26-463: Hawthorne Army Depot (HWAD) is a U.S. Army Joint Munitions Command ammunition storage depot located near the town of Hawthorne in western Nevada in the United States. It is directly south of Walker Lake . The depot covers 147,000 acres (59,000 ha) or 226 sq. mi. and has 600,000 square feet (56,000 m) storage space in 2,427 bunkers . HWAD is the "World's Largest Depot". It
52-407: Is divided into three ammunition storage and production areas, plus an industrial area housing command headquarters, facilities, engineering shops, etc. Hawthorne Army Depot stores reserve ammunitions to be used after the first 30 days of a major conflict. It is only partially staffed during peacetime, but provision has been made to rapidly expand staffing as necessary. An independent contractor runs
78-536: Is produced and stored. Production and Storage Production Storage Training and Special Services While all JMC facilities are government-owned, contractors operate the 10 production-only facilities and Hawthorne Army Depot. The following installations closed on or before 2011 as part of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission findings [REDACTED] This article incorporates public domain material from the United States Army M687 chemical artillery shell The M687
104-460: Is responsible for the management and accountability of $ 26 billion of conventional munitions and stores $ 39 billion of missiles. The Joint Munitions and Lethality Life Cycle Management Command (JM&L LCMC) is one of four life cycle management commands in the Army. Its role is to integrate significant elements of acquisition, logistics, and technology, fostering a closer relationship between
130-504: Is the research and development arm. PEO-Ammunition and its project managers are the ammunition life cycle managers and are responsible for acquisition of ammunition. JMC manages the ammunition plants and has the responsibility for storing and shipping the ammunition to wherever in the world it is needed. JMC is the logistics arm of the JM&;L LCMC. JMC operates a nationwide network of installations and facilities where conventional ammunition
156-571: The Deseret Chemical Depot , Utah, and the Umatilla Chemical Depot ( Umatilla County, Oregon ). The shell contained two canisters separated by a rupture disk. The compartments were filled with two liquid precursor chemicals for sarin (GB2): methylphosphonyl difluoride (denominated DF) and a mixture of isopropyl alcohol and isopropyl amine (denominated OPA) is in a second canister. The isopropyl amine binds
182-414: The hydrogen fluoride generated during the chemical reaction. When the shell was fired the force of the acceleration would cause the disk between them to breach and the spinning of the projectile facilitated mixing. The two precursor chemicals would react in flight to produce sarin and when the shell reached its target the sarin would be released. The shells were meant to be stored and transported with only
208-522: The shell pending an investigation. Following investigation, the explosion was deemed to have been as a result of human error and the suspension was lifted. Currently, Reserve Marines from the 4th Marine Logistics Group (4th MLG) conduct annual training exercises at the Hawthorne Army Depot as well as surrounding desert areas. Hawthorne Army Depot surrounds the small town of Hawthorne, Nevada , where most of its employees reside. Before
234-640: The Bureau of Naval Weapons." It also served as an important ammunition center during the Korean and Vietnam Wars with several thousand structures on 236 square miles (610 km) of land. Stored ammunition that had been examined and repacked was given the code HAW followed by the last two digits of the year (e.g., HAW 50). In 1977, NAD was transferred to the Army and renamed the Hawthorne Army Ammunition Plant (HWAAP) . In 1980, HWAAP
260-683: The JMC, Program Executive Office-Ammunition and the Army Research Development and Engineering Center. The JM&L LCMC, headquartered at Picatinny Arsenal , New Jersey, and has a 10-person staff that integrates the efforts of PEO-Ammunition, JMC, and ARDEC. JMC has a partnership with the ARDEC and PEO-Ammunition to manage ammunition over its life cycle. ARDEC, which is headquartered in New Jersey and has an office on Rock Island Arsenal,
286-610: The OPA compartment loaded; the fuze and the DF compartment would be inserted shortly before firing. The M687 was never used in combat and, under the Chemical Weapons Convention , the U.S. destroyed the shells and the precursor chemical DF as part of its agreement to eliminate all chemical weapons. More than 258,000 of the shells were shipped to Hawthorne Army Depot from their storage at Deseret Chemical Depot , Utah, and
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#1732780408063312-664: The Single Manager for Conventional Ammunition. In 1994, it ended its production mission and became Hawthorne Army Depot. The depot began its existence as the Hawthorne Naval Ammunition Depot (NAD). It was established after a major disaster occurred at the Lake Denmark Naval Ammunition Depot , in New Jersey, in 1926. The accident virtually destroyed the depot, causing heavy damage to adjacent Picatinny Arsenal and
338-522: The ammunition plants of the United States . Since 1973, those commands have been headquartered on Rock Island Arsenal . Brigadier General Gavin J. Gardner commands the JMC. The headquarters on Rock Island Arsenal is responsible for munitions production (ammunition plants) and storage (depots) facilities in 16 states. JMC employs 20 military, over 5800 civilians and 8300 contractor personnel. Of these approximately 14,000 personnel, more than 650 work in
