Lettre

NIMIC du Pilot MSIAC Newsletter 2nd Quarter 2004/2ème Trimestre 2004

head of an extensive sub-structure of specialist committees and reports Inside this issue: CNAD EXHIBITION ON directly to the North Atlantic Council - EQUIPMENT & NATO's senior decision-making TECHNOLOGIES FOR body. This was its first meeting DEFENCE AGAINST following NATO’s enlargement to 26 CNAD Exhibition 1-2 TERRORISM countries. on Equipment & Technologies for A total of eighty-five large and small

Defence Against industry companies and research Terrorism For the first time in NATO’s history, a establishments from throughout technology and equipment exhibition Europe and North America submitted Insensitive 2 took place at NATO Headquarters, in Munitions: proposals for exhibits. Following a the framework of the meeting of the Technological selection process NIMIC/Pilot Solutions Conference of National Armaments Supporting Directors (CNAD) on 6/7 May 2004, NATO's Military with the theme “Defence against Concept for Terrorism”. Defence Against Terrorism This two-day exhibition, inaugurated Directory of 3 by the NATO Secretary General, Testing Facilities was an opportunity to draw the is now available attention of NATO’s acquisition RS-RDX Round 4 decision-makers and senior officers Robin (R4) to the possibilities offered by Programme Insensitive Munitions (IM) to actively Accidents 5-7 participate in the implementation of From left to right: F. Peugeot - NIMIC, F. Involving NATO’s military concept for Defence AMAR - Eurenco, M. Noirclerc - IMEMG, P. Munitions Around Against Terrorism (see related article Touze - NIMIC, JL Renaud-Bezot - Giat the World in this newsletter). Industries and H. Muthig - TDW/President

Procurement 8 MSIAC, with the support of the IM/ Issues Press The CNAD is the senior NATO Review committee responsible for MURAT European Manufacturers armaments co-operation, materiel Group (IMEMG), EURENCO, GIAT- NIMIC News 9 standardisation and defence Industries and TDW, was offered procurement matters. It is at the (Continued on page 2)

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(Continued from page 1) The domino effect of an attack on munitions will be minimized, and hence fewer assets will one of the thirty-five slots. be lost. IM are a force multiplier. o IM improve forces morale, which in turn During the CNAD meeting, combating terrorism was improves combat effectiveness. Soldiers feel recognized as the highest priority and a Programme much safer and stronger when they know that of Work for Defence Against Terrorism was their munitions are unlikely to react violently to endorsed. This programme will form part of an any attack. enhanced anti-terrorism package that is expected to be adopted by Heads of State and Government at - Deployability and Readiness (DR) the forthcoming Istanbul Summit, 28/29 June. Among the eight priority armaments projects o IM improve logistics. They can be stored close identified in the Programme there are: to each other and close to weapon platforms at a lower risk, with no need for waivers. Hence o Reducing the vulnerability of large-body aircraft to they improve DR, which is the ability to portable ground-air missiles. increase the tempo of operations, to pack up, o Protecting harbours and vessels from surface and move and deploy at a quick pace. sub-surface attacks. o IM improve interoperability. In a coalition, if o Reducing the vulnerability of helicopters to ground you can trust your Allies’ munitions to be as attack. safe as yours, then you will be more willing to provide and accept services to/from them (i.e. IM are for sure a way of meeting the goals of this transport or store them, use them). This is Programme of Work. interoperability.

