On Explosives, US Lags China and Russia
Commentary The United States is falling behind China and Russia in a critical element of military technology: bang for the buck in high explosives. The kinetic punch that U.S. explosives deliver per pound is only about 70 percent of what China and Russia get from their “energetics.” The even more astonishing failure is that the powerful conventional explosive used by our adversaries was invented in the United States with taxpayer money, but then neglected by our military and allowed to be acquired by our adversaries. A naval scientist in China Lake, California, invented the CL-20 explosive in 1987. CL-20’s power is 1.4 times that of HMX, invented in 1941. The other commonly-used explosive in U.S. ordnance is RDX, invented in 1898. CL-20 is deployed in one of the most recent U.S. weapons systems, the AeroVironment Switchblade kamikaze drone, which has removed Russian forces from the battlefields of Ukraine. But more generally, the Defense Department has been slow to deploy CL-20 in its weaponry. So in a conventional war, our men and women in uniform could be outgunned by enemy ordnance that is lighter, faster, packs a bigger punch, and goes further. Folks are starting to complain. Scientists were the first to do so, but many gave up after years of being ignored. Then specialty press like naval and defense magazines began alerting the broader military community, which failed to introduce the invention into weapons contracts. The Russia-Ukraine war makes the Pentagon’s failure to properly equip our men and women in uniform more obvious. Not only do we not have the best explosives—also known as “ordnance,” “kinetics,” or “energetics”—but we don’t have enough. According to Ukrainian sources reported in February, Russia launched 20,000 shells and rockets per day against Ukraine. Ukrainian forces could only return fire at the lower rate of 5,000 to 6,000 per day, consuming in three months what the United States and Europe could produce in a year. Deterring wars such as in Ukraine requires not only nuclear security guarantees to the smaller, relatively unarmed democracies, but the provision of the world’s most powerful conventional explosives up front and in quantity. U.S. politicians are starting to get serious about our relative lack of high-yield explosives. On May 21, The Wall Street Journal reported that Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.) plans to “push for CL-20’s expanded use,” including through a bill requiring the Pentagon to “implement a pilot program that incorporates CL-20 into three missile or munitions systems of its choosing.” But that would still leave the sourcing of raw materials and precursor chemicals in jeopardy. Not only did Beijing acquire CL-20, an acquisition not sufficiently explained to the American public, but we are dependent on China for some of the precursors of this and what we normally use, such as RDX and HMX. The Journal noted in its report that “Regulatory and other costs have driven overseas the production of almost all of the base chemicals used in energetics, as they have for many pharmaceuticals.” “To make all of the explosives and propellants we need for all of our weapons requires about 300 ‘critical chemicals,’” said Bob Kavetsky, the CEO of the Energetics Technology Center, in an interview earlier this year with Defense Daily. “That list of 300 ranges from chemicals we might need 10,000 pounds a year to a couple million pounds a year. There’s a half dozen of those materials that are sole-sourced from China.” The Defense Department has had plenty of time to address these concerns. In 2018, a Trump-mandated assessment found that in addition to “widely used and specialized metals, alloys and other materials, including rare earths and permanent magnets … China is also the sole source or a primary supplier for a number of critical energetic materials used in munitions and missiles.” The assessment found that “In many cases, there is no other source or drop-in replacement material and even in cases where that option exists, the time and cost to test and qualify the new material can be prohibitive—especially for larger systems (hundreds of millions of dollars each).” The increasing grip that China has on developing-country production of strategic materials necessary for the production of explosives, especially in Latin America and Africa, is an additional threat to U.S. supply chains upon which our national security relies. Therefore, one must ask: what genius bean counters in Washington not only allowed the U.S. military to lose CL-20 technology to our most dangerous adversaries, but also allowed us to become dependent on China for the chemicals necessary to produce CL-20 and other military explosives? The lack of judgment among some members of the U.S. government can, at times, be mind-boggling. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Udumbara
Commentary
The United States is falling behind China and Russia in a critical element of military technology: bang for the buck in high explosives. The kinetic punch that U.S. explosives deliver per pound is only about 70 percent of what China and Russia get from their “energetics.”
