The Army in a new report points out three energetic compounds it can't fully produce domestically -- relying on foreign sources to meet demand -- and outlines plans to boost domestic production in the coming years.
The service drew up the report, obtained by Inside Defense, in response to a requirement in the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act after House and Senate authorizers found the Army “unable to articulate maximum production capacity of the organic industrial base,” citing national security concerns over foreign reliance.
The report, dated Sept. 2, identifies three compounds the Army can’t solely produce at home and thus must procure them from sources outside the U.S.:
- M6 Propellant
- Benite
- RDX Type II
Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, blames the outsourcing on recent spikes in demand, pointing mainly to two Army weapon systems: the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) and the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM).
“The Army is looking to obviously dramatically expand its GMLRS production, which I think is the source of a lot of this, and then they’re trying to ramp up production of PrSM,” Clark told Inside Defense in an interview.
“And I think those two weapon systems are probably demanding quite a bit of the production capacity for the energetics they’re using in them and they can’t expand,” he said of the Army.
To wean off foreign reliance, the service plans to boost its propellant production capacity at Radford Army Ammunition Plant (RFAAP) in Radford, VA, by August 2026, and to prove out production of quality Benite there by 2029, the report says.
As for RDX Type II, which is made at the BAE Systems-managed Holston Army Ammunition Plant (HSAAP) in Kingsport, TN, the Army wants to “more than double” production by July 2028 -- although Clark sees that as unlikely.
“It’s primarily GMLRS and PrSM that are driving these demands, and I don’t think they’re going to double that in Holston,” he said. “I think they’re going to have to rely on some outside sources.”
The decision to outsource
While the three compounds share foreign reliance, they differ in the reasoning behind the Army’s choice to outsource procurement.
Production capacity for M6 “cannot keep pace with demand,” as the Army has seen a spike in demand stemming from M119A2 red-bag propellant charges the U.S. is supplying Ukraine with; the report notes the boost in demand “is not an enduring requirement.”
M6 is supplementally sourced from a facility in Valley Field, Canada, run by General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems.
Benite, which is used in tank ammunition, is also produced at both RFAAP and the Valley Field facility, but neither of those facilities make Benite that fully meets the Army’s requirements, according to the report; that’s caused the service to source production from South Korean-based company Hanwha Corporation.
Production of RDX Type II, on the other hand, couldn’t keep pace with a “surge in requirements” during a four-year period between 2016 and 2020, causing the Army to seek out a second source -- although the report doesn’t mention what that source is.
Foreign precursor reliance
The report also identifies energetic materials essential for compound production that the Army right now can’t produce at all within the continental United States.
“Some propellants use those materials, and they’re not -- like a lot of precursor chemicals -- they’re not produced domestically, and we have to import them, usually from allied countries,” Clark said. “But in some cases, it’s been China, until recently.”
He noted that the Defense Department has claimed recently it doesn’t buy propellants that rely on precursor chemicals sourced from China, but he remains skeptical that China has been fully extricated from the supply chain.
“I think there’s still Chinese participation in the supply chain at some level that’s pretty deep in it, that maybe the raw material that goes into the precursor chemical is, in some cases, just probably coming from China still,” he said.
The report lists Nitroguanidine (NQ) and Grade A Nitrocellulose (NC) as essential materials that are both used in triple base propellants, despite neither being produced in the U.S.
The Army has a single source for NQ out of the Alzchem Group in Germany but is working on enabling the nitration process domestically using precursors that would nonetheless still need to be procured from other countries, according to the report. It notes that demand for calcium cyanamide, one of the “building blocks” of NQ, is expected to drop in Germany, which will lead to higher costs, a worse product or a cease in production as a whole.
The Army also wants to onshore Grade A NC production, and the report reveals the service is commissioning a new facility at RFAAP; that’s expected to kick off initial capability by the fourth quarter of FY-26 and should reach full capability by the first quarter of FY-31, according to the report.
“The U.S. Army is also investigating building a new propellant facility within [CONUS] in order to mitigate the single point of failure found at RFAAP,” the report says.
Another ongoing pre-cursor chemical onshoring project noted in the Army’s report is a Defense Production Act Title III effort to produce 4NA in the U.S., which is a pre-cursor for Dinitroanisole, an energetic compound that HSAAP could produce.
“It is imperative the U.S. Army maintain an organic industrial base (OIB) that can sustain the production of end items, especially those that use energetic materials,” the report says.