NIMIC. Pilot MSIAC CHANGES TO ROLES & STRUCTURE OF DEFENCE MATERIEL & LOGISTICS AGENCIES IN AUSTRALIA

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1 Lettre du NIMIC Pilot MSIAC Newsletter 3rd Quarter 2004/3 Inside this issue: Changes to Roles & Structure of Defence Materiel & Logistics Agencies in Australia SPLIT-X For the Design & Performance of Fragmentation Warheads Sharpen your TEMPER DDESB Explosion Effects Software Working Group Established Procurement Issues Press Review Accidents Involving Munitions Around the World 1-2 NIMIC News CHANGES TO ROLES & STRUCTURE OF DEFENCE MATERIEL & LOGISTICS AGENCIES IN AUSTRALIA The Australian Minister for Defence, the Secretary and the Chief of Defence Force announced on 16 March 2004 that Joint Logistics Command (JLC) would separate from the Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO) and move into the Vice Chief of Defence Force Group. The changes reflect a move to better differentiate the roles of a more independent DMO in providing services for the acquisition and through life management of materiel. These changes came into effect from 3 May The 2003 Defence Procurement Review (DPR) was tasked to review the existing arrangements for the acquisition and through life support of materiel, and to recommend improvements. The DPR made 10 major recommendations, and noted that the functions covering strategic logistics and operational level logistics support did not sit neatly within the core business of the DMO. The report concluded that the organisational location of many Joint Logistics Command (JLC) functions needed to be revisited. The purpose of this article is to provide the reader with guidance on roles and responsibilities with respect to explosive ordnance (EO) following the re-organisation. DMO Prescribed Agency Status As part of the outcomes of the DPR, the DMO is being given Prescribed Agency status. This means the DMO will have greater independence of action within the Department of Defence, functioning in a more business like way to deliver outcomes to its customers in Defence under the guidance of agreements set up with the Secretary of the Department and the Chief of Defence Force. The CEO of the DMO will now be directly accountable to the Minister for Defence within the Government, thus providing for greater independence but obviously now with direct accountability. The DMO s budget will be determined separately from that of Defence but will be directly linked to agreed deliverables with Defence. Ammunition Safety and Logistics Roles and Responsibilities As a result of the DPR, changes will see JLC retain responsibility for planning and managing logistics support to ADF operations, strategic Continued on page 2 1

2 Continued from page 1 Director, Ordnance Safety and also continues to serve as the NIMIC Focal Point Officer within Australia. logistics functions and the operation of the Australian Defence Organisation (ADO) physical logistics network. Of interest to NIMIC Newsletter readers, activities involving the acquisition, handling, management and safety of explosives now rest primarily with three organisations, as detailed below. Directorate of Munitions Operations Support. JLC has retained responsibility for corporate governance of activities concerned with explosives through the Directorate of Munitions Operations Support (DMOS). These functions include: Directorate of Ordnance Safety. The Directorate of Ordnance Safety (DOS) is the new name for the Ordnance Safety Group. DOS s roles remain unchanged and it will remain within JLC (so is therefore no longer part of the DMO). DOS continues to act as an independent safety authority and is the recognised Centre of Excellence for EO safety in the ADO. Key DOS responsibilities in the regulation of EO are: a. to define standards and develop policies and procedures for the safety of EO; b. the technical regulation and independent audit of EO storage and transport activities; and c. to convene the Ordnance Safety Review Board (OSRB) to independently assess EO safety cases. Group Captain Lyndon Tilbrook (former Australian member of the NIMIC Steering Committee) remains a. managing the contract with ADI Ltd for the warehousing and distribution of all EO within the ADO, and providing technical control for guided weapon (GW) maintenance activities; b. the licensing and audit of EO storage, handling and transport facilities and activities; and c. co-ordinating and monitoring all EO aspects associated with ADF activities (including EOD and IED). Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance Branch. DMO will separately retain responsibility for the acquisition and through-life management of all EO through the new GW & EO Branch formed from the now defunct Joint Ammunition Logistics Organisation (JALO). The Branch s roles also include engineering management of all Defence EO and the management of the re-development of the Mulwala explosives factory. Article provided by DOS, Australia SPLIT-X For the Design & Performance of Fragmentation Warheads SPLIT-X is a Windows-based analytical tool for the design and evaluation of fragmentation warheads. Warhead designs can be set up in minutes and executed in a matter of seconds. SPLIT-X has been validated against numerous test data for a large variety of warhead designs, and it is currently being actively used throughout the world. First developed in the late 1980s, SPLIT-X has its theoretical foundation in the classical 3D Gurney formulation but has evolved over the years to include numerous features: SPLIT-X is to be seen as a complement to hydrocodes such as AUTODYN. It is very common that SPLIT-X is used in the conceptual warhead design phase requiring many parametric studies and in IM assessment. AUTODYN is then used for the detailed fragmentation analysis of final warhead designs. Warhead definition including bores, multi-point off-axis initiation and end caps; Materials database (also expandable by user); Pre-formed, notched, natural and multi-p fragments; Analysis of fragment velocities, ejection angles; Mass distributions for natural fragments; Trajectory of fragments with retardation in the air; Multiple target test arenas; Impact points and velocities at the target; Target penetration and fragment density distribution; Warhead optimization by mass and key dimension. Article provided by Century Dynamics, The Netherlands 2

3 The documentation associated with the project: Users/Developers Manual (UDM); Sharpen your TEMPER! Bugs Reports (BR). As software bugs are discovered, users will be able to submit a detailed BR, which will be sent to a software developer for review and resolution; For a long time NIMIC has been promoting the use of Request For Support (RFS). The RFS Tracker will modeling, protocols, small scale testing, generic testing, more often be used to track usability problems and data on similar munitions or munitions using the same or usage questions related to the running of the similar EM, and expert analysis in order to aid in the software and which require an immediate response. prediction of munitions IMness or Safety and to increase A Frequently Asked Questions section will probably confidence in the result. be made available at that time; Request For Feature (RFF). The RFF Tracker will In order to support the use of modeling for assessing munitions safety, NIMIC is in an ideal position as an Information Analysis Center to become a focal point for exchanging/sharing engineering models devoted to IM or Safety Assessments. For this new project it is proposed to share 0D or 1D empirical or semi-empirical models using a common user/ developer electronic platform/software. The starting point is a Toolbox called TEMPER v1.0 (Toolbox of Engineering Models for the Prediction of Explosive Reactions), received from CEG (Centre d Études de GRAMAT, French MoD) in September TEMPER is a library of models dedicated to ammunition safety. It is an open source, Object-Oriented Programming project which allows the addition of custom models, or their enhancement with a dedicated GUI (Graphic User Interface). The main features of TEMPER are as follows: Library of threats, models and parameters to run the models; Direct selection of threat/mitigation/structure/model from the GUI with automatic compatibility management; Ability to perform parametric or stochastic simulations by varying one or two parameters of the problem; Ability to draw curves and save results using an embedded Excel workbook. allow users to submit requests for enhancement (RFE) to the software. Submissions will be closed when the requested changes are incorporated into a software patch, or when rejected by developers. Patches (P). As probably only one version of the software will be made available each year, and as developers will have had the possibility in the meantime to incorporate new models in their own version, the P Tracker will enable participants to have an up-to-date list of capabilities proposed by TEMPER with developers' instructions for using the Patches. If you have used or developed engineering empirical or semi-empirical models, which deal with mechanical or thermal threats, or with blast effects, you might be interested in joining the TEMPER Group. In early 2005 (as soon as the English version is available), the TEMPER Group s participants will be able to download from the NIMIC secure website: TEMPER v1.0 as an executable for declared users only, and as an open Visual Basic 6.0 source for declared possible developers. TEMPER will provide a common tool for promoting model and parameter exchanges among NIMIC member nations. IT IS NOW TIME TO JOIN THE TEMPER GROUP! For further information contact f.peugeot@hq.nato.int or emmanuel.lapebie@dga.defense.gouv.fr Article co-authored by CEG, France and NIMIC LATEST NIMIC PUBLICATIONS Visit the NIMIC website 3

