Really? I can say with confidence that total quantity of munitions, and the reasons why a half million tons of US munitions are in the queue to be demilled, are totally unknown to you.
View attachment 853181
In a 2008 article, DoD was budgeted $2 Billion a year to demill its stockpile, and that amount of money was insufficient to decease the quantity of dangerous munitions accumulating every year. The stockpile of munitions requiring demilling was actually increasing every year. It costs big money to monitor, collect, ship, demill the stuff before it gets to be so unstable, it explodes in place
I highly suspect that you probably only think of small arms cartridges as military munitions, but there are around 7000 DODIC numbers, this
Marine Corp Yellowbook shows some of the items and their associated numbers. I don't have a break out of the percentage of the stockpile that are small arms ammunition, but I have read in other presentations, that by weight, it is a significant amount. At least 50%.
As I wrote earlier, the cost of demilling is very expensive, and second world countries like Pakistan don't have that money. I am certain you are unaware of any blown Pakistani ammunition dumps, but there have been some big ones. Pakistan, like most second and third world countries don't have the money to demill their old, dangerous, munitions. Ammunition dumps in these poor countries have the unfortunate habit of exploding due to the instable state of their deteriorated munitions But, some nation states have found that you, the American consumer, will happily buy this stuff. The consumer does not know better, doesn't want to know any better, assumes that it is good, that it is perfectly safe, because that's what they want to believe. I am going to state that neither of us were in the decision loop when the Pakistanis removed these from inventory, but you came up with your own reasons, based on the story theme that "
it has to be good because it is cheap"! Have you considered it was removed because of the problems due to reduction-oxidation of nitrocellulose? I am going to claim the Pakistanis removed these from their inventory because they finally decided it was too risky to keep in storage, and you, were willing to pay cash for the stuff.
I reject the idea that ammunition that hangfires is not dangerous to the user. American civilians are free to blow themselves up in any way they want, and the cost of their repair is going to come out of their own individual pockets. The costs will be settled between you, the hospital, and the insurance company. And if your insurance sucks, you are going to find out that hospitalization is incredibly expensive. Nation states have the liability for caring for their soldiers. That is, it costs them money, its part of the social compact. I am going to claim that issuing 303 ammunition that has a known hangfire problem is going to injury someone at some time in the future. I had no idea the standard for hangfires was 30 seconds. Where did that come from? Why is 30 seconds good, but 15 seconds bad? Was 30 seconds picked because the guy whose gun blew up waited 10-15 seconds? Was that the basis? What about 29 seconds? Why is 29 seconds to open the mechanism bad, but 30 seconds good?
You think that maybe if that stuff was fired in an automatic weapon, that maybe ammunition that gave hangfires might explode as a soldier ejects the round? Will every Soldier wait 30 seconds, not 29 seconds, to eject a misfire? There are some automatic weapon designs, like rotary weapons, that keep on going even if the round hangfires. That could cause problems. In fact, I read this as a risk for advanced primer ignition mechanisms. The Oerlikon was the most popular 20mm machine cannon of WW2, and ammunition stocks were kept around til Vietnam, and it was an advanced primer ignition weapon. A hangfire would probably blow the breech mechanism, and do so in front of the user.
I just found this, and it was interesting, don't dismiss the stuff about munitions instability and deterioration.
Logistics: An Explosive Cold War Scandal
https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htlog/articles/20180603.aspx#foo