- Force Protection (FP) NATO’s Military Concept for Defence Against o In each of the four roles, FP is an essential INSENSITIVE MUNITIONS: consideration for any military plan aimed at defence against terrorism. It consists of all TECHNOLOGICAL SOLUTIONS measures and means to minimize the SUPPORTING NATO’S MILITARY vulnerability of personnel, facilities, equipment CONCEPT FOR DEFENCE AGAINST and operations to any threat and in all TERRORISM situations, to preserve freedom of action and the operational effectiveness of the force. o Military Commanders must balance the risk to Terrorism identifies four roles for military operations. their forces against their mission objectives They are: and decide on the appropriate level of force protection to employ. Their decisions will be - Anti-Terrorism: the use of defensive measures to influenced by up to date risk assessments. IM reduce the vulnerability of forces, individuals and are designed to reduce such risks, and hence property to terrorism. are an integral part of Force Protection. - Consequence Management: the use of reactive measures to mitigate the destructive effects of By improving Effective Engagement capabilities, terrorist attacks. Deployability and Readiness and by maximizing - Counter-Terrorism: the use of offensive measures Force Protection, IM are actively participating in the to reduce the vulnerability of forces, individuals implementation of the NATO’s military concept for and property to terrorism. Defence Against Terrorism. - Military Co-operation. Protection of Civilian Populations. Finally, NATO To implement the concept, a set of essential Allies and Partners for Peace are working together to capabilities is needed. Some of these capabilities, improve civil preparedness against, and manage the key to modern military operations, are listed below, consequences of, terrorist attacks. Because modern together with how they relate to IM: military operations often take place in urban areas, IM can contribute to the protection of civilian - Effective Engagement (EE) populations by reducing collateral damage in case of an attack to an asset or an ammunition depot. o IM improve sustainability, i.e. the ability to remain combat effective over the time needed to complete military operations. If IM undergo an attack, their response will be less violent.

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THE DIRECTORY OF TESTING FACILITIES IS NOW AVAILABLE

At the request of its Steering Committee and several • Defence Procurement Agency (DGA) - ETBS customers, NIMIC has collected information Test and Evaluation Center (France) concerning test facilities that offer their IM testing • Defence Procurement Agency (DGA) - services commercially to outside customers. CAEPE Test and Evaluation Center (France) • Rheinmetall Waffe Munition GmbH EZU, Test This information has been compiled in a directory of Centre Unterluess (Germany) IM testing facilities, which consists of an individual • NAMMO Test Centre (Norway) entry for each participating test organization/center. • LQCA (Spain) Information appears under six major headings: • FOI (Sweden) • Swedish Defence Materiel Administration 1. General information about the organization/test Verification and Validation Centre, Karlsborg center Test Range (Sweden) 2. Contact information • Bofors Test Range (Sweden) 3. General information about the overall testing • Cranfield University Ordnance Test and facilities, capabilities of the organization and Evaluation Center (United Kingdom) especially the ones related to IM testing • QINETIQ (United Kingdom) 4. IM testing experience (Research, Programme…) • Bae Systems - Royal Ordnance Defense - 5. Specific information about each IM test Ridsdale (United Kingdom) conducted (explosive limit, instrumentation, • Energetic Materials Research and Testing pictures…) Center (United States) 6. Cost of testing • Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, China Lake (United States) In the first edition of this directory, 19 test centers • Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren from 9 nations (Australia, Canada, France, Division (United States) Germany, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United • Naval Surface Warfare Center Indian Head Kingdom and the United States) are presented. Division (United States) • National Technical Systems (United States) • Department of Defense Facility, Port Wakefield (Australia) This Directory of IM Testing Facilities is now • Department of Defence Facility, Graytown available on request and can be downloaded from (Australia) the NIMIC Secure Website (NIMIC-L-106 report). • Mining Resource Engineering Limited For any additional information please contact F. (Canada) Peugeot ([email protected]).

REMINDER

The fifth NIMIC IM Award will be presented at the IM/EM Technology Symposium in San Francisco, CA, USA, in November 2004.

Please e-mail your nominations to NIMIC before 30 September 2004.

You will find details in the two previous Newsletters, on the NIMIC website or by contacting NIMIC.

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RS-RDX ROUND ROBIN (R4) PROGRAMME

NIMIC is currently working with the US-custodian of STANAG 4022 in order to facilitate the inclusion of RS-RDX as a clearly defined and specified raw ingredient for use in IM formulation development. One of the key parts of this development will include a multinational round robin program. The goals of the R4 program are to:

• Standardize crystal level test to discriminate between ‘normal’ and RS-RDX • Provide data to further validate some new procedures to be included in STANAG 4022 - see test methods shown in the figure below • Analyze samples from various producers to verify criteria and sentencing limits for the RS-RDX nature

Mandatory Tests Optional Tests

Melting Point (DSC) Crystal Density Atomic Force (Sink/Float) Microscopy

HMX + Impurities Gas & Liquid Detailed (GC/HPLC) Pycnometry Microscopy

DSC (Kinetic Particle Size ( L aser Optical Microscopy Information)

& Sieve) Nuclear Quad. Impact Sensitivity Resonance

STANAG 4022 Ed 4 (Draft Reqs.)