364-494: The depot under an agreement with the government. The center's capabilities include demilitarization, desert training for military units, ammunition renovation, quality assurance, ISO intermodal container maintenance/repair, and range scrap processing. The Naval Ammunition Depot Hawthorne was established in September 1930. It was redesignated Hawthorne Army Ammunition Plant in 1977 when it transferred to Army control as part of
390-509: The depot was subsequently dropped from the BRAC list, primarily due to the base's training capability in support of pre-deployment training for OEF-bound Marine Corps units (by MWTC ), Navy, and Army SOF. On 18 March 2013, seven U.S. Marines were killed, and at least eight were wounded when a mortar exploded during a live-fire training exercise. Because of the accident, the Pentagon suspended
416-551: The disposal of Babbitt many of these "Babbitt Houses" have found their way throughout rural Nevada, filling several uses. During the peak of operations in World War II, additional housing was provided in a former Civilian Conservation Corps camp christened "Camp Jumbo", and in a large adjoining construction camp. The local Sixth Street School (whose building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places)
442-425: The entire war effort. Employment was at its highest at 5,625 in 1945. By 1948, NAD occupied about 104 square miles (269 km) of the 327 square miles (850 km) area under Navy jurisdiction. Subsequently, excess Navy lands were turned over to the Bureau of Land Management. The U.S. Marine Corps provided security for the 3,000 bunkers at NAD. In September 1930, and during World War II, 600 Marines were assigned to
468-560: The explosion recommended that a depot be established in a remote area within 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of the west coast to serve the Pacific area. Construction began on Hawthorne NAD in July 1928, and NAD received its first shipment of high explosives on 19 October 1930. When the United States entered World War II, the Depot became the staging area for bombs, rockets, and ammunition for almost
494-513: The facility became contractor-operated, it was staffed primarily by civil service workers and military personnel, who were housed on government-owned property neighboring Hawthorne, including the now-abandoned town of Babbitt and military housing known as Schweer Drive. The housing in Babbitt was made up of large buildings created to be duplexes. The system of trusses allowed all interior walls to be removed without compromising their structure. Since
520-472: The facility received its current name of the Hawthorne Army Depot (HWAD) . In 1998–1999, the facility was used to destroy the U.S. stockpile of M687 chemical artillery shells and separate from them their 505 tons (458 metric tons ) of binary precursor chemicals. In May 2005, the facility was included on the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure list, with closure being recommended. However,
546-445: The facility. In 1977, that number had been reduced to 117; security is now contracted to a private company. The mission and functions at NAD remained the same throughout the facility's history. The mission, as stated in a 1962 Navy Command History, was to "receive, renovate, maintain, store and issue ammunition, explosives, expendable ordnance items and/or weapons and technical ordnance material and perform additional tasks as directed by
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#1732780408063572-410: The headquarters on Rock Island Arsenal. JMC has an annual budget of 1.2 billion dollars. JMC provides bombs and bullets to America's fighting forces – all services, all types of conventional ammo from 2,000-pound bombs to rifle rounds. JMC manages plants that produce more than 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition annually and the depots that store the nation's ammunition for training and combat. It
598-481: The surrounding communities, killing 21 people, and seriously injuring 53 others. The monetary loss to the Navy alone was $ 84 million, just over $ 1 billion today (mostly in consumed explosives). As a result of a full-scale Congressional investigation, the seventieth Congress in 1928 directed establishing a Board of Officers to provide oversight of the storage conditions of explosives. A court of inquiry investigating
624-571: Was an American 155 mm binary sarin chemical artillery shell . The design was standardized in 1976 and production began on December 16, 1987 at Pine Bluff Arsenal , Pine Bluff, Arkansas . Production was halted three years later, following the 1990 Chemical Weapons Accord between the United States and the USSR , and the dismantling of existing stocks began in November 1997 at Hawthorne Army Depot , Nevada. America's remaining stocks were stored at
650-417: Was expanded to serve the population growth. [REDACTED] This article incorporates public domain material from the United States Army 38°28′37″N 118°39′28″W / 38.47694°N 118.65778°W / 38.47694; -118.65778 Joint Munitions Command The Joint Munitions Command (JMC) is the latest in a series of commands since World War II that have managed
676-485: Was redesignated as a government-owned contractor-operated facility. Day & Zimmermann Hawthorne Corporation (DZHC) is the current operating contractor (D&Z won the competition over three other bidders, namely Aerojet Services , Mason & Knight , and the British-owned ICI America , by proposing the lowest price for the plant's operation, the award was announced on 5 August 1980). In 1994,
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