You can't fight a war without nitrocellulose

ARLINGTON, Va., May 12 (UPI) -- Over the last nearly eight years of the global war on terror and the continuing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, production costs at Holston Army Ammunition Plant have been reduced by approximately 50 percent. At Radford Army Ammunition Plant, the production cost for a pound of nitrocellulose has been reduced by more than 40 percent.

Radford is the heart of the U.S. ammunition industrial base. All the U.S. armed services are dependent on the products that come from the plant -- not just the U.S. Army, which owns the facility.

The Radford plant is a unique facility. It alone among the 14 existing plants of the U.S. ammunition-producing industrial base has an acid-concentrator facility that produces the nitric and sulphuric acids that, when combined with cellulose in a one-of-a-kind facility at Radford, make nitrocellulose, the essential ingredient for all propellants and explosives used throughout the U.S. Army's ammunition industrial base.

Therefore, Radford is a primary producer of gun propellants and the only producer of nitrocellulose.

The U.S. Army created a second source producer of small-arms ammunition. The second source, a team led by General Dynamics, produces 300 million rounds per year with the possibility of an additional 200 million. Medium-caliber ammunition is used in light cannons and ranges in size from 20mm to 57mm.

The basic constituent materials that go into virtually every medium-caliber projectile and rocket made by the U.S. ammunition base are produced at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant.

Finally, the Radford medium-caliber ammunition line that's responsible for the loading, assembling and packaging of 25mm, 30mm and 40mm cannon shells used by all the U.S. armed services and can also produce 40mm shells, if required.

Since acid is a critical constituent of nitrocellulose, were the acid plant to fail, nitrocellulose production would also fail, and there is no alternative domestic source for this material. It is also uncertain whether environmental regulations would permit movement of the waste acid volumes across the country.

The inability to produce nitrocellulose would cripple the domestic production of ammunition, placing the war fighters in combat situations at risk and making the United States completely dependent on limited foreign sources. A failure of any of the production lines at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant, but particularly those for solventless propellants or medium- and large-caliber ammunition, would be catastrophic for such weapons systems as the Abrams tank, Bradley fighting vehicle, Apache helicopter and virtually all U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force fighters.

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Part 8: The implications of relying on an ammunition-manufacturing infrastructure for the U.S. armed forces that is nearly 70 years old

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(Daniel Goure is vice president of the Lexington Institute, an independent think tank in Arlington, Va.)

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(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)