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You might be surprised to learn that last year, the U.S. Army delivered close to 70 million rounds of ammunition-for the AK-47 rifle and PKM machine gun.
The fact is, many coalition partners around the world are equipped with an array of systems not found in standard U.S. inventories. And meeting the ammunition needs of many of those partners falls to the Army's Office of Product Director for Non-Standard Ammunition.
According to Lt. Col. Lawrence Dring III, who runs the product office under the Project Manager for Maneuver Ammunition Systems within the Program Executive Office (PEO) Ammunition, the product office was established in 2008 to give acquisition oversight to the purchase of "nonDoD" munitions, primarily in support of U.S. allies fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"We are providing our allies with the tools-the munitions- they need to engage the enemy and help support U.S. forces that are fighting alongside them, and sometimes fighting in lieu of U.S. forces," Dring said, adding that munition needs range from small-arms bullets to mortars and artillery to helicopter rockets.
The nonstandard munitions are obtained through indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contracts the Army has with Orbital ATK and Chemring Military Products, Dring said.
"They're the U.S. prime contractors," he said. "When we put in an order, they turn around and they go to their subcontractors to find their best value to meet our requirements. So we compete the delivery orders between the two primes."
Non-Standard Ammunition responsibilities cover acquisition of everything from 9 mm ammunition up to 122 mm rockets.
Dring highlighted one recent project example involving S-8 80 mm rockets for the Afghan National Army. Originally developed to support Soviet forces, S-8 rockets can be fired by fixed-wing or rotary-wing aircraft.
"They needed the rockets to support...