Picatinny gets $10M to build facility

Picatinny Arsenal is planning to build a new Ballistics Evaluation Facility to test its larger munitions.

Its current facility is outdoors on the western end of the base and though the new structure will be partially enclosed, Picatinny officials cautioned it is unlikely to reduce the noise associated with testing.

The $10 million to construct the five-building complex comes from the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2010 that President Obama signed into law Wednesday.

"This will enhance the ability to evaluate some of the products we are making right here in real time," said Pete Rowland, spokesman for Picatinny Arsenal, the Army's research and development site in Rockaway Township.

At the testing grounds, munitions, ranging in size from 40 mm to 155 mm, are fired from different weapons. Dozens of slow motion cameras and sensors capture data on how the projectiles behave, from the instant they are fired to the time they hit the target.

"Sometimes in the early development process some quirks show the projectile not flying as straight and true as it should be," Rowland said. "These (tests) are important when trying to develop a better, more accurate ammunition."

In the existing facility, the projectiles, which are inert, are fired at 2 tons of sand. The sand is in a 40-foot chute surrounded by concrete walls 12-feet high and 12-feet wide. The concrete is reinforced with 2 inches of armored steel, the kind used on tanks.

"They aim the projectile directly at the opening of this man-made cave," said Al Lennox, division chief for armaments evaluation and experimentation.

This process helped engineers perfect Excalibur, a GPS guided weapon. When Excalibur debuted in Iraq in May 2007, it became the Army's first all-weather, precision-guided artillery round, according to a Picatinny release.

Though still in use, the current evaluation facility is almost 50 years old, Lennox said. The building is outdated and the equipment worn.

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