Battery hitches hamper performance of army smart munitions programs.

• Author: Peck, Michael
• Position: Up Front

The production of smart munitions may be jeopardized by instability in the battery manufacturing sector, Army officials fear. Although batteries often are not viewed as critical components, some munitions programs have been delayed because of battery problems, experts said. Developers of smart munitions generally turn most of their attention to the warhead, the guidance system or the propellant, but not to the batteries.

The Commerce Department recently completed an industry study focused on the niche market for tiny, but complicated batteries that power munitions, such as artillery rounds. Details of the report are unavailable, partly because it contains proprietary data on manufacturers.

"All I can say is that there is some concern," said Allan Goldberg, a battery program official at the Army Research Laboratory. "You have a limited industrial base and a limited number of purchases," he told National Defense Magazine. During the Vietnam War, he said, the United States was producing a million artillery batteries a month. Now, 200,000 batteries are considered a "big buy."

For each of the two main types of munition batteries--liquid electrolyte reserve and thermal batteries--there are only two or three manufacturers. According to Goldberg, the only makers of liquid electrolyte batteries are Alliant Techsystems in Horsham, Pa., EaglePicher Technologies in Joplin, Mo., and KDI Precision Products in Cincinnati, Ohio. For thermal batteries, the two manufacturers are EaglePicher and Enser Corp. in Pinellas Park, Fla.

In a presentation to the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement conference in Arlington, Va., Goldberg cited two weapons that were either delayed or could have been delayed because of difficulties in manufacturing the batteries. One was the M-234/235 self-destruct fuze for the dual purpose improved conventional munitions grenades, and the other is the battery for the Excalibur artillery round.

At the core of the debate is the state of the industrial base. Turning to commercial battery giants isn't an option, said Goldberg. "The total number of custom batteries for all of the Defense Department and Energy Department munitions applications, are a drop in a very large bucket compared to commercial battery production, where one company alone makes 4.2 billion batteries a year."

One problem is the difficulty of manufacturing such small batteries. Production line nozzles can clog when forced to rapidly insert minute amounts of...