Capability Program Executive Ammunition and Energetics (CPE A&E)
CPE A&E is the Department of War’s Single Manager for Conventional Ammunition. It buys every conventional round the joint force fires, from 5.56mm to 155mm, plus mines, demolitions, and the propellants and explosives behind them. It is the former Joint Program Executive Office Armaments and Ammunition, activated under its new name at Picatinny_Arsenal on 12 February 2026.
| Type | Capability Program Executive (CPE); joint Single Manager for Conventional Ammunition |
| Headquarters | Picatinny_Arsenal, NJ |
| Capability Program Executive | Jason_Bohannon (COL) |
| Subordinate to | PAE_Agile_Sustainment_Ammo (also at Picatinny_Arsenal), led by Christopher_Schneider (MG); ASAALT for acquisition authority |
| Established | Activated 12 February 2026, from JPEO_Armaments_and_Ammunition |
| Structure | Four project offices |
Mission
Development, procurement, and fielding of lethal armaments and ammunition for joint warfighters and allied partners. That means integrating budgets, acquisition strategies, research and development, and life-cycle management across every ammunition family. It also means owning the munitions industrial base: modernizing plants, strengthening supply chain resilience, and moving capability from concept to production at scale.
As Single Manager for Conventional Ammunition, CPE A&E buys conventional ammunition for the Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force as well as the Army. That statutory role, not the Army’s own demand, is what makes this office joint.
No Title 10 section establishes this office by name. Army capability program executives are designated by the Army Acquisition Executive, the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology at 10 U.S.C. § 7016(b)(5)(A), acting under the Secretary of the Army’s authority to organize the Department of the Army at 10 U.S.C. § 7013(b)(2), and the portfolio acquisition executive role such an office performs is defined at 10 U.S.C. § 1732, added by Pub. L. 119-60 in December 2025, as explained at Title_10_Structure.
Subordinate Organizations
- PM_Maneuver_Ammunition_Systems (PM MAS) — PdM Small Caliber, PdM Medium Caliber, PdM Large Caliber, and PD Special Ammunition and Weapons Systems
- PM_Combat_Ammunition_Systems (PM CAS) — Precision Attack Cannon Munitions, Precision Fires and Mortars, Conventional Ammunition
- PM_Close_Combat_Systems (PM CCS) — PdM Terrain Shaping Obstacles, PdD Combat Armaments and Protection Systems, PdD Demolitions and Countermeasures, PdD Demilitarization, PL Joint Ammunition and Weapon Systems
- PL_Joint_Services — the SMCA function, the Joint_Ordnance_Commanders_Group, and industrial base management
The government-owned ammunition plants (Lake City, Iowa, Radford, Holston, Scranton, McAlester and others) are operated by contractors under Joint_Munitions_Command within AMC, with modernization capital programmed through this portfolio. The Army broke ground on new ammunition production capacity at Iowa Army Ammunition Plant in July 2026.
Program Element families
- 0604802A Weapons and Munitions Engineering Development and 0607131A Weapons and Munitions Product Improvement
- 0603639A Tank and Medium Caliber Ammunition
- 0604601A Infantry Support Weapons (shared with CPE_Ground)
- 0605805A Munitions Standardization, Effectiveness and Safety
- 0708045A End Item Industrial Preparedness Operations, the industrial base line
- 0602141A and 0603116A Lethality Technology
- 0605244A Joint Reduced Range Rocket
- 0603619A and 0604808A Landmine Warfare and Barrier
Production money runs through Procurement of Ammunition, Army, a dedicated appropriation. See Program Elements and Appropriations.
Why it matters
Munitions capacity is the most politically salient industrial base problem in defense right now. Ukraine, Israel, and Indo-Pacific stockpile planning turned 155mm, solid rocket motors, and energetics into congressional-interest items with multiyear procurement authority and plant expansion money attached. This office holds that money.
Energetics is a genuine chokepoint with room for new entrants. Nitrocellulose, TNT, IMX, propellants, and solid rocket motor capacity are constrained. The Army has been explicitly courting new suppliers and new production methods, including continuous flow chemistry and additive approaches.
Small caliber is being transformed. The office described a major transformation of the small-caliber industrial base as one of the Army’s highest modernization priorities, tied to the NGSW transition and to Lake City capacity.
The buyers are not just Army. The SMCA role means a conventional ammunition supplier selling here reaches all services. That is unusual leverage for a single business development relationship.
Contracting runs through Army_Contracting_Command-New Jersey at Picatinny, plus the Senior Contracting Official embedded at PAE_Agile_Sustainment_Ammo. Picatinny also hosts DEVCOM_Armaments_Center, which is where technology maturation happens before a program office picks it up.
See Also
- PAE_Agile_Sustainment_Ammo — parent portfolio
- CPE_Combat_Logistics — sister CPE under the same PAE
- CPE_Offensive_Fires — took the fires-related armaments programs in the reform
- CPE_Ground — the weapons that fire this ammunition
- AMC and Joint_Munitions_Command — plant operations and stockpile management
- Single_Manager_for_Conventional_Ammunition, Defense_Industrial_Base
- ASAALT, T2COM, Program Elements, Appropriations