U.S. Army photo by Eric Kowal, Picatinny Arsenal (DVIDS, public domain). A new artillery load, assemble and pack facility inaugurated in Kansas in April 2026, illustrative of the munitions industrial base now overseen by PAE AS&A.

US Army Activates PAE AS&A: One Command for Ammunition, Energetics and Sustainment

Technical Summary

The United States Army has stood up a single portfolio command over conventional ammunition, energetics and combat logistics. The Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Agile Sustainment and Ammunition, abbreviated PAE AS&A, was activated at Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey, on 20 January 2026 during a casing of colours ceremony at the Lindner Conference Center. The Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, the Honourable Brent G. Ingraham, presided. The activation formally closed the Joint Program Executive Office for Armaments and Ammunition, known as JPEO A&A.

PAE AS&A is one of six Portfolio Acquisition Executives (PAEs) created by consolidating roughly a dozen former Program Executive Offices (PEOs). The other five cover Fires; Maneuver Ground; Maneuver Air; Command and Control and Counter Command and Control; and Layered Protection and Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defence (CBRND). Beneath each PAE, former PEOs become Capability Program Executives (CPEs). The stated purpose is to flatten the acquisition chain, give one accountable leader authority over cost, schedule and performance, and align acquisition with the emerging Army Warfighting Concept. The logic is simple. Fewer layers, faster decisions.

This restructure achieves unity of command by establishing and empowering PAE AS&A with the full authority to direct research and development, prototyping, testing, production, and sustainment. Maj. Gen. John T. Reim, first Portfolio Acquisition Executive, Agile Sustainment and Ammunition

Structure and Leadership

The founding Portfolio Acquisition Executive was Major General John T. Reim, who was also Commanding General of Picatinny Arsenal. That leadership has since turned over. The Army marked his retirement with a ceremony in late May 2026 and announced it on 2 June 2026, closing a 36-year career. A permanent successor as portfolio executive had not been publicly confirmed as of 1 July 2026. The apex seat is now open. Major General Sean Davis serves as Deputy Portfolio Acquisition Executive, folding in the sustainment expertise of the Army Combined Arms Support Command (CASCOM). Chris J. Grassano, Director of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM) Armaments Center, serves as System Center Lead, an enabling role that coordinates technology development across the DEVCOM centres.

Two Capability Program Executives sit under PAE AS&A. The former JPEO A&A realigned into the Capability Program Executive for Ammunition and Energetics (CPE A&E), led by Colonel Jason Bohannon and activated at Picatinny on 12 February 2026. It retains JPEO A&A's four project offices: Combat Ammunition Systems, Close Combat Systems, Maneuver Ammunition Systems and Joint Services. It also keeps full life-cycle acquisition management of all conventional ammunition families. Separately, the former Program Executive Office Combat Support and Combat Service Support (PEO CS&CSS) became the Capability Program Executive for Combat Logistics (CPE CL), stood up under Brigadier General Camilla White at Detroit Arsenal, Michigan. The Army describes it as spanning more than 200 programmes across transportation, ordnance, quartermaster, engineer and training equipment. In June 2026 leadership passed from Brigadier General White to Michelle Link, and later Army reporting refers to the organisation as the Capability Program Executive for Combat Sustainment.

Analysis of Effects

For the ammunition enterprise, the practical change is authority, not mission. CPE A&E still manages the same portfolio it held as JPEO A&A, from direct and indirect fire natures through close combat systems, explosives and pyrotechnics. The mission is unchanged. What moves is decision weight. A single portfolio executive now directs requirements, technology maturation, testing, contracting, production, fielding, sustainment and foreign military sales for the whole capability area. Colonel Bohannon set a delivery target of 30 percent faster while retaining the safety rigour that ammunition demands. Reporting on the wider reform has cited acceleration goals in the range of 30 to 50 percent across the six portfolios.

The reform lands alongside money. The Army says it is investing about 1.1 billion US dollars per year to overhaul depots, arsenals and ammunition plants that produce and sustain equipment. That organic industrial base spans energetics producers such as Holston Army Ammunition Plant and small calibre lines such as Lake City Army Ammunition Plant. That figure matters. The binding constraint on Western artillery output over the last three years has been the organic industrial base rather than design, because plants, presses and load-assemble-pack lines take years to build while a validated round design does not. Reim's tenure at Picatinny was defined by scaling 155mm artillery round production and by standing up a new 6.8mm production facility supporting the Next Generation Squad Weapon (NGSW) programme. Placing energetics, load-assemble-pack capacity and sustainment under one accountable owner is intended to shorten the path from a validated requirement to rounds on a pallet.

Personnel and Safety Considerations

Ammunition acquisition carries risk that faster contracting must not erode. Bohannon was explicit that speed will be achieved by identifying and managing risk, not by relaxing the rules that protect soldiers and allied users. For Weapons, Ordnance, Munitions and Explosives (WOME) practitioners, the salient point is that safety case ownership, qualification of energetic materials, and hazard classification obligations remain with the technical authorities inside CPE A&E and the DEVCOM Armaments Center. Insensitive munitions assessment under Allied Ordnance Publication 39 (AOP-39), United Nations hazard classification testing, and stockpile surveillance sit with those same technical authorities. Consolidation changes who signs the acquisition decision. It does not change the physics of insensitive munitions qualification, transport classification, or the surveillance of stockpiled natures. Chemistry is indifferent to org charts. Industry partners are promised clearer points of entry and fewer bureaucratic hurdles, which should help smaller energetics and components suppliers, but the qualification burden for anything touching an explosive train is unchanged.

Data Gaps

Several figures circulating in industry briefings could not be confirmed against primary Army sources at the time of writing and are treated here as unverified: a precise programme count for CPE A&E, and a specific programme total for CPE CL beyond the Army's own phrasing of more than 200. The identity of Major General Reim's permanent successor as Portfolio Acquisition Executive had not been publicly confirmed as of 1 July 2026. The June 2026 change of leadership at the combat logistics CPE, and the shift in its reported name to Capability Program Executive for Combat Sustainment, rests on Army Acquisition reporting and the standing Army Acquisition Support Center roster rather than a single dated primary release. The exact split of the 1.1 billion US dollar annual industrial base figure between depots, arsenals and ammunition plants was not itemised in the sources reviewed. Named authorship of the underlying reform directive is described in Army releases as originating from the Secretary of War and the administration rather than attributed in detail.

Corrections & updates welcome. If you hold open-source data that refines or corrects any parameter in this article, please contact [email protected] citing the specific claim and your source. Verified corrections will be incorporated and credited in the revision history. AI-assisted technical assessment based on open-source material. Not a formal intelligence product.