Midwest Weapons Report, #2, excerpts 

 Note: Christopher Overfelt, a member of the PeaceWorks Board, is writing the Midwest Weapons Report. For the full second issue, produced in January 2025, or for both the first and second issues, email midwestweaponsreport@proton.me. The email format may clip the issue halfway through, and you may need to click “view entire message” at the bottom. The issue discusses the MK-80 bomb series, the Joint Direct Attack Munition guidance kits, and the Small Diameter Bomb.

An Analysis of Production

• The MK-80 bomb series, manufactured by General Dynamics Ordinance and Tactical Systems at its munitions plant in Garland, Texas, is the single most important weapons system used by the American Empire to commit genocide. Its ease of manufacture, cheap production cost, and mass lethality rate make it the primary choice of the American Empire for destroying civilian infrastructure, committing mass slaughter, and effecting mass displacement. This has been clearly illustrated in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria over the past year, where the number of MK-80 bombs dropped by the American Empire is in the tens of thousands. Between the dates of Oct. 7 to Nov. 17, 2023, alone, the American Empire dropped over 600 MK-84 bombs on Gaza. The MK-84 is the heaviest and deadliest of the MK-80 bomb series, and documentation shows that many of the bombs resulted in civilian casualty rates of over fifty to one hundred deaths each.
• The MK-80 bomb series has been produced in its current form since the 1940’s. It has a very basic explosive filled pipe design with a simple fuse. Because of its simple design and ease of manufacture, it is used by the American Empire for almost exclusively terroristic purposes. The rudimentary design of the bomb requires the combat aircraft carrying it to fly very close to its target, rendering the MK-80 bomb series obsolete by modern air defenses. The result is that the MK-80 bomb series is used exclusively against defenseless civilian populations who lack a modern military to defend them. The MK-80 bomb series is used to murder as many members of a population as possible, as cheaply and efficiently as possible. There is no other purpose for these bombs. They are terroristic by their very nature, used to coerce defenseless civilian populations into serving the interests of American Empire. As more and more communities across the global south seek to shed the yoke of American Empire, the MK-80 bomb series will be used in ever greater numbers to effect mass slaughter.

The primary purchaser of the MK-80 bomb series is the U.S. Department of Defense, through its Army Ammunition Procurement program. The program of Army Ammunition Procurement was granted a spending authority of $17 billion in fiscal year 2024. All contracts awarded through the Department of Defense can be viewed at https://www.usaspending.gov/.  The specific contract awarded to General Dynamics Ordinance and Tactical Systems (FD-OTS) for the MK-80 bomb series can be viewed at https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_IDV_W52P1J19D0015_9700. …

• The GD-OTS plant where the individual components of the MK-80 bomb series are initially gathered together and assembled is in the northern suburbs of Dallas at 1200 N Glenwood Dr in Garland, Texas. The plant sits squarely in the middle of a suburban neighborhood, immediately across the street from Garland High School’s football and baseball fields. The raw materials that are used to forge the casings of the MK-80 bomb series (iron and aluminum alloys) and the internal components are sourced from the companies listed above and then shipped to the Garland, Texas plant. The shipments arrive by truck at the loading docks on the north side of the plant on Travis street. The components are carried by private commercial contractors in semi-trucks. The plant’s loading docks on Travis street have been the location of multiple protests in 2024, organized by the Palestinian Youth Movement and Texas for Palestine. On March 7, 2024, 23 people were arrested while blocking the entrance to the loading docks of the plant on Travis street. The trucks bringing shipments into the plant were delayed several hours while the protesters were arrested. You can read a local news article on the action here: https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/gaza-war-protesters-arrested-outside-garland-munitions-facility/287-dce4a01b-5318-4b00-9536-cb556cab6e43
• The protests at the plant are ongoing and can be followed on facebook and Instagram at:  https://www.instagram.com/explore/locations/125475456/general-dynamics-ordnance-and-tactical-systems/       
• and https://www.facebook.com/pages/General-Dynamics-Ordnance-and-Tactical-Systems/161004987261360
• After the initial forging and assembly of the bomb casings are completed at the Garland, Texas plant, they are then shipped to the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant (MCAAP) at 1C Tree Rd in McAlester, Oklahoma, for final assembly. MCAAP is located in Pittsburg County, Oklahoma 8.4 miles south of McAlester on US highway 69 South. The Indian Nation Turnpike also serves the area and Interstate 40 is only 40 miles to the north. Located 85 miles south of Tulsa and 120 miles southeast of Oklahoma City, McAlester is within easy driving distance to major metropolitan areas. MCAAP is the single largest ammunition depot in the United States. It serves as an assembly, storage and shipping site for dozens of different weapons platforms and works in conjunction with several different weapons manufacturers including General Dynamics and Raytheon. MCAAP not only serves as the final assembly site for these weapons platforms but it also directly facilitates the weapons sales and contracts that exist between private weapons manufacturers and foreign countries.
• At the MCAAP facility, the raw bomb bodies that are produced at the GD-OTS site in Garland, Texas are packed and filled with explosives to the specifications requested by the purchasing organization. The MK-80 bomb series come in different sizes, for example a 500 lb bomb, a 1,000 lb bomb, and a 2,000 lb bomb. The type of explosive can also differ between bombs depending on desired effect, and a thicker outer shell and nose cone can be used for penetrator bombs.  
• The different sizes, attachments, and packing contents of the MK-80 bomb series all come with different model designations, for example the MK-84, BLU-109, etc., however they are all produced from the same basic bomb bodies produced in Garland, Texas. To date, there have been no significant protests at the MCAAP facility in McAlester, Oklahoma. The specific mechanisms with which these completed bombs are shipped out of MCAAP, as well the bureaucratic means by which it is decided who gets to buy and use these weapons, as well as with whose money, will be explored in future editions of the Midwest Weapons Report.
• The MK-80 bomb series produced jointly by GDOTS and MCAAP can be modified with the Joint Direct Attack Munition or JDAM guidance kits produced by The Boeing Corporation. Not all of the MK-80 bombs are fitted with guidance kits, as the JDAM system adds significantly to the cost of the basic bomb design. It is estimated that the American Empire has conducted over 30,000 airstrikes on Gaza in the past year, and it is estimated that forty percent of those strikes consisted of unguided “dumb” bombs, or the basic MK-80 series bomb. The remaining sixty percent of the airstrikes incorporated some kind of guidance systems for the bombs, including the Boeing produced JDAM kits.
• JDAM-equipped bombs are guided by an integrated inertial guidance system coupled to a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver, giving them a published range of up to 15 nautical miles (28 km). When installed on a bomb, the JDAM kit is given a GBU (Guided Bomb Unit) nomenclature, superseding the MK-80 or BLU (Bomb, Live Unit) nomenclature of the bomb to which it is attached. The key components of the system consist of a tail section with aerodynamic control surfaces, a (body) strake kit, and a combined inertial guidance system and GPS guidance control unit. Individual service members of the various militaries who buy JDAM kits from Boeing are trained and instructed on how to attach the JDAM kits to the individual MK-80 series bombs. They are sold separately from the bomb bodies themselves and are attached by the purchaser at the purchaser’s location, wherever that might be (usually various military installations around the world).

