Industrial Base

In response to a congressional request, GAO: (1) examined ammunition production base problems; and (2) identified actions that the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Army could initiate to establish an industrial-base capability to meet peacetime and mobilization requirements for conventional ammunition.

GAO found that, although the Army has identified numerous ammunition production-base deficiencies, it is not in a position to determine optimum use of available funding to reduce mobilization deficiencies and has not completed designs for the additional production facilities needed. The Army is updating a planning initiative to support future budget requests for a mobilization production-base program, but the relatively low priority of the mobilization projects will not allow them to effectively compete for design or construction funding. Since the Army was unprepared to use the additional funding in 1986, as well as much of the funding requested in fiscal year 1987, to correct high priority mobilization deficiencies, GAO believes that the Army needs to begin focusing on identifying and designing these high priority projects for funding in future years.