4 Evaluation procedures and a preliminary ème Trimestre list of explosion 2004 DDESB EXPLOSION EFFECTS effects software based on members experience have SOFTWARE WORKING GROUP been developed. A questionnaire has been sent to the points of contact for these software packages to obtain the necessary information. A survey for users of such software has also been developed and distributed. Both the developer questionnaire and the user survey are available on-line at documents.html. A DDESB Technical Paper (TP) will provide information to the explosives safety community on the evaluated software. The DDESB has established an Explosion Effects Software Working Group (EESWG). Their mission is to review/evaluate explosion effects software being used by the explosives safety community to support projects, which the DDESB Secretariat is then asked to approve (at this time the EESWG is limiting their scope to software typically used in the United States). The concern of the Secretariat is that because of the proliferation of new codes and revision of "core" codes, it is very difficult to keep track of what codes have been recommended for use, what code changes have been reviewed, or even what differences exist between revisions of the same code. The role of the EESWG is to assist the Secretariat by reviewing/evaluating explosives safety software codes that are available, determining their bases (i.e., pedigree) and anchor points, developing a listing of recommended codes, and developing a mechanism for configuration control for these codes. Point of Contact Michelle Crull, PhD, PE, US Army Engineering & Support Center, Huntsville Attn: CEHNC-ED-SY-T (Crull), PO Box 1600, Huntsville, AL , USA Tel: 1(256) Fax: 1(256) , Michelle.M.Crull@hnd01.usace.army.mil Article provided by DDESB, US PROCUREMENT ISSUES PRESS REVIEW If you have suitable information to be reported in this section, do not hesitate to contact NIMIC (NIMIC@hq.nato.int). USSOCOM 'Targets' Enhanced Weapons (Jane s Defence Weekly, October 6, 2004) The US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) is funding several programmes to improve the performance of shoulder-fired anti-armour weapons based on operational experience in Afghanistan and Iraq. Programme activities cover the M136 Light Anti-armour Weapon (LAW, US DoD designation for the Saab Bofors Dynamics AT4) and the M72A7 LAW. According to recent programme briefings, safety certification of the AT4 CS (Confined Space) Reduced Sensitivity Munition has resulted in its continuing production for USSOCOM elements. Multiple versions of the M72 have been fielded by elements of USSOCOM, including the most recent M72A7 design. The M72A7 LAW duplicates the fragmentation effects of the M72A6 with a US Navy qualified insensitive munition explosive. United Kingdom, Procurement Detail (Jane's World Armies, September 21, 2004) A contract is due to be awarded later in 2004 and first production rounds are due to be delivered in late 2005 for the British Army's 105 mm Improved Ammunition (105 mm IA) programme, which aims to replace the current 105 mm L31 HE projectile and to keep the L mm Light Gun effective for another 20 years. The UK requires the projectile to have increased lethality and to comply with Insensitive Munition (IM) requirements. The 105 mm IA will be the first IM to be deployed by the Royal Artillery and all future purchases are expected to be of this type. Lower-cost and Unitary JSOW Rounds Under Development (Jane s Missiles and Rockets, September 1, 2004) To reduce the cost of the AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW), development of a lower-cost Block II version is under contract with US Naval Air Systems Command. The company is funding in parallel a new unitary-warhead version of the weapon, the JSOW-A+, a variant that carries a single BLU-111 (Mk 82) 500 lb warhead and that meets IM standards. Four flights JSOW-A+ have already been made. The FY05 price of a JSOW-A round is US$217,000. The cost savings from the use of a unitary warhead and Block II construction are expected to reduce the average unit cost of JSOW- A+ to a target of US$100,000. Second GMLRS Unitary round success (Jane s Missiles and Rockets, September 1, 2004) Lockheed Martin has successfully conducted the second flight test of the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) Unitary rocket. The GMLRS Unitary rocket is intended to give a precision capability against targets at ranges of up to 70km, while limiting collateral damage in restrictive terrain and urban areas. The unitary warhead has an explosive fill that meets IM standards. Lockheed Martin received a US$119 million contract to conduct System Development and Demonstration (SDD) for a GMLRS Unitary variant in October SDD will continue through CTAI to Execute 40mm turret program (Jane s Defence Weekly, September 2004) A 6 million (US$11m) contract was awarded by the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) on 7 June 2004 to the Anglo- French CTAI company (jointly owned by BAE Systems and Giat Industries), for execution of its Manned Turret Integration Program (MTIP). The MTIP turret structure already exists, but full integration of its 40mm Cased Continued on page 9 4

5 Telescoped Weapon System (CTWS), gun-control equipment, battlegroup thermal imager and other hardware has yet to take place. In June, the associated 40mm cased telescoped APFSDS-T round, which is expected to have reached TRL (Technology Readiness Level) 7 at the end of this year, completed IM qualification testing, and CTAI says that it is now fully compliant with STANAG Rheinmetall is Developing a New High-explosive Round to Meet the Requirements of Germany and the Netherlands (Jane s Defence Weekly, August 4, 2004) Under contract to the German Federal Office for Defence Technology and Procurement (BWB), Rheinmetall is developing a high-explosive round intended to be effective against dismounted troops, buildings, trucks and light armoured vehicles. In addition to containing a high explosive it will also contain about 6,000 fragments, with the propellant and high-explosive being of an insensitive type for greater safety. ACCIDENTS INVOLVING MUNITIONS AROUND THE WORLD (15 June - 30 September 2004) (Except for transport accidents, only accidents related to military munitions and military-grade energetic materials, from production to disposal, are reported in this section) 9 July 2004 India Amlanagar, Madhya Pradesh Fire Storage A large quantity of ammunition and explosives were destroyed in a major fire, suspected to have been triggered off accidentally. Indian AF fire-fighters extinguished the blaze after two hours. No loss of life was reported, but two Indian AF employees were injured during debris clearance operations. 