J7.3 APPLIED CLIMATOLOGY GUIDANCE FOR DEVELOPMENT OF ARMY MATERIEL FOR WORLD WIDE USE Charles C. Ryerson* and Leander Page ERDC-CRREL, Hanover, New Hampshire Linda M. Spears DoD Test Resource Management Center, Washington, DC Graham Stullenbarger (ret) Chief, Natural Environments Test Office, Yuma, Arizona 1. INTRODUCTION 2. BACKGROUND The Army operates principally at and near the A fundamental purpose of Test and Evaluation Earth’s surface where conditions are driven by (T&E) is to manage risks involved in developing, atmosphere-terrain interactions. Mission success, producing, operating, and sustaining systems and soldier safety, readiness, national security, and capabilities. T&E lowers risk through early effectiveness of taxpayer investment require that identification of technical, operational, and system Army equipment operate reliably and durably. deficiencies so that appropriate and timely Army Regulation 70-38 (AR70-38, 1979), corrective actions can be taken prior to fielding. Research, Development, Test and Evaluation of This reduces risk for the Soldier, wherever Materiel for Extreme Climatic Conditions, has deployed and whatever the season by providing defined, since 1979, diurnal ranges of temperature, equipment that is fully mission capable worldwide. humidity, and solar radiation conditions, and It reduces program risks, and lowers life cycle storage and transit temperature and humidity costs by addressing environmental challenges and conditions, that Army material must withstand in potential reliability shortfalls early in the Research, seven climate design types. Recent and current Development, Test and Evaluation (RDTE) military operations have demonstrated, however, program when corrective actions have minimum that diurnal atmospheric conditions alone are often impact. inadequate standards for materiel design. The Test and evaluation regulations lower risk of approach is inadequate to fully describe the mission failure through assurance that each of the complete environment at any location, and as a building blocks of an effective fighting force from result, materiel has failed due to synergistic effects the individual Soldier’s weapons and equipment when the atmosphere and terrain interact. As a through transport platforms to weapon systems of result, a new AR70-38 (AR70-38, 2008) has been systems are fully functional under worldwide drafted, entitled Research, Development, Test and conditions. Additionally, Army equipment tends to Evaluation of Materiel for World Wide Use, to remain in the active inventory for decades and is address shortcomings in the current 1979 version. likely to be exposed to a range of severe This paper explains the concepts of the overall environmental conditions during its lifetime. new approach, explains how atmospheric and Consequently durability, cost of ownership, and terrestrial conditions are combined in the new performance for the long term over the full range document, and provides a risk evaluation of environmental factors must be considered methodology identifying environment factors during RDTE. having the greatest impact on Army materiel by The development of documents for describing type for decision-makers. We also explain how the the operating, and therefore test conditions for document is used throughout the materiel Army material began during World War II (Krause, acquisition and development process. 2006). The Environmental Protection Section of the Army Quartermaster Corps was started in _______________________________________ 1942 under the direction of climatologist and Antarctic expert MAJ Paul Siple. He built a team of * Corresponding author address: Charles C. military and civilian climatologists, meteorologists, Ryerson, ERDC-CRREL, 72 Lyme Road, Hanover, geologists, physical and cultural geographers, NH 03755; [email protected] cartographers, biologists, foresters, pedologists, and agronomists that produced many reports Laboratory is currently responsible for maintaining supporting the Army’s developing test programs AR70-38. through instrumentation of test sites and test items, and creating climatic studies and climatic analog 3. A NEW APPROACH reports (Krause, 2006). In 1947 Siple’s team produced Military Standard 210 (MIL-STD-210, Previous versions of AR70-38 and derivative 1947), Climatic Extremes for Military Equipment, documents have used diurnal cycles of climatic which was subsequently transferred to the Air factors to describe operating environments. This Force in 1953 for aeronautical use. Thereafter, the approach can be easily used to define Environmental Protection Section of the temperature and/or temperature-humidity Quartermaster Corps began to focus on ground- performance ranges, for example, in acquisition based environmental