Last month, the Energetics Technology Center (ETC) briefed 15 House members on its proposal to revitalize and revolutionize energetics for the U.S. military, including a ramp-up of production and use of CL-20 and the development of even more advanced energetics to build numerous smaller munitions with more firepower.
House members who attended all or part of the Feb. 8 briefing included members of the House Armed Services Committee, like Reps. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), who also chairs the GOP-created House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party; Robert Wittman (R-Va.), the chair of the HASC tactical air and land forces panel; Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.); Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.); Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.). Joe Wilson (R-S.C.); Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.); and Morgan Luttrell (R-Texas).
Other representatives there were Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), the former House majority leader whose district includes Naval Surface Warfare Center in Indian Head where ETC is located; and Reps. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.), the second senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee’s (HAC) defense panel; Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), a HAC member; Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa), who serves on HAC and the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party; Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.), Dusty Johnston (R-S.D.), a member of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party; and Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.). also a member of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.
Energetics–“critical chemicals” in DoD parlance–are explosives, propellants, and pyrotechnics with high amounts of chemical energy that an external stimulus can trigger.
Last October, Gallagher said that to help counter China the U.S. needs “longer-range intermediate missiles with advanced energetic materials in places like Alaska and Australia’s Northern Territory.”
Nearly all energetics used by U.S. forces is dated, according to ETC. They include the octogen (HMX) explosive invented in 1941; hexogen/cyclonite (RDX) explosive invented in 1898; nitrocellulose (NC) propellant invented in 1832; nitroglycerine (NG) explosive and propellant from 1847; trinitrotoluene (TNT) from 1863; and the ammonium perchlorate oxidizer from the early 20th century.
With funding from an Office of Naval Research effort to find new energetics to improve explosive and propellant performance, Navy research chemist, Arnold T. Nielsen, first synthesized CL-20–China Lake compound number 20–at Naval Air Weapons Center (NAWC) China Lake, Calif., in 1987.
Nielsen, who received his doctorate in chemistry from the University of Washington in 1947, had worked at NAWC China Lake since 1959 and retired in 1991.
While Navy researchers hoped that DoD would field CL-20 in munitions, the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and DoD’s subsequent focus on limiting collateral damage in counterinsurgency conflicts appear to have led to the shelving of CL-20 fielding plans.
Northrop Grumman [NOC] produces CL-20 in Promontory, Utah and may be able to ramp up, if called upon to do so. The company is the only U.S. firm that produces CL-20.
A June, 2021 ETC study said that CL-20’s “explosive and propellant properties…exceed those of RDX and HMX by significant margins.”
“Unfortunately, the dissolution of the Soviet Union redirected program priorities away from greater lethality to enhanced safety and lower cost and risk, and the EM [energetics materials] community – lacking specific funding or a requirement – was in no position to mature CL-20 for incorporation into systems,” the study said.
“The discrepancy in [CL-20] performance is enormous: compared to U.S. HMX-based explosives,” ETC said. “CL-20 has a 40 percent increase in penetration depth, which is a significant increase in overall warhead lethality for specific applications.”
The Holston Army Ammunition Plant in Kingsport, Tenn., operated by BAE Systems, produces RDX and HMX for U.S. munitions.
ETC said that China is using CL-20 in its weapons and has far surpassed the U.S. in advanced energetics.
More explosive power per pound also means CL-20 lends greater range to munitions, ETC said.
Advanced energetics on systems like the Lockheed Martin [LMT] AGM-158C Long Range Anti-Ship Missile, would mean a first strike capability for the U.S. outside the first island chain, the center said.