DoD’s requirements process falling short: The case of explosive materials

Michienzi said the U.S. industrial base does not have the surge capacity to replenish munitions stocks quickly, and one of the constraints is the production of energetic materials. “Our demand is small and unsteady,” she said. “Large commercial chemical companies really have no interest in the DoD market.” And even if they do, contractors aren’t inclined to buy American because China can deliver materials at a lower cost. “The industry writ large … has really been driven by efficiency, not resiliency or national security,” said Michienzi.

That was from National Defense Magazine, Energetics supply chain called fragile, vulnerable. Here’s more on that from the related article Community warns of China’s edge developing explosive materials. It finds that the US military relies on two critical chemicals for explosives: HMX developed 70 years ago and RDX developed 120 years ago. “[T]he Defense Department has not made a priority of increased explosive power, greater range, smaller form factor or other characteristics.”

Researchers at Navy’s China Lake developed a far more powerful material in the 1980s, CL-20, which can be 40% more powerful than HMX in some applications. While the US never pursued CL-20, China has experimented and incorporated it into its weapon systems. Here’s some of the explanation, which focuses on requirements:

• The collapse of the Soviet Union reduced the urgency for more powerful explosives, the cost of testing and fielding the new material was high and since there was no requirement, the acquisition community had no interest in CL-20, despite it being 40 percent more powerful than HMX explosives in some applications, Fischer said.
• “The requirements aren’t being passed down,” said Teresa Mayer.
• “The operators have to identify what requirements they actually have from an operational perspective,” said Tom Russell … “Right now, the challenge on that [requirement development] is done at the system level, and energetics are a commodity within the system, so you sort of have to devolve a requirement out of that,” he said.

That last point is interesting. DoD creates requirements for entire weapon systems and then enabling technologies are often derived from that. DoD does not have an MDAP for additive manufacturing, for hypersonic wind tunnels, or for turret systems. The lower something is down the totem pole, like energetics, the more likely it is to be neglected.

I think it’s hard for operators to drive enabling technologies like explosives. Yes, they want it lighter, cheaper, more explosive. The real question is what is technically and economically feasible, and then they can help influence outcomes within those constraints.

But it’s ridiculous to say DoD had no requirement for making things explode better and cheaper. That’s what DoD does. Improving explosives and assuring production capacity for them should be a continuing capability stream in DoD budgets. It’s like the situation where DoD didn’t have a requirement for faster aircraft, so hypersonic development fell behind where it was in the 1960s with the X-15.

This following quote provides some evidence that there was always a requirement for improved energetics, even if it never formally came out of the JCIDS:

“There are few things that I’ve come across in my studies and wargaming on future warfare and future force development that have as significant a potential impact on operational success as that of energetic materials,” said Tim Barrick, director of wargaming in the Marine Corps University’s Krulak Center for Innovation and Future Warfare.