By George Kaminsky
Big missile contracts get the headlines, but the Army’s ordnance buying also includes a long list of smaller, less visible awards. A briefing given by an Army project manager at the Munitions Executive Summit in March 2025 laid out planned award dates for several of them, running through the end of 2026.
The briefing said the office manages 44 percent of the Army’s conventional munition lethality, with responsibilities that include shoulder-launched munitions, explosive ordnance disposal, munitions cryofracture and Army aviation. Its slide listed these planned awards, all as firm-fixed-price contracts:
| Item | Planned award (as of March 2025) |
|---|---|
| BLU-136/B bomb assembly | March 2026 |
| Conventional ammunition demilitarization | July 2026 |
| Grenade consolidation contract | August 2026 |
| Bangalore torpedo | August 2026 |
| Family of shaped charges | August 2026 |
| M206 aircraft countermeasure flare | October 2026 |
| MK7 Anti-Personnel Obstacle Breaching System (APOBS) | November 2026 |
| Family of extrudable C4 (including MICLIC and M112) | November 2026 |
The demilitarization effort covers disposal of older conventional ammunition and had an industry day in June 2025.
These dates are more than a year old, and acquisition schedules slip. ORBATMag has not confirmed which of these awards have been made. The two still ahead are the October flare award and the two November breaching-related awards, which would show whether the Army is keeping to its plan for the less glamorous end of the munitions base.
Source: NDIA Munitions Executive Summit briefing, March 19, 2025.
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