The R4 program will include different natures of RDX (including both ‘normal’ and ‘RS') from 5 manufacturers – ADI (Australia), Dyno (Norway), Eurenco (France), ROD (UK) and HSAAP (USA). In total, 16 laboratories have expressed interest in being involved in the analysis of samples. These laboratories include those in 9 current NIMIC member nations, 1 imminent NIMIC nation, and a PfP nation. Associated activities in the US will include gap testing and ageing studies in PBXN- 109 (as funding permits).

The current timeline for the development of the STANAG to include RS-RDX is shown below. The schedule depends upon the co-ordinated co-operation of 5 manufacturers, 11 nations (see flags to the left) and 16 testing laboratories along with associated transport and regulatory authorities.

Participant questionnaire Analytical Procedures Purchase / Dist. Samples

Perform Chem. Autumn Now Analysis 2005 Compile data and End Interim report Mid 2004 Perform Shock / 2006 Ageing Studies Data analysis and Final report Draft STANAG 4022 Edition 5

If you require more information regarding the programme please contact Duncan Watt, the NIMIC TSO for Energetic Materials, [email protected].

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ACCIDENTS INVOLVING MUNITIONS AROUND THE WORLD (16 March 2004 - 16 June 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)

More details about the accidents presented in the following table are available on the NIMIC Secure Website (https://nimic.hq.nato.int - username and password required). Access to the accident section is limited to NIMIC Nations.

Military Munitions and Military-grade Energetic Materials

Date Country Activity Casualties March 2004 Afghanistan Training 4 killed, 9 injured Germany Demilitarisation 1 killed, 1 injured Vietnam Storage 1 killed, 6 injured April 2004 Sudan Storage 1 killed, 7 injured India Transport No casualties May 2004 China Production 2 killed, 13 injured United States Production No casualties Afghanistan Storage No casualties June 2004 Iraq Storage 9 injured Brazil Training 3 killed, 16 injured

17 March 2004 - USA - Rison, MD - Demil - Cause: Unknown Four men were injured (one seriously) at the Naval Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technology Division in a fire that caused about $50,000 damage to a building where missiles are taken apart. As they tried to remove a motor from the missile, booster fuel ignited causing a flash fire and small explosion. The fire from the missile was very short (about a minute) but the insulation in the building caught fire.

22 April 2004 - North Korea - Ryongchon - Transport - Cause: See below A train carrying explosive materials exploded in a station, killing at least 161 persons and injuring about 1,300. The blast destroyed a railway station, created a 30-foot-deep crater and ripped the roofs off buildings more than two miles away. 1,850 households and 12 public buildings were leveled by the blast near the Ryongchon town’s centre and another 6,350 homes were partly destroyed. Damages have been estimated at € 300 M. Possible causes reported: • The electrical contact due to carelessness during the shunting of wagons loaded with ammonium nitrate fertilizer and tank wagons. The explosion was equivalent to 100 tons of dynamite (official North Korean sources). • A first train with two rail wagons loaded with fuel/oil collided and caught fire (detonation after ammonium nitrate and a second train transporting 40 minutes).

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Continued from page 5 • Other possibilities reported: transport of a military cargo, explosion triggered by cell phone by North Korean opposition, etc. • The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) recorded the force of the train explosion as equivalent to an earthquake measuring 3.6 on the Richter scale, which would have required about 800 tons of TNT.

6 May 2004 - Ukraine - Zaporizhzhya Oblast - Storage/Stowage - Cause: Fire Five people were killed (one by fragments and 4 by heart attack) and more than 20 wounded in a series of explosions and a fire at a munitions depot, which damaged several buildings and ruptured a gas pipeline.

10,000 people were evacuated. The major highway to Simferopol was closed. A second fire was reported on May 7 in the Greater Anatol-Melitopol gas pipeline at the Fedorovka railroad station about two kilometres from the burning munitions dump. No vehicles have been able to get within 20km of the site. The fire touched-off eight days of explosions, despite heavy rain on May 8.

The fire began at the army depot in the Melitopol District, where over 90,000 tons of artillery munitions (including missiles for multiple launch rocket systems,

Grad missiles, etc) were stored, at about noon local time on May 6. During the first few hours, explosions went off every two to three seconds, with fragments, unexploded shells and debris strewn over a 10-kilometre radius. The fire was reported to have destroyed virtually all buildings within three kilometres of the dump, including the entire village of Novobogdanovka and the Fedorovka rail

junction. The blast scattered some 900 wagons of shells over an area of more than 300 square kilometres out of a total of 4,800 wagons of ammunition stored at the depot. The damage done to the Ukrainian Defence Ministry is estimated at around $450 M.

