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.

Part 8: A 70 years old arms factory
In the 21st century, the U.S. armed services and their war fighters still depend on the nitrocellulose that is produced by the U.S. Army's ammunition plant in Radford, Va.

The list of weapons systems that require the use of nitrocellulose for their manufacture or ammunition is a long and comprehensive one. It includes the M1A1 Abrams main battle tank, the M119A1, M109A6, M198 and M777 howitzers, the M2 Bradley armored personnel vehicle, the Marine Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, artillery, tank ammunition, medium-caliber ammunition, small-caliber ammunition, combustible cartridge cases, solventless propellants, triple-base propellants, double-base propellants and single-base propellants.

Dennis Dunlap, director of industrial support for the Joint Munitions Command, said about past efforts to modernize the Radford plant, "Our focus has been primarily in modernizing the production facilities and equipment. We had never really modernized the underlying infrastructure: the water lines, the electrical system and so on. And so as we came into this current (Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan) surge, we were finding ourselves unable to keep up with demand."

It is important to remember that the Radford Army Ammunition Plant, like all the plants that make up the ammunition industrial base of the U.S. armed forces, was built at the start of World War II. The size and layout of the facility made sense then and reflected the state of technology nearly 70 years ago. Today, however, the plant's infrastructure is aging and requires constant repair.

There have been previous investments in modernization, associated with other conflicts, but there has never been a comprehensive effort to rationalize and modernize the facility. Like the other plants in the ammunition industrial base, the basic infrastructure of pipes, sewer lines and water mains dates back to the early 1940s. As a result, the Radford plant remains a facility designed for a different age. Meeting modern, evolving environmental standards is a constant challenge.

It is ironic that the Radford Army Ammunition Plant, which remains so critical to the national security of the United States, is at great potential risk. This is particularly the case in the period of reduced defense budgets that is likely to ensue.

For many years, the U.S. Department of Defense did not to make the proper investments in maintaining and modernizing the facility. Failure to complete the modernization efforts begun after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, might result in a failure of critical production capabilities at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant sometime in the future that could place the national security of the United States and its combat forces at risk during a time of war.

Part 9: The steps that need to be taken to modernize the Radford complex

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

(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.)

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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