22 July 2004 Taiwan Ageing Storage (before demil operations) A series of explosions of aged bombs and shells were heard for 3 hours inside several tunnels. More than 9,000 yellow phosphorous signal flares and smoke bombs were stored there. Officials from several nearby villages were affected, with many residents complaining about Incidents & Near Misses Israel Unveils Lightweight Tank Gun Technology (Jane s International Defence Review, August 2004) Israel Military Industries (IMI) has developed a new LOw Vulnerability Ammunition (LOVA) gun propellant. According to the company, producing high specific energy combined with low flame temperatures, LOVA propellants for 105mm and 120mm kinetic energy rounds consist of an innovative, less sensitive plasticizer and NC. These have also been successfully tested for IM compliance, and are currently in full qualification process for the Israel Defence Force. South Korea, Procurement Detail (Jane's Sentinel Security Assessment - China And Northeast Asia, May, ) In the near future, the ROK and the US are to be involved in three co-operative research and development programmes. They include one focusing on IM to reduce the possibility of accidental explosions of deployed munitions. persistent coughing and eye watering. No casualties. 27 July Aghanistan - Bagrami District - Rocket Attack - Storage Two rockets were fired at the Afghanistan 7th Division national militia compound around 20:50 hrs local time. One of the rockets hit an ammunition bunker and exploded about 25 minutes later when ordnance stored at the compound blew up. There were no injuries. 31 July Russia - Prudboi range, Volgograd region - Training Two soldiers were killed and four were injured by fragments on a military firing range. An investigation as to the cause has been initiated. 26 August India Chowdar, Orissa Fire - Storage A fire partially destroyed the ammunition depot of the Indian Air Force s Aviation Research Centre. The blaze destroyed a section where small-arms munitions had been stored for several hours, however a section containing heavy weaponry was spared. Nearly 5,000 people were evacuated from nearby villages. Date Country Event Energetic Material 20 June 2004 Australia Overturned truck Ammonium Nitrate (AN) 29 July 2004 Australia Overturned truck AN gel explosive 4 August 2004 New Zealand Truck accident AN 11 August 2004 India Fire Detonators & explosives division 4 August 2004 USA Overturned truck AN granulars 29 September 2004 Australia Tyre explosion, overturned truck AN 29 September 2004 Indonesia Fire in an ammunition dump Small-arms ammunition 28 September 2004 USA Overturned truck AN and blasting explosives 5

6 NIMIC NEWSLETTER th Quarter 2004 NIMIC NEWS FRAID v1.3 IS NOW AVAILABLE One of the stimuli specified in NATO STANAG 4439 on Insensitive Munitions (IM) requirements is fragment impact, or fragment attack. While national and international policies request all-up-round tests to validate the response of a munition to this threat, and in general to IM threats, a methodology using a combination of small-scale testing, modelling and expert analysis has emerged in recent years as the best practice. Since 2001 NIMIC has been working on a fragment impact database to assist the community in developing this methodology. This database is in an electronic format under Excel2000 and is called the FRAgment Impact Database (FRAID). As shown in the following Table, the number of compositions, the number of tests and modelling results and the number of references continue to increase. More than 60 open publications (proceedings of symposia, unclassified reports, magazines, scientific reviews, etc.) have been used for a total of 1,108 results on 69 compositions in the latest version. The large increase in the number of results in version 1.3 is due mainly to the release of previously classified data by Version Number of Compositions Number of Results Number of References V V V1.2 Development version and is internal to NIMIC V DOSG, UK and DGA, France to the NIMIC nations. Hopefully, this will encourage other nations to share data for the benefit of the NIMIC community. Available for download from the NIMIC Secure Website (authorised users). TECHNICAL STAFF OFFICER ROTATION The post of Munitions Systems is advertised for recruitment and the job description and application forms may be obtained on the NATO HQ website ( see Recruitment), the NIMIC website, or by contacting the NATO HQ, Recruitment Office ( Recruitment.A@hq.nato.int). The deadline for applications is end-november