Munitions Squadron receiving much needed construction on facilities

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Joshua Smoot
  • 341st Missile Wing Public Affairs
Construction continues for the 341st Munitions Squadron at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana.

Phase one of the construction consisted of constructing new buildings for the 341st MUNS personnel outside of the Weapons Storage Area.

The second phase of the construction, which started earlier this year, is consisting of constructing a new building for the conventional maintenance portion of MUNS.

Conventional maintenance involves disassembling, assembling, testing and inspecting non-nuclear munitions.

The building they currently work in was constructed in the early 1950s. Adding on to the old age, the building has dealt with a sewage problem, which has caused flooding on
multiple occasions.

In addition to putting up a new building for conventional maintenance, contractors were tasked to create new earth-covered storage igloos. With the old storage igloos, MUNS personnel were required to have waivers to store munitions, such as bullets and explosives, because the storage igloos weren't made to support them. With the new storage igloos, they aren't required to have waivers.

"Once the storage igloos are complete, we (341st MUNS) will have the largest net explosive weight storage capability in Air Force Global Strike Command," said Joe Marez, 341st MUNS conventional munitions systems flight chief.

Along with the construction for conventional maintenance, contractors have been working on the building where nuclear maintenance personnel work.

Nuclear maintenance involves disassembling, assembling, testing, inspecting and limited life component exchange of all re-entry systems and re-entry vehicles.

Last year a MUNS building flooded due to broken fire suppression lines. That project cost nearly $600,000 to complete. Unfortunately, a separate fire suppression line broke again in March and is currently under construction.

All of the construction for MUNS is scheduled to be completed by March 2015.