Heavy Metal: US Military Primary Metals Purchases

Militaries order a lot of metal equipment, but they also order significant quantities of raw metal or basic metal forms directly for use in repair depots, machining shops, et. al. This DID article will cover these orders from FY 2007 through 2014, offering a bit of visibility to purchases of steel, brass, aluminum, and other industrial metals. Note that a contract to purchase a certain amount of titanium or steel for a weapons program would not be included, because these contracts are properly program-related, rather than items for general usage.

US Defense Industry Hampered by Lawyerese

• Reuters reports that titanium originating from China was found in some US aircraft and may also have been used in SM-3 missiles, in violation of the Berry Amendment. The Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) raised years ago the issue [PDF] that documentation compliance down to the nuts and bolts level is impractical at best. The case for tightly controlling components subject to tampering is solid. Prohibiting the use of fungible commodity materials based on country of origin in a globalized economy makes much less sense.

• Exelis and L-3 are expanding their export push as US demand for night vision goggles collapsed, but France’s Photonis, unimpeded by crippling ITAR regulations, got a head start.