![]() ![]() ![]() "That may sound simple, but with five different EDS systems, RCMD has over a thousand drawings and numerous manuals that we maintain.”īecause RCMD’s transportable assessment and destruction technologies can be deployed nationwide, wherever suspect chemical warfare materiel is recovered, L&M must track the equipment and provide support. “If you go to the field, and you have to work on equipment or troubleshoot something, you need the right drawings and the right parts manuals,” Marks said. ![]() “It’s our job to make sure all the equipment is ready when we need it,” said RCMD Maintenance Coordinator Terry Spickler, “so one of our main responsibilities is making sure the equipment is always operational.”Īs part of that effort, L&M must also keep an up-to-date library of all the equipment drawings and manuals – no small feat. “Without a sound L&M program, you are not postured to fight the fight and win the mission. “Logistics and Maintenance are often the unsung heroes of any successful military operation, said Gottschalk. Laurence Gottschalk, Director RCM, agrees. The system’s main component, a sealed, stainless-steel vessel, contains all the blast, vapor and fragments from the process – an innovative alternative to the open detonation of explosively configured munitions.Īlthough the EDS operation is in the mission spotlight, there would be no EDS operation without L&M working behind the scenes, constantly maintaining the equipment and guaranteeing a trained crew and a steady supply of spare parts and consumables. The EDS uses explosive cutting charges to access a munition and eliminate its explosive components before neutralizing its chemical fill. The workhorse of RCMD’s chemical weapons destruction program is the transportable Explosive Destruction System, or EDS, which provides on-site destruction and neutralization of chemical warfare materiel. Once it is determined that an item contains chemical agent, operators package it for safe transport and storage until it can be destroyed. When Munitions and Explosives of Concern (MEC) are periodically recovered from formerly used defense sites or active arsenals during remediation efforts, RCMD deploys a response team to the site, using non-intrusive assessment technologies to analyze the munition contents without opening it, greatly reducing risk to the public and first responders. Historically, burial was an internationally accepted practice for safe chemical weapons disposal. Army Corps of Engineers’ (USACE) environmental remediation of an old chemical weapons burial site. RCMD missions can range from an unplanned single munition response to the planned destruction of hundreds, even thousands of chemical warfare items recovered during a U.S. “We have to be ready when a mission comes up,” said RCMD Logistics Team Lead John Marks, “and you don’t do that just by sitting back and waiting for go-time!” When items are identified as chemical, RCMD treatment technologies safely and effectively neutralize them while protecting operators, the community and the environment.īut none of this happens without its stellar Logistics and Maintenance (L&M) program, ensuring a constant state of readiness – a top priority for RCMD. Headquartered at Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG), Maryland, RCMD provides centralized management and direction to the Department of Defense for the assessment and disposal of recovered chemical warfare materiel (RCWM). The RCMD response to assess and possibly destroy the munition is categorized as “unplanned,” but there is nothing unplanned about RCMD’s response. Army Chemical Materials Activity Recovered Chemical Materiel Directorate (CMA RCMD): a munition, possibly filled with chemical agent, has been recovered near an old chemical weapons burial site at a U.S. ![]()
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