MBDA, Europe’s leading guided missile systems company, is bidding for two separate demilitarization contracts involving a combined total of 49,000 MLRS rockets currently held in the UK and French inventory.
In keeping with the spirit of the 2008 Oslo accord, the UK and France are already looking at means of de-stocking and demilitarising their inventory of sub-munition equipped MLRS rockets (27,000 in the case of the UK and 22,000 for France). As a result, NAMSA (the NATO Maintenance and Supply Agency), has issued an RFP (Request For Proposals) on behalf of the UK MoD while DCMAT (the materials and maintenance arm of the French Army) has issued an RFI (Request For Information) to elicit solutions from industry. In response, MBDA is putting forward a highly cost-effective solution that is fully compliant with the wide range of safety, security and environmental issues involved.
This solution benefits from MBDA’s extensive experience as a manufacturer of guided missiles, involving not only large-scale dismantling of complex munitions for customers during servicing and product upgrades but also experience in the handling of pyrotechnics. It also has the full backing of the regional civil authorities in the area of central France known as Région Centre where MBDA has several facilities. It is one of these, Bourges-Subdray, that has been earmarked for the demilitarisation operation because it already has existing buildings that fully meet the required regulatory norms for such an activity.
Up to now, demilitarisation has generally involved the detonation of munitions in the open air with all the negative environmental issues this implies. Given the quantities of MLRS rockets involved, MBDA will, however, employ the latest equipment including robotic handling devices to ensure that operators are not endangered by proximity to energetic materials. The process will also include a special furnace capable of burning at very high temperature the propergol (the rocket propellant) and the explosives contained within the MLRS rocket. Several filtration stages have been identified to ensure that the most stringent of European environmental emissions regulations are met. Recycling also plays a large part in MBDA’s solution with 97% of the inert material in each MLRS rocket scheduled for re-use.
Referring to the project, Antoine Bouvier, CEO of MBDA, said: “The MBDA proposal is both comprehensive and mature in offering the most cost-effective and efficient solution to both NAMSA and DCMAT. For MBDA, the setting up of an industrial demilitarisation capability will provide the necessary long term expertise that is becoming increasingly expected of a weapon system company. Indeed, right at the beginning of the conceptual phase of a new programme, military customers are demanding that the through-life cost of ownership right up to the end of equipment life is taken into account”.
Plans have already been drawn up in readiness for an area to be adapted within the Bourges-Subdray facility. Suppliers of the necessary equipment have been sourced and the site would be capable of commencing full-scale demilitarisation activities within about 24 months of contract award.
BACKGROUND NOTES:
Led by many of the same advocates of the1997 Ottawa Convention banning the use of anti-personnel mines, an international agreement prohibiting the use of cluster munitions is close to being finalised. In Dublin, Ireland in May 2008, 107 countries participating in the Oslo Process agreed on a draft text requiring the destruction of all cluster munitions within eight years. This agreement concerning the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) was available for signature in Oslo in December 2008. This CCM agreement will pass into force six months after it has been signed and ratified by 30 governments.
Manufactured by Lockheed Martin of the USA, MLRS or the Multiple Launch Rocket System is a rocket artillery system that is in use in several NATO countries. The system launcher supports two pods, each housing six, M26, 227mm rockets capable of being fired in rapid succession out to a range of around 40km. Each rocket contains a warhead with 644, M77 sub-munitions (each one slightly smaller than a tennis ball) with anti-tank and anti-personnel properties and a solid ammonium perchlorate rocket motor. There are several variants of the rocket but in general they measure about 4m in length and weigh around 300kg. The system, with M26 rockets, was used in the 1991 Gulf War and more recently in the 2003 Iraqi Freedom campaign.
Several hundred thousands of the M26 rockets are reaching the end of their lifetime and await disposal within the coming 10 years. The significant quantity and the increasing environmental pressure call for environmentally sustainable industrial processes for both the disposal and the recycling of the materials involved.
With industrial facilities in four European countries and within the USA, MBDA has an annual turnover of EUR 2.7 billion and an order book of EUR 11.9 billion. With more than 90 armed forces customers in the world, MBDA is a world leader in missiles and missile systems.
MBDA is the only group capable of designing and producing missiles and missile systems that correspond to the full range of current and future operational needs of the three armed forces (land, sea and air). In total, the group offers a range of 45 missile systems and countermeasures products already in operational service and more than 15 others currently in development. MBDA is jointly held by BAE Systems (37.5%), EADS (37.5%) and Finmeccanica (25%).