The DOD contract under which Boeing produces the JDAM kits can be viewed at https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_FA821323F1001_9700_FA821315D0002_9700. …

• The company and address to which the US government contract for the JDAM production is given is The Boeing Company at 6200 JS McDonnell Blvd, St. Louis Mo. This address corresponds to an office building in the St. Louis suburb of Berkeley, adjacent to Lambert International Airport. The Boeing Company has many different manufacturing facilities in the area of Lambert International Airport and its adjacent suburbs. Boeing Defense, Space and Security is a division of The Boeing Company and it is this division that oversees the production and manufacture of the JDAM weapons platform. The facility where the JDAM manufacture takes place is Boeing Building 598, which is part of a separate manufacturing site in the St. Louis suburb of St. Charles, Mo. This site consists of several large manufacturing hangars, storage facilities for weapons and hazardous materials, as well as several waste water lagoons. It sits right on the Missouri River, about 12 miles west of Lambert International Airport. The address for Boeing Building 598 is 2980 Mo-94 hwy, St Charles, Mo 63301.
• The Boeing Company does not offer many specifics on the Building 598 site. The only reference it mentions is a short blurb on its website which states, “More than 500,000 Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance kits have been built at Boeing’s award-winning, modern production facility in St. Charles, Mo.” In 2017, The Boeing Company gave a tour to reporters of Building 598. Jeffrey Meywes, the production manager of Building 598 at the time, referenced the production of the Small Diameter Bomb, a different weapons platform which is also produced at Building 598, and the JDAM kits. He told reporters “we often get bomb damage assessment within 48 hours.” Meaning that within 48 hours, the Small Diameter Bombs and JDAMS are trucked to the airport, flown nine time zones to the Middle East, unloaded, assembled, taken to the flight line, mounted on a combat jet, programmed, flown to the target area, and released, after which the pilot returns and debriefs the mission, and the USAF forwards to the company an assessment of how well the bomb worked (as reported in Air and Space Magazine, 2017).
• Building 598 has been the site of many protests in 2023 and 2024. Protests have been organized by We Are Dissenters, St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee, Black Men Build St. Louis, the Boeing Arms Genocide campaign and Resist St. Louis. On Nov 6, 2023, protesters succeeded in blockading the gate to the loading docks of the St. Charles facility and Building 598, and temporarily shut down shipments for the day. Organizing groups can be contacted at wearedissenters.org, stlpsc.org,  https://www.facebook.com/blackmenbuildstl/, and https://www.facebook.com/resistSTL/.

As mentioned above, the Small Diameter Bomb weapons platform is also produced by Boeing at Building 598 in St. Charles, Mo. The Small Diameter Bomb, designated the GBU-39 in military nomenclature, is a 250-pound bomb that is manufactured with a GPS guidance system incorporated into its casing. The American empire has used this bomb extensively in the Gaza genocide. In October of 2023, Boeing expedited a delivery of over 1,000 Small Diameter Bombs to Israel. The DOD contract issued to The Boeing Company for the manufacture of the Small Diameter Bombs can be viewed at https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_IDV_FA867220D0001_9700  …