Defense Ammunition

The Defense Department (DOD) has poorly managed its huge stockpile of ammunition--a legacy of the Cold War and Operation Desert Storm. Of an $80-billion inventory, an estimated $31 billion worth of conventional ammunition, explosives, and missiles were surplus. Much of this was old and unusable. For some types of ammunition, the military had more than 50 times its stated needs. The massive quantities of ammunition that were returned to the stockpile as a result of closed military bases in Europe and the end of the Persian Gulf War--combined with decreases in budgets, staff, and storage space--have severely taxed the military's ability to manage the ammunition inventory. Managers have difficulty (1) identifying ammunition beyond what is needed for the military's stated requirements, (2) sharing excess ammunition with military services that may need it, and (3) disposing of excess ammunition that it no longer makes sense to retain. In addition, ammunition inspections and tests have fallen so far behind that the military cannot guarantee the usability or readiness of the stockpile.

GAO found that: (1) of the $80 billion in usable and unusable ammunition as of September 1994, about $31 billion was excess ammunition and about $22 billion was ammunition that was still usable; (2) the excess in usable ammunition is primarily due to the collapse of the Soviet Union and reduced U.S. military requirements; (3) while shortages of some specific ammunition types exist, the services generally have inventories that exceed their wartime and peacetime requirements; (4) in 1993 and 1994, the services spent about $125 million for ammunition that exceeded their fiscal year 1995 requirements; (5) the services have stored and continue to manage significant amounts of ammunition for weapons that are no longer in the active inventory; (6) increases in the ammunition stockpile and decreases in budget, workforce, and storage space could degrade the forces' readiness to meet wartime and peacetime needs; (7) DOD has not been able to conduct adequate ammunition testing and inspections to ensure the stockpile's usability and readiness; (8) DOD does not know the extent of excess ammunition stored at the services facilities; and (9) the ammunition stockpile will continue to grow until the services are given incentives to relinquish ownership of the ammunition and the single manager is provided with the funding and information necessary to expedite ammunition disposal.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Team: Phone: