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AAS3P-22

AAS3P-22 safety and suitability assessment for small calibre ammunition less than 20 mm

Ammunition developers and test houses running S3 assessment testing, and the national or other appropriate S3 approving authority that determines the outcome

AAS3P-22 sets NATO's safety and suitability for service (S3) assessment framework for small calibre ammunition under 20 mm, from design hazard analysis to a national S3 approving authority's determination.

Edition
A
Published
2019-12
Evaluated by
government-surveillance

What it is

AAS3P-22 is the NATO Allied Publication that sets the Safety and Suitability for Service (S3) assessment testing framework for small calibre ammunition less than 20 mm. It exists to guide the people who plan and run that testing, so that appropriate evidence can be collected "covering the entire life cycle" and a national or other appropriate authority can decide whether the ammunition is safe for use throughout its deployment in NATO service.

The calibre boundary is exact and it is what separates AAS3P-22 from the rest of the AAS3P family: the guidance "is not applicable for ammunition used with weapons of 20 mm and above such as cannons, automatic grenade launchers, underslung systems for rifles, and miscellaneous". Below that line, it covers a broad set of ammunition categories - ball, tracer, armour piercing, frangible, incendiary, high explosive, training, shotgun and less-than-lethal - used in weapons from personal defence weapons up to crew-served and vehicle-mounted machine guns.

Who it addresses and what it assumes

AAS3P-22 is written for the ammunition's developing agency (referred to as "the material developer"), the organisation running the tests ("the tester"), and the design authority or manufacturer holding the prior safety and design data. It assumes a mature design: "considerable engineering design and development conducted prior to S3 qualification, and that there is a high expectation of successful safety qualification". The ammunition's energetic materials undergo their own qualification and assessment under STANAG 4170 and AOP-7, and, where a fuze is fitted, AAS3P-22 "assumes that the fuze, if applicable, is already qualified and that no further testing is required", under AOP-20, STANAG 4187 and STANAG 4157. AAS3P-22 explicitly does not cover fuze qualification itself, and it sits under the general procedures in AAS3P-1, whose definitions take precedence except where this AP overrides them.

How the assessment is built

The framework starts with a Preliminary Design Assessment and Hazard Analysis: a review of existing safety, design and prior test data, backed by a Safety Assessment Report the developer submits to the tester before testing starts. From there it runs a representative Life Cycle Environmental Profile, built on NATO's environmental conditions publications, as a hot stream and a cold stream of sequential testing meant to represent storage, transportation and deployment. Alongside that sit non-sequential safety tests (insensitive munitions, a mandatory logistic safety drop, hazard classification, fluid contamination, electromagnetic environmental effects, altitude, underwater explosion shock where the ammunition contains high explosive, corrosion, immersion, parachute resupply and ageing - not all mandatory for every ammunition type), non-sequential firing tests, and a set of additional assessments that are mandatory where applicable: operational and maintenance, health hazards, range safety and sustainability, demilitarisation and disposal, EOD procedures, and software system safety. Ammunition, packaging and ancillary items are inspected at defined points through the trials, up to a full inspection that requires disassembling the round.

Any deviation from the recommended profile, and any tailoring of the test procedures, has to be approved by the relevant national authority before testing starts, and documented with its rationale as part of the S3 assessment report. What an assessor is looking for is not a single pass or fail but that body of evidence: the hazard analysis, the Safety Assessment Report, the inspection records, the tailoring rationale, and the test data itself.

AAS3P-22 is deliberately narrow about what it is not. It "is not intended to be used in the assessment of effectiveness, reliability or performance of ammunition" unless a performance failure would itself be a direct safety hazard, and it does not address the interchangeability testing covered by AEP-97's Multi Calibre Manual of Proof and Inspection.

How you are evaluated

AAS3P-22 names no accredited certification body, notified body or third-party audit scheme, and no supplier or company is certified under it. What it describes is a national determination of the ammunition item's own safety status: the results of the testing and assessments are compiled into an S3 assessment report "for use by the appropriate S3 approving authority in determining the overall S3 for small calibre ammunition". That authority, and the equivalent national authority that approves any deviation or tailoring before testing starts, is a national or other appropriate authority, not an accredited third party.

Standards it references

AAS3P-22 was agreed "under North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Standardization Agreement (STANAG) 4629" and sits alongside AAS3P-1, the general S3 procedures document (outside our catalogue). For fuze safety, it points to AOP-20, STANAG 4187 and STANAG 4157, all explicitly outside its own scope. Its environmental testing is built on the AECTP 100, 230, 240, 250, 300, 400 and 500 series, and its insensitive munitions test on STANAG 4439 and AOP-39. Other referenced publications include STANAG 4170 for energetic materials qualification, AOP-15 for the S3 assessment report format, AEP-97 for the interchangeability testing this AP excludes, STANAG 4123 for hazard classification, STANAG 4518 for demilitarisation and disposal, and AOP-52 for software system safety.

AAS3P-22 is published by NATO and listed free of charge in the NATO Standardization Document Database. NATO's documents are not sold by ComplyTrain and we host no copies of them.

How we help

AAS3P-22 is an operational and technical standard, not a management system: the design, testing and firing work happens on a test range and in an engineering programme, not in software. ComplyTrain helps with the evidence trail around that work - holding the Preliminary Design Assessment and Hazard Analysis, the Safety Assessment Report, the test tailoring rationale and its national authority approval, and the inspection records at each stage, as controlled documents with a clear version history and a record of who approved what and when. That is the kind of evidence an S3 approving authority, or an internal safety review, asks to see when it reviews an S3 assessment report.

ComplyTrain does not run any of the tests this AP describes, assess ammunition safety, or make the S3 determination. That work is done by a qualified test facility and decided by the national or other appropriate S3 approving authority.

Which parts of AAS3P-22 a given ammunition programme actually has to meet, and on what timetable, is set by the contract and the customer's quality clause. See the standards explorer for what sits alongside AAS3P-22, and talk to us about the evidence trail behind it.

Standards it references

Questions

Is ammunition "AAS3P-22 certified"?

No. AAS3P-22 names no certification body and no accreditation scheme. It describes testing and assessment evidence that feeds an S3 assessment report, which a national or other appropriate S3 approving authority reviews to determine the ammunition's overall safety and suitability for service.

What is the difference between AAS3P-22 and AAS3P-21?

AAS3P-22 covers small calibre ammunition below 20 mm. It is explicitly not applicable to ammunition used with weapons of 20 mm and above, which is the boundary that separates it from the rest of the AAS3P series.

Does AAS3P-22 cover fuze safety?

No. AAS3P-22 assumes any fitted fuze is already qualified and points instead to AOP-20, STANAG 4187 and STANAG 4157 for fuze design safety requirements and test requirements.

Is AAS3P-22 mandatory?

AAS3P-22 is agreed by NATO nations under STANAG 4629. Whether it applies to a given ammunition programme, and on what timetable, is set by the contract or national qualification requirement for that programme.

Does AAS3P-22 assess ammunition performance?

No. It states that it is not intended for assessing effectiveness, reliability or performance, unless a performance failure would itself represent a direct safety hazard.