by Black Hills for ammunition for SpecOps troops. The 77gr bullet has a longer range that standard ammunition and is very popular (and expensive).

[snopercod]

bump

[SevenDaysInMay]

Remember that Clintonazis were waiting on "green" ammo before restocking.

[Happy2BMe]

Running out of M16 and SAW ammo?

No SWEAT.

There are thousands of AK47's being confiscated all the time, and millions of rounds of ammo for them also.

This is a good time to do some training on foreign weapons.

[B4Ranch]

ping

[BushMeister]

LakeCity$88million

[BushMeister]

LakeCity$25million

[CDHart]

Sounds like you know a whole lot more about it than I do! :^) But if the demand is there, you'd think someone would be thinking about filling it.

Carolyn

[quietolong]

And look what we have sitting in WI doing nothing!!
And there's a smaller up near Bayfield.

Badger Army Ammunition Plant
http://www.badgeraap.org/index.shtml

http://www.saukprairievision.org/histover.htm

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/aap-badger.htm

[BushMeister]

Getting a shipment ready at Lake city:

[Gritty]

Why don't they just contract some bids out to some of the domestic civilian ammumition plants? They could use the business.

[tortoise]

Tungsten bullets, which are higher density than lead and have a longer effective range, are under development and the expected cost is about $1 each.

As opposed to the roughly $0.25 per round they pay now.

[Squantos]

Hey !! ....My 500 rounds BANG a week BANG habit BANG is BANG something BANG I BANG can BANG quit if BANG these BANG guys BANG really BANG need the BANG ammo...........!

Stay safe and cache what presstitutes are trying to say we're short of !

[BushMeister]

I don't think they have to. Production at Lake city has expanded from 350-400 million rounds/year before 9/11 to 1.2 billion rounds/year currently. They are still hiring at and expanding the Lake city plant. Do I wish they would disperse ammunition production for security reasons? Sure. But the Lake city plant is huge and has plenty of room to expand.

[Squantos]

Hey Eaker they have a pic of your garage !........before the trip to range........:o)

[BushMeister]

I think the military probably pays about 15 cents for each cartridge of 5.56mm.