Arsenals, Depots, and Ammunition Plants

The Department of the Army’s Organic Industrial Base encompasses arsenals, depots, and ammunition plants along with Centers and Activities, which offer a unique and robust capability to the United States. But what does each of these terms mean? They are an integral part of the national defense strategy and organic to the Department of Defense and fall into Government-Owned Government-Operated (GOGO), Government-Owned Contractor-Operated (GOCO), and Contractor-Owned Government-Operated (COCO).

Arsenals, Ammunition Depots, and Plants, Centers, and Activities all have specific meanings. While they seem very similar—they are distinct and have a historical context that survives today.

Figure 1. Army’s Organic Industrial Base (OIB). Source: AMC Magazine

Arsenals

Arsenals provide manufacturing of artillery systems, cannon tubes, mortars, chemical/biological equipment and limited munitions

Historically, arsenals would produce no more than 5% of the Army’s requirements for war and are more of development centers as sources of production techniques to produce certain types of urgently needed munitions. The majority of the war production would fall on private industry government-owned, contractor-operated (GOCO) plants built for the purpose.

One example of an arsenal is Pine Bluff Arsenal (PBA), which is a United States Army installation located in Arkansas that produces infrared weapons and involved with white phosphorus munitions. Arsenals have facilities that assist in the production, such as Quad City Cartridge Case Facility (QCCCF) is a state-of-the-art facility located at an arsenal that produces premium brass and steel cartridge cases.

Plants

Ammunition plants provide manufacturing of explosives propellants, small-caliber munitions, and projectiles. Because of the specialized nature of ammunition, the past Ordnance Department had numerous new facilities built-in time for World War II. Ammunition and explosives were not attractive to private industry and built at government expense.

One of the most notable ammunition manufacturing plants is the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant, which conducts contract oversight to Orbital ATK and produces ammunition ranging from 5.56x45mm through to 20mm. Recently the new contractor will be Olin Winchester.

Figure 2. Lake City Army Ammunition Plant. Source: US Army

Depots

Army Material Command has two types of depots; maintenance depots provide significant overhaul or refurbishment. And ammunition supply depots that provide storage of conventional ammunition and missiles for receipt and issue; load, assembly, and demilitarization.

The depot grew out of the Army’s new methods of forwarding supplies to front-line troops that were encountered in World War I and needed for World War II. The plan adopted was an advance depot storage from production facilities, that would, in turn, feed the railheads in combat zones.

The most know is Pueblo Chemical Depot (PCD), which reports to the US Army Chemical Materials Activity (CMA), located in southeastern Colorado with the mission of safe and secure storage of mustard agent projectiles. While facilities provide production and storage, but other agencies are required for planning and development.    

Centers

Centers are defined as enduring, functional organizations, with a supporting staff, designed to perform a joint function within a headquarters. The centers can perform development and engineering. Centers origins come from product centers that conducted research and were decentralized and semiautonomous organizations that specialized in the development, production, and distribution of one broad class of ordnance. For example, currently, Letterkenny Munitions Center conducts surveillance, receipt, storage, issue, testing, and repair for the Army Tactical Missile System and Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System missiles.

Activities

An activity is defined as a unit, organization, or installation performing a function or mission, action, or collection of actions. The unit is a separate table of distribution and allowances organization under command, with staff or a field support mission. 

One example is Crane Army Ammunition Activity with a mission to receive safely, inspect, store, ship, renovate, demilitarize, and manufacture conventional ammunition, missiles for Joint Force readiness. Including the Logistics Operations Team that strategically plans and executes function testing for the Ammunition Stockpile Reliability Program.

Conclusion

The Army’s Organic Industrial Base (OIB) consists of 23 geographically dispersed government arsenals, depots, and ammunition plants that each provide a unique capability. Each location does not provide the same functions, but may have overlapping services, and must be understood by ammunition sustainment planners. Other nations may have similar organizations, named differently, such as factories, institutes, or spelled differently, such as centres. A strong munitions industrial base requires more than just production and must be scaled for production, storage, and planning to meet not only current needs but be innovative to meet future requirements.