McALESTER, Okla. -- Workers at the ammunition plant here employed old-fashioned GI ingenuity to adapt, improvise and overcome a problem that threatened to shut down a production line and keep it from filling an urgent munitions request from the U.S. Navy.
When it was discovered the two-inch foam wads that hold propellant in place inside the 5-inch/54-caliber gun ammunition were too large, they turned to an unlikely source for a creative solution. They contacted Ericca Pate, supervisor of the dunnage mill, which typically cuts wood for blocking and bracing munitions during shipping, to ask if the wads could be cut.
"She said, 'bring a few over and let us play with them to see if we can do it,'" said Ron Dusenberry, MCAAP project manager for the Navy gun program. "So I brought a few over to her and she cut on them and told me, 'yeah, we can do it.'"
A six-person team from the dunnage mill began the work of cutting 12,000 two-inch wads into one-inch wads on Dec. 12 and finished it by the end of the month. The creative solution kept the 5-inch/54-caliber ammo production facility operational and 35 employees on the job during the holiday season, said Dusenberry
The Navy believed the usual two-inch wad was allowable for the amount of powder being put inside the munition, but when the cartridge was loaded, the wad did not sit flush and a solution had to be found, said Dusenberry.
"The dunnage mill just stepped in, volunteered and did this, they never did question it or anything," he said. "They saved us, otherwise, I'd still be waiting on one-inch wads to come in."
Dusenberry said MCAAP would have faced a minimum 90-day delay to go through the procurement process to purchase one-inch wads.
As a result of the quick thinking, MCAAP fulfilled its order for 10,000 propellant charges in time to meet the ship at Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point, N.C., the end of January.
"We greatly appreciate MCAAP taking the initiative to propose and implement this creative solution in order to maximize production and delivery of D326 propelling charges and to keep the 5-54 production line operating," said Robert Goetz, project director for joint products, Program Executive Office-Ammunition, Picatinny Arsenal, N.J.
For their efforts, dunnage mill employees Lance Chitty, Brandon Clement, Shannon Crow, Micah Henson, Joseph Johnson and Ericca Pate were each presented a commander's coin of excellence and an Army certificate of appreciation by Col. Sean M. Herron, MCAAP commander, Feb. 9.
The MK 45 5-inch/54-caliber gun is a fully-automatic naval gun installed aboard DDG 51 Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers and CG 47 Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers for use against surface, air and land attack targets.
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MCAAP is one of 14 installations of the Joint Munitions Command and one of 23 organic industrial base facilities under the U.S. Army Materiel Command.
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