Summary

GAO reviewed the military services' justifications for their fiscal year 1982 appropriation requests for the procurement of conventional ammunition and the ammunition production base. The review was limited to: (1) evaluating the Army, Navy, and Air Force requests for ammunition end-items costing large dollar amounts and end-items being bought for the first time; and (2) Army projects for establishing, modernizing, and expanding the ammunition production base. GAO also made some followup inquiries to determine the status of the Department of Defense actions to implement recommendations made in a GAO report on the single manager program for conventional ammunition.

Progress toward further implementation of the single manager program has been limited. The appropriations request for eight of the Army's conventional ammunition items should be reduced by $133.6 million. Some of the requested items are not needed in fiscal year 1982 because: (1) of production backlogs; (2) the sole producer has not passed acceptance tests and has insufficient capacity to produce the increments needed; (3) they are for use in helicopters which have deficiencies that must be resolved before production or will not be needed until the deliveries of helicopters begin; (4) existing inventory and quantities exceed requirements; or (5) of technical, production, or performance problems. The appropriations request for four of the Navy's conventional ammunition items should be reduced by $13.8 million because only half of one requested item could be produced during fiscal year 1982, because the Navy has adequate inventory to meet projected needs, or because of production backlogs. Two of the Air Force's requests for ammunition should be reduced by $10.5 million because the items can be procured commercially at a lower cost than estimated in the budget and some are not needed in 1982 because of a large production backlog. GAO concluded that the $9.5 million requested for a steam tieline at the Radford Ammunition Plant is not adequately justified. It is too soon to provide $5.8 million for redistributing excess equipment. The Army has not resolved problems concerning the effectiveness of the Copperhead system.