The even more astonishing failure is that the powerful conventional explosive used by our adversaries was invented in the United States with taxpayer money, but then neglected by our military and allowed to be acquired by our adversaries.
A naval scientist in China Lake, California, invented the CL-20 explosive in 1987. CL-20’s power is 1.4 times that of HMX, invented in 1941. The other commonly-used explosive in U.S. ordnance is RDX, invented in 1898.
CL-20 is deployed in one of the most recent U.S. weapons systems, the AeroVironment Switchblade kamikaze drone, which has removed Russian forces from the battlefields of Ukraine.
But more generally, the Defense Department has been slow to deploy CL-20 in its weaponry. So in a conventional war, our men and women in uniform could be outgunned by enemy ordnance that is lighter, faster, packs a bigger punch, and goes further.
Folks are starting to complain.
Scientists were the first to do so, but many gave up after years of being ignored. Then specialty press like naval and defense magazines began alerting the broader military community, which failed to introduce the invention into weapons contracts.
The Russia-Ukraine war makes the Pentagon’s failure to properly equip our men and women in uniform more obvious. Not only do we not have the best explosives—also known as “ordnance,” “kinetics,” or “energetics”—but we don’t have enough.
According to Ukrainian sources reported in February, Russia launched 20,000 shells and rockets per day against Ukraine. Ukrainian forces could only return fire at the lower rate of 5,000 to 6,000 per day, consuming in three months what the United States and Europe could produce in a year.
Deterring wars such as in Ukraine requires not only nuclear security guarantees to the smaller, relatively unarmed democracies, but the provision of the world’s most powerful conventional explosives up front and in quantity.
U.S. politicians are starting to get serious about our relative lack of high-yield explosives. On May 21, The Wall Street Journal reported that Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.) plans to “push for CL-20’s expanded use,” including through a bill requiring the Pentagon to “implement a pilot program that incorporates CL-20 into three missile or munitions systems of its choosing.”
But that would still leave the sourcing of raw materials and precursor chemicals in jeopardy. Not only did Beijing acquire CL-20, an acquisition not sufficiently explained to the American public, but we are dependent on China for some of the precursors of this and what we normally use, such as RDX and HMX.
The Journal noted in its report that “Regulatory and other costs have driven overseas the production of almost all of the base chemicals used in energetics, as they have for many pharmaceuticals.”
“To make all of the explosives and propellants we need for all of our weapons requires about 300 ‘critical chemicals,’” said Bob Kavetsky, the CEO of the Energetics Technology Center, in an interview earlier this year with Defense Daily. “That list of 300 ranges from chemicals we might need 10,000 pounds a year to a couple million pounds a year. There’s a half dozen of those materials that are sole-sourced from China.”
The Defense Department has had plenty of time to address these concerns. In 2018, a Trump-mandated assessment found that in addition to “widely used and specialized metals, alloys and other materials, including rare earths and permanent magnets … China is also the sole source or a primary supplier for a number of critical energetic materials used in munitions and missiles.”
The assessment found that “In many cases, there is no other source or drop-in replacement material and even in cases where that option exists, the time and cost to test and qualify the new material can be prohibitive—especially for larger systems (hundreds of millions of dollars each).”
The increasing grip that China has on developing-country production of strategic materials necessary for the production of explosives, especially in Latin America and Africa, is an additional threat to U.S. supply chains upon which our national security relies.
Therefore, one must ask: what genius bean counters in Washington not only allowed the U.S. military to lose CL-20 technology to our most dangerous adversaries, but also allowed us to become dependent on China for the chemicals necessary to produce CL-20 and other military explosives?
The lack of judgment among some members of the U.S. government can, at times, be mind-boggling.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