The Prosecutor-General’s Office said on May 10 that it had initiated criminal proceedings against unidentified Defence Ministry officials, charging them with professional negligence. “Smoking was the root cause of the major fire at the munitions depot”, said the Emergencies Minister Grigory Reva during a session of the Ukrainian parliament.

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Fireworks and Commercial Explosive Transport: Accidents and Near Misses

Date Location Description Consequences

6 April CA, NB, Fredericton A tractor-trailer carrying dynamite No fire or explosion. slid off the road due to icy Road closed for 4-5 hours. conditions.

12 April USA, NC, Greensboro A pick-up truck carrying dynamite No fire or explosion. was involved in a 10-vehicle accident.

24 May Romania, Mihailesti A truck carrying ammonium nitrate At least 17 killed and 12 fertilizer overturned, caught fire and injured - 14 metre wide exploded. crater.

Fireworks and Commercial Explosives Accidents in NATO/NIMIC Nations

Date Location Description Consequences

4 April USA, PA, Plymouth Fire and explosion of fireworks in a Fireworks explosions for store. over one hour. 18 May Germany, SW Pfalz Explosion in a fireworks depot. 2 injured (minor).

1 June France, Villeneuve-sur-Lot Explosion in a fireworks factory. 2 killed and 6 slightly injured.

Deliberate Attacks on Ammunition Stockpile

2 June - Iraq - Kirkuk, US Air Base - Terrorist Attack A suspected Katyusha rocket hit the ammunition dump of the Kirkuk US Air Base at around 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday night, starting fires and causing a chain reaction of explosions. Thick clouds of smoke covered nearly the entire city. The fires were put out at about 5 a.m. on Thursday morning. There were no casualties on the base, but the explosions caused damage across a wide area, shattering windows and damaging cars. Some of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps garrison vehicles were damaged by flying debris about 1.5 km (1 mile) from where the ammunition was stored.

8 June 2004 - Iraq - Suwariyah, Coalition Forces - Terrorist Attack Six soldiers (3 Slovaks, 2 Poles and 1 Latvian) were killed and at least one wounded (1 Pole, severely burned) when a mortar attack hit approximately 400 shells prepared for destruction at a munitions storage area. Four 82-mm mortars were probably fired (3 impact craters found), one of which hit a stack of shells. Witnesses heard a series of explosions for about 15 minutes. The soldiers were working on destroying ammunition stocks from Saddam Hussein's army.

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ROD hopes to steal a march in insensitive munitions race (International Defense Review, May 19 2004) PROCUREMENT ISSUES A new reduced-vulnerability artillery projectile and missile warhead production plant formally opened for PRESS REVIEW business in the UK on April 20. The Phase 1 plant at Glascoed is a low-volume facility with a throughput of four ton-equivalents (4Te) of castable PBX (polymer- based explosive) per week, sufficient to fill 50,000 artillery projectiles or other warheads per year. This If you have suitable information to be reported in this plant is to be superseded in the first quarter of 2006 by a section, do not hesitate to contact NIMIC new £18 million (US$32m) large-volume (Phase 2) ([email protected]). facility that will have a total throughput of 800-900Te PBX per year (sufficient for 250,000 projectiles)

EURENCO venture set for turnaround soon (Jane’s UK MoD Precision Bomb contract (UK Defence Defence Weekly, May 19, 2004) Procurement Agency Press Notices, March 2004) The new European explosives and propellants Britain's fighter bomber pilots will be getting the world's company, European Energetics Corporation most advanced precision bomb, under a planned (EURENCO), expects to be in profit within the next few contract announced by the Defence Procurement years despite heavy rationalisation costs in establishing Minister, Lord Bach, on 12 June 2003. The Paveway IV the three-way venture. The company with an annual will enter service in 2007 and will equip the Harrier GR9, revenue of EUR100 million was forged from an alliance Tornado GR4, and Typhoon aircraft. The PGB will be between SNPE Matériaux Energétiques (SME) and fitted with a warhead designed to meet the latest NEXPLO, a joint venture between Saab and Patria. requirements of the NATO Insensitive Munition Safety Jean-Claude Bossy, head of the company said that policy. The value of the contract to Raytheon Systems growth on the foreign market and a rise in demand for Ltd, subject to successful completion of negotiations, is highly specialised goods in Europe could be expected to expected to be around £120M. boost EURENCO's revenue by a substantial 25% in the next three or four years. Lockheed JCM motor passes insensitive munitions test (JANE’s missiles and rockets, May 2, 2004 & Lockheed Martin increases JASSM missile Aerotech news for the week of March 5, 2004) production in Troy, Alabama (Yahoo News, May 27, Aerojet has successfully demonstrated a composite 2004) case rocket motor in support of the Lockheed Martin bid Lockheed Martin and members of the Department of for the U.S. Army and Navy's Joint Common Missile Defense celebrated the expansion of the Joint Air-to- program. Aerojet and Roxel UK, which supplies the Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) production facility propellant, demonstrated a thrust turndown ratio of 20:1 today at its Pike County Operations in Troy, AL. The on a minimum-smoke (approximately three times higher expansion allows JASSM production to increase to a than is typical for boost/sustain motors) 1.3 hazard rate of 40 missiles per month. The U.S. Air Force classification and insensitive munition-compliant boost/ expects to procure 4,900 JASSMs over the life of the sustain rocket motor. In the fragment impact test and program. "The facility enhancements enable us to the fast cook-off test, no violent reaction was obtained. increase production rates and to produce JASSM- JCM is being developed to replace the Longbow/Hellfire Extended Range (ER) and other follow-on JASSM Pre- missile on several rotary-wing platforms and the planned Product Improvements (P3I) in the same facility Maverick missile on the F/A-18. The long-term U.S. without impacting regular JASSM production”, said production run is estimated at 54,000 missiles, with a Randy Bigum, Strike Weapons Vice President at total contract value upwards of $5 billion. Lockheed Martin.

IM & EM TECHNOLOGY SYMPOSIUM 2004

The 2004 Insensitive Munitions & Energetic Materials Symposium will be held on 15-17 November 2004 at the Hilton San Francisco, California. The conference, co-sponsored by NDIA and NIMIC, will be the major 2004 international event dedicated to Insensitive Munitions.

The Paper Selection Committee met at Eglin AFB in early June and selected more than 90 papers for the conference. The Program/Agenda will be released on 16 August 2004.

Details are online on the NIMIC website or at www.ndia.org/events.

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NIMIC NEWS

NIMIC MEMBERSHIP

You may have already noticed the re-arrangement of the national flags on our cover page, and that one is missing. This is because, with effect of 1st April 2004, Denmark withdrew from NIMIC. Denmark joined NIMIC in 1999 and among other things, this enabled Denmark to develop a national IM Policy. NIMIC would like to thank Denmark for five years of fruitful co-operation, and hopes that the transition to MSIAC will be of sufficient interest for Denmark to consider re-joining in the future.

Meanwhile, on 3 March 2004, Germany sent us their Letter of Intention to join NIMIC. German membership will be covered by Amendment 11 to the NIMIC/MSIAC MOU, and will become effective as soon as this Amendment is signed, hopefully in early 2005. We are looking forward to a well-balanced relationship where Germany will be able to benefit from the NIMIC/MSIAC products and services, and to share their knowledge with current member nations.

THE TRANSITION FROM NIMIC TO MSIAC NEW TECHNICAL OFFICER POSTS

The technical scope of MSIAC (Ammunition Safety for the total life cycle of munitions) will be broader than that of NIMIC. This change of scope made it necessary to review and update the five Technical Specialist Officers' job descriptions. At its April 2004 meeting, the NIMIC Steering Committee approved the following five Technical Specialist Officer posts:

• Energetic Materials (Duncan Watt) • Warhead Technology (Frédéric Peugeot) • Propulsion Technology (Ian Powell) • Munitions Systems (Pascal Marchandin) • Munitions Logistics - Transport and Storage (Vacant)

JOB VACANCY

The above-mentioned Munitions Logistics - Transport and Storage post is being advertised for recruitment. The job description and application forms may be found on the NATO HQ website (http://hq.nato.int, see Recruitment), on the NIMIC website, or obtained from NATO HQ, Recruitment Office (email: [email protected]). Applications should be received before end-July.

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