A Decade of Explosives Storage Planning for the Navy

Explosives Safety SMEs from The Schreifer Group are completing a major worldwide project for the US Navy. We’ve worked at more than 30 Navy installations around the world to produce explosives site plans and Basic Facility Requirements (BFR) documents for explosives storage. 

Working together with Parsons, AECOM and APT Research, we are in the final steps of a decade-long project, perhaps the largest explosives safety siting and analysis project NAVFAC has ever undertaken. This article will describe the project and how it has changed Navy planning for explosives storage. 

Origins of Explosives Storage Planning

This massive project started in 2014 as a blue-sky idea between colleagues in different commands within the Navy. Mr. Marshall Dugger of NAVFAC LANT, Mr. John Stacy of Naval Ordnance Safety and Security (NOSSA), and Ms. Karen Jones of NAVFAC Washington all wanted to improve how the Navy planned for explosives storage. Independently they couldn’t get the traction to make major changes. But together they were able to create an opportunity for a solution. 

A few separate issues existed. First, the Navy had difficulty quantifying and cataloging the various types of existing explosives storage magazines. Essentially, we didn’t know what types of facilities we already own. The Navy real property record systems accounted for facility Category Codes and gross square footage, but not the actual type of magazine.  

Second, the Navy (and the DoD as a whole) didn’t have a good way to estimate requirements for explosives storage space, either for existing assets or future needs. Existing methods relied on oversimplified planning factors that did not account for differences in explosives types or sizes. 

NAVFAC released a contract to Parsons in 2014 titled Fleet Concentration Area Magazine Study (FCAMS). APT Research was hired as a subcontractor with Tyler Ross leading the technical effort. The tasking was to revamp how the Navy accounts for utilization of existing explosives storage magazines and develop an improved methodology for estimating space requirements for new magazines.  

FCAMS 2014-2016 

The first tasking was to develop a modeling tool for magazine space utilization and develop updates to the planning process in FC 2-000-05N for Series 421. The method would then be tested at seven key Navy weapon stations (referred to as Fleet concentration areas). 

Tyler Ross (then at APT) developed the first version of the Magazine Storage Requirements Calculator (MSRC) with lots of help from Landon Foust and Joe Stuart. This tool far exceeded expectations at NAVFAC as well as Navy Munitions Command (NMC). The MSRC was the first tool able to quickly plan magazine storage considering all explosives safety rules, equipment and security requirements, and a balance of spatial and explosive limit utilization. It was a hit from day 1.  

The tool was used at the seven weapons station locations along with updated and optimized site plans using the DoD ESS software. BFR documents were developed for baseline (current) and future scenarios for each site. Major MILCON projects being built today at NWS Seal Beach and NWS Yorktown are the outcome of those first studies. 

As the tool was used, additional capabilities were envisioned. A concept for an intelligent barcode system for magazines was developed by John Stacy of NOSSA and Tyler Ross. Tyler named it a Codex (taking a reference from his older brother’s favorite game – Warhammer). The Codex is a 10-character code that identifies key explosives properties of a facility, such as: magazine design type, size, ECM headwall designation, barricading, IDS security, and other features.  

The final products of the FCAMS contract were presented to OPNAV and NAVFAC HQ in 2016. 

A&EFS 2017-2025 

The success of the FCAMS project led NAVFAC to expand the use of the tool throughout the world. A global study named Ammunition & Explosives Facility Support (A&EFS) was commissioned. AECOM was awarded the tasking with APT as a subcontractor (and later The Schreifer Group). Tyler Ross (at APT in 2017) served as the technical lead for this entire contract. 

The focus of A&EFS was to assess facility characteristics, update ESS site plans, and generate explosives storage BFRs for every Navy installation worldwide with 14 or more storage magazines. This included more than 4,000 magazines across approximately 35 installations and was further divided into three phases. 

The Codex concept was expanded and developed into a Magazine Construction Assessment Report (MCAR). This form is used to gather key physical characteristics of a magazine that do not change even when the facility Category Code changes. The gathered data are used to generate a unique Codex for each facility. The Codex values are collected into the Navy real property data system (iNFADS). Users can track and sort the data to find capabilities (or lack of capability) by installation or across regions. This represents the first true capability to explain the “types” of explosives storage available across the Navy, instead of just the square footage of available storage space. 

The MSRC tool was developed further and optimized for faster examination. Significant technical analyses were performed for each installation, generating BFRs that outlined how existing space can best be utilized and what type of new construction is required to support modern weapon platforms. The output of the MSRC analyses provided a worldwide level playing field for MILCON assessments. For the first time, all Navy AORs used the same math to account for current utilization and future need.  

The breadth of the A&EFS project also included analysis of specialized Underground Magazines (UGM) often referred to as Tunnel Magazines. These specialty facilities cannot be sited in the standard DoD ESS software. Tyler Ross and Ed Falconer developed a methodology for siting UGMs in 2009. This methodology was presented to NOSSA and used once again for this effort. The tools were expanded to include NATO AASTP-1 criteria for UGMs in Europe.  

In summary, this massive effort changed the way that the US Navy accounts for storage magazines and how new facilities are planned and programmed. The tools developed this 11-year effort have been utilized to support Marine, Air Force and Army explosives planning at select locations.  

Contact The Schreifer Group 

You can find more articles about explosives safety on our website (Explosives Safety Articles). If you are looking for assistance with explosives safety site planning, please visit our website to learn more about how The Schreifer Group can help. Our growing team of seven explosives safety SMEs are ready to support you.