Munitions manufacturing facilities

In the closing days of the war in Europe, the USSR captured a manufacturing facility in eastern Germany and moved the facility and personnel to Russia to continue production (Koelle, 1981). In western Germany, the British and the Americans captured a stockpile of munitions containing an unknown chemical agent. Their initial lack of awareness of the properties of this agent, tabun, was indicated in an early British report ... 

The high temperatures and pressures used in early plants dictated specialized equipment which could be fabricated only by those who had experience in, and facilities for, munitions manufacture. This resulted in alloys and design often showing the common parentage with the munitions of the period between WW I and WW II. Since then, specific fabrication techniques have been developed which have made it possible to fabricate the larger size converters and interconnecting piping and the more easily assembled and disassembled facilities now required. 

The CWC prohibits the development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention, transfer, or use of chemical weapons. Article IV requires that signatories destroy chemical weapons and any special facilities for their manufacture within 10 years (by April 29, 2007). Destruction of chemical weapons is defined as a process by which chemicals are converted in an essentially irreversible way to a form unsuitable for production of chemical weapons, and which, in an irreversible manner, renders munitions and other devices unusable as such (Smithson, 1993). The method of destruction is determined by each country, but the manner of destruction must ensure public safety and protection of the environment. 

Dynasafe is the tradename for a static kiln manufactured by Dynasafe AB, a Swedish company that designs and manufactures products for the containment of explosions, including mobile explosion containment vessels used by police departments and the Burster Detonation Vessel, used by the NSCMP at its Munitions Assessment and Processing System facility in Edgewood, Maryland.17... 

See the SDC2000 discussion in the section Process Maturity for Requirement BG-2. SDC2000 is a mature technology for destruction of this type of chemical weapon. As indicated in Chapter 3, over 13,000 recovered munitions were destroyed at the Munster facility. Also described in Chapter 3 is the 3-day test series carried out at Munster, Germany, to demonstrate that the D masafe system could effectively destroy mustard agent-filled munitions. The technology has not been demonstrated in the United States. Also, the manufacturer has indicated it will modify the air pollution control system used at Munster for use in the United States. The modified system must therefore be designed, built, and tested. The manufacturer claims that munitions in overpacks can be fed directly into the system. 

To date, there have been no comprehensive studies of these technical facilities or their influence upon the development of weapons. It seems, however, that their task was not so much scientific research and development, as weapon-specific testing and approval of equipment manufactured by the private- and state-owned arms industry. On the other hand, the private arms suppliers, such as Fried. Krupp, had not only scientific laboratories, but also ranges for testing weapons and munitions. Despite the importance of military technology, the scientific facilities of the army enjoyed no special encouragement. The army depended on the scientific and productive capabilities of private industry. ... 

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