design criteria because the specifications and verified later in chambers (MIL- Army is largely a ground-based force. In 1950 STD-810G, 2008). However, this approach Special Regulation 705-70-5 (SR705-70-5, 1950), inadequately describes the complete environment Operation and Protection of Materiel under of any actual location. Adverse Conditions of Temperature, was released AR70-38 is the basic Army regulation that providing thermal objectives for research and requires consideration of environmental factors development of material. In 1952 AR705-15 during RDTE of materiel for combat use. The 1979 (AR705-15, 1952), Operation of Materiel under version does not adequately address testing for Extreme Conditions of Environment, was released environmental factors that can affect performance using tables of extremes created by Norman of equipment and munitions other than Sissenwine and Arnold Court. In addition to temperature and/or temperature-humidity cycles. temperature, AR705-15 included non-thermal The 1979 document reflects the European-based environmental conditions such as relative humidity, strategies of the Cold War era. In addition, failure rainfall, snow loading, wind, pressure, blowing of equipment in recent years due to the synergistic snow and blowing sand and dust (Krause, 2006). effects of atmospheric and terrestrial factors A revision of AR70-15 was released in 1962 suggested that changes in the document were providing seasonal climatic maps and more necessary. detailed design criteria, but with a de-emphasis of A major draft revision of AR70-38 was non-thermal conditions. competed in December 2008 and will be shortly The first version of AR70-38, released in 1969 sent to about 70 Army commands for review and (AR70-38, 1969), entitled Research, Development, concurrence (AR70-38, 2008). The primary Test and Evaluation of Materiel for Extreme change to the regulation is to consider atmosphere Climatic Conditions, described eight climatic and terrain factors in all climatic regions worldwide design types, with a primary focus on temperature in which U.S. military forces may operate for all and diurnal conditions within those climates. This missions including disaster relief and humanitarian allowed conditions to be readily duplicated within efforts. environmental chambers and was a move away The revised draft document is designed to from testing in natural conditions. educate and to provide a risk management In 1971 responsibility for environmental methodology to decision-makers so that they can characterization and for AR70-38 became the write more effective operational requirements responsibility of the Army Corps of Engineers documents and identify technical, operational, and Topographic Engineering Center in Alexandria, systems deficiencies prior to fielding. The Virginia. A revision of AR70-38 was released in document is organized similarly to university 1979 under the Corps of Engineers with minor introductory world climatology and physical extreme maximum and minimum temperature geography courses - to provide an overview of adjustments (AR70-38, 1979). Since 1979, several world environments using a consistent attempts were made to revise AR70-38 and to classification scheme. make it environmentally more comprehensive. However, each attempt was rejected during the 4. MILITARY OPERATING ENVIRONMENTS review process by such major commands as the Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) The proposed AR70-38 subdivides the and the Army Materiel Command (AMC). As a continents into areas of intrinsic similarity based result, the current document has not been revised upon integrated environmental characteristics in over thirty years. The Army Corps of Engineers (Bailey, 1983, 1996). This global classification Cold Regions Research and Engineering scheme benefits the materiel RDTE process in two ways. First, the methodology provides a The MOE framework provides a useful tool for standardized method for directly comparing areas understanding and comparing characteristics of worldwide allowing materiel RDTE activities to be potential operational areas worldwide. Areas conducted at easily-accessible sites analogous to described by the same MOE, regardless of their areas of potential military interest elsewhere. location, have similar atmospheric/climatic, terrain, Secondly, the classification system considers and biological/vegetation conditions and can be environmental factors beyond atmospheric climatic directly compared. Therefore, areas available to factors. the U.S. Army for the purpose of testing and/or training are analogous to other areas of the Earth 4.1 Classification Scheme identified as the same MOE. At the highest level, four broad world climate 4.2 MOE Environmental Factors regions,