L-091 Rev Insensitive Munitions National Policies: the Key Differences

AC/310 SG 4 agreed that the fundamental differences in approach to IM national policies should be resolved before preparing a new edition of STANAG 4439 and tasked NIMIC to conduct an investigation of IM methodologies applied by each country for assessing the IMness of munitions (action 10.20 - [1]). The paper has been prepared by NIMIC with the contributions from the National Points of Contacts in the different nations participating in AC/310, providing information on the latest status of the national policy documents. A list of the national contacts is attached in appendix 1.

The comments in the sections 3 and 4 on the different approaches developed in IM policies are based on the official or draft IM Policy documents and do not take into account differences, which may result from the specific application of the national IM policy in one service or in a particular programme.

Introduction

STANAG 4439 Edition 1 [2] was initially published for ratification in 1995 and it was ratified in 1998. Although this first edition of the STANAG was an important achievement for the development and the introduction of Insensitive Munitions in service in the NATO Nations, STANAG 4439 offers some flexibility, which allows different approaches in the National IM policies. The main objective of this report is to highlight these key differences in order to prepare the future discussions of AC/310 SG 4 on the second edition of STANAG 4439. After a brief summary of the National IM Policies within NATO Nations, section 4 describes each of the issues identified.

The official National IM policies and the NATO IM documents (STANAG 4439 and AOP-39) are available for download on the MSIAC secure website.