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DoD Corrosion Officials Visit European Defense Counterparts

Small Teams Brief Experts in Military Policy and Projects in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Italy

By Cynthia Greenwood

In May and June of 2006, the director of the DoD Corrosion Policy and Oversight initiative welcomed officials from the German and French defense ministries to the Pentagon. These U.S. allies wanted to discuss the DoD’s heavy-hitting approach to corrosion prevention.

Europe’s top defense agencies had been impressed by Congress’s legislative support for allocating DoD dollars for corrosion control and prevention of weapons systems and infrastructure. These defense experts had also learned about the successful information sharing between the U.S. industry and military on the Web site sponsored by the DoD Corrosion Prevention Integrated Product Team. During the 2006 briefings, French and German military officials invited the DoD to visit Europe to discuss Congress’s support for the U.S. corrosion program and Cost of Corrosion Baseline Study.

"Even though all four of our European counterparts have parliamentary democracies with military organizations structured differently from ours, we believe that DoD’s corrosion projects, activities, and means of communication are exportable."

In September 2007, DoD officials and members of the Navy and Army responded by visiting military offices in London and Wiltshire, England; Erding, Germany; Paris; France, and Naples, Italy. The aim of their visit was two-pronged. First, DoD officials and their European counterparts wanted to learn how each side could expand their mutual interest in corrosion prevention projects. Secondly, each European agency wanted to explore the implications of adapting aspects of the DoD’s strategic and legislatively supported focus on corrosion prevention across the Services and industry.

"Basically, our message was very well received," said Daniel J. Dunmire, who heads the DoD Corrosion Policy and Oversight initiative. "Even though all four of our European counterparts have parliamentary democracies with military organizations structured differently from ours, we believe that DoD’s corrosion projects, activities, and means of communication are exportable."

"When meeting with British, French, German, and Italian military officials in September, we stressed that in order to make a difference in corrosion control, you must address corrosion prevention concerns early on in the design phase, whether you’re building a weapons system platform or a component of your infrastructure," Dunmire said.

Small DoD Corrosion Team Briefs U.K. Policy Officials and Technical Experts

David Erickson, an analyst in the DoD Corrosion Office, led a small team of experts to London and Porton Down, a U.K. government military and science park near Salisbury in Wiltshire, England. On September 20 in London, Erickson’s team met with Tom Greenshields, the Director of Concepts and Technology at the British Ministry of Defense (MOD), John Danneker, a U.S. Navy Commander on assignment at the British MOD, and other experts. Erickson briefed the delegation on the DoD corrosion program, its inception and progress since the Congressional mandate supporting corrosion prevention passed in 2002, and the progress of an ongoing DoD Cost of Corrosion Baseline Study.

"Although the British Ministry of Defense is organized along the same lines as we are in terms of technology development, corrosion is not a stand-alone discipline or concern as Congress has established it in the United States," said Erickson. "While we discussed our programs and mutual challenges, it became clear that corrosion is not yet a policy initiative in the British military. Nor is there a corrosion point of contact equivalent to the DoD Corrosion Executive. MOD officials expressed an interest in learning more about the Congressional support for our corrosion program. They also were interested in pursuing an international panel at the next NACE International conference in 2008."

"MOD officials were especially interested in learning how the United States and the United Kingdom could partner more closely on policy matters," said Cliff Johnson, Director of Public Affairs at NACE International and a member of Erickson’s team.

"British MOD officials were especially interested in learning how the United States and the United Kingdom could partner more closely on policy matters."

During their meeting at Porton Down, Erickson and his team met with a technical group responsible for maintaining British weapon systems. Both teams briefed one another on their respective programs for maintaining military aircraft and ground equipment. "We discussed the common aspects of our technical programs as well as the differences," Erickson noted. "Unlike in the DoD, the British military treats corrosion as a subset of the general category of equipment maintenance." Consequently, in the U.K., those charged with corrosion control responsibilities compete with everyone else who depends on equipment maintenance dollars.

"At Porton Down, we also realized we had some of the same problems," Johnson recalled. "For example, the British military is deploying aircraft in Iraq right now that was built to be used within the North Sea region. The DoD is in a similar position as it deploys aircraft in Iraq and Afghanistan, equipment built to be flown in Europe during the Cold War. Both teams also discussed ways in which the British MOD could execute a Cost of Corrosion Baseline Study, as an excursion from the DoD metrics on ground vehicles and ships, for example, and extrapolate the structure of their military force from U.S. DoD findings."

DoD Corrosion Officials Visit Germany, France, and Italy

A second team of corrosion experts presented an overview of the DoD corrosion program to officials at a military research facility in Erding, Germany, in northern Bavaria on September 20-21, to officials in Paris on September 24, and to the military headquarters of the Italian Southern Navy Command in Naples on September 27. In all three countries, the U.S. team encountered concerns and questions similar to those expressed by British officials.

"We asked all three military organizations if they were looking at corrosion concerns early in the process," said Dunmire. "I discussed how we implemented our program in the U.S. and discussed our efforts to finalize the approval of a new DoD Instruction, which will govern industry contractors involved in sustainment projects."

"We spoke about the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations (DFAR), the rules that govern all defense contracts which contracting officers must follow. (There are requirements in the DFAR to address corrosion planning for all contracts over $5 million.) We also gave the French and Germans our Corrosion Prevention and Control Planning Guidebook, which helps the Services plan and implement sound materials selection as they design and sustain our weapons systems and infrastructure."

Dunmire continued: "In turn, each group asked us, ‘How did you get Congress excited? How would we go about getting Parliament and the Ministry of Defense excited about corrosion as a policy and key maintenance concern?’ Basically, our message was well received in all three countries."

Before the U.S. team addressed the Southern Navy Command in Naples, Dunmire presented a keynote policy presentation to a conference of international corrosion experts who share presentations on military corrosion from September 27-29.