August 22,2008:
The U.S. Air Force found a way to
save over $50 million, by modifying 64 year old ammunition. It's all about
saving money on practice ammo for the
40mm cannons used on AC-130 gunships. Brought new, each 40mm round costs $200. But
there was still 350,000 rounds of World War II vintage 40mm armor piercing ammo
available, still in its original waterproof packaging, sitting in air force
storage bunkers (one can only wonder what else is down there). The AC-130s
don't use armor piercing ammo, but the high explosive incendiary (it explodes
and causes fires and lots of metal fragments). For practice, you need the high
explosive incendiary (which explodes when it hits), not the armor piercing
(which is difficult to be seen from the AC-130.) Thus for years, the AC-130
crews had no interest in the old armor piercing stiff.
But then
some clever air force boffins figured out how to add a small spotting charge to
the old armor piercing round. The procedure doesn't cost much, and the
resulting armor piercing ammo provides the visual feedback gunners need while
practice firing. This made training a
lot cheaper. Converting all the old ammo will take care of training needs for about five years.
The World
War II era rounds cost $8 each when manufactured. Adjusted for inflation,
that's about $90 today. Plus the cost of storage for over sixty years.
Accountants differ on exactly how to deal with all this in terms of calculating
the "real" savings. But the program does get that ancient stuff out
of the bunker, before the ammo becomes too old to safely use.
On the
downside, this just further encourages the military to never throw anything
away. Many nations do this packrat thing, although the Russians are probably
the worst offenders. They still have large quantities of World War II ammo and
equipment in storage. Much of it was finally sold off when the Cold War ended
in 1991. This was much appreciated by museums and private collectors. But they
didn't sell everything, and even the U.S. has much vintage material sitting
around, waiting for another opportunity. The navy, for example, had hundreds of
16 inch naval gun ammo, which continued to be used into the early 1990s. Not so
much with the 5 inch anti-aircraft shells made in the last year of World War
II. By the end of the Cold War, there were still over half a million of these
left. The shells were no longer of any use against aircraft (which don't get
close enough), and the gun that used them (the 1930s era 5/38 model) was no
longer used. Demilitarizing (taking it apart and disposing of it) is expensive,
so the tendency is to just leave the old ammo in the bunker and hope no one
will notice.