Anniston Army Depot

Mechanics at Anniston Army Depot line up an M1 Abrams turret with its hull.

Anniston Army Depot (ANAD) is a major United States Army facility fulfilling various depot operations. Primary missions are production and repair of ground combat vehicles, overhaul of Small Arms Weapon Systems and the storage of chemical weapons (Anniston Chemical Activity). The depot is located in Bynum, Alabama.

The depot employs over 5,000 people and covers 25 square miles (65 km2) of land. Tanks and other equipment are repaired and tested there, but historically Anniston's main role has been as a major munitions storage site, since WWII. Anniston is one of seven depots in the United States where chemical weapons are stored (7.2% of nation's chemical weapons stockpile).[1] The stockpile included rockets, bombs, projectiles, and land mines armed with Sarin, VX nerve agent, or mustard gas. The last chemical munitions were destroyed in September 2011.[2]

ANAD is the only depot capable of performing maintenance on heavy-tracked combat vehicles and their components and houses a state of the art 250,000 square foot Small Arms Overhaul facility that opened in January 2012 replacing a previous facility that was outdated. The depot is designated as the Center of Technical Excellence for the M1 Abrams Tank and is the designated candidate depot for the repair of the M60 Patton tank, AVLB, M728, M88 Recovery Vehicle and M551 combat vehicles.[3] During the Iraq War, over 1,000 M1 tanks, howitzers and other armored vehicles were stored awaiting re-engineering.[4]

ANAD is also the Army's primary site for final assembly, reset and overhaul for the Stryker family of wheeled fighting vehicles. [5] All ten of the Stryker vehicle variants are assembled in the Nichols Industrial Park area by Contractor General Dynamics Land Systems. Stryker Battle Damage Repair and Reset is accomplished through a work sharing arrangement between the depot and contractor, including a Stryker Exchange Program that converts the original flat bottomed Stryker vehicle to the IED-resistant Double V Hull configuration developed for combat operations in Afghanistan.[6][7]

The depot also houses and operates a facility for the repair, restoration, and/or upgrade of infantry weapons such as the Beretta M9 pistol, M16 rifle, and M2 machine gun. Any firearm deemed unusable or obsolete is destroyed on the premises, the materials are reduced to unusable pieces and then sold for scrap to be melted down.

ANAD is under command of the US Army TACOM Life Cycle Management Command (TACOM LCMC), although other operators on the facility include the Defense Logistics Agency, Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office, Department of Army Center of Military History, Health Services Command, and Soldier and Chemical Biological Command ODCMP Civilian Marksmanship Program.

References

  1. ↑ Anniston Army Depot
  2. ↑ ANCDF completes chemical munitions mission
  3. ↑ AnnistonArmyDepot.net - The Fastest Growing Military Directory on the Web!
  4. ↑ U.S. Army Battling To Save Equipment - washingtonpost.com
  5. ↑
  6. ↑
  7. ↑

External links

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Coordinates: 33°39′08″N 85°57′44″W / 33.65222°N 85.96222°W