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STANAG 4170
Explosive material developers, manufacturers and National Authorities working to a contract or national requirement that invokes STANAG 4170
STANAG 4170 is NATO's agreement setting the principles and minimum data a National Authority uses to qualify an explosive material as safe and suitable for an intended military role.
STANAG 4170 is the NATO Standardization Agreement setting out the principles and methodology by which a National Authority qualifies an explosive material - a primary, booster or high explosive, a solid gun, solid rocket or liquid propellant, or a pyrotechnic composition - as safe and suitable for consideration in an intended military role. This is Edition 3, promulgated 4 February 2008. Its promulgation letter records that the CNAD Ammunition Safety Group (AC/326) "considers this an editorial edition of the STANAG", so the ratifications and implementation details already recorded against the edition it replaced carried over unchanged.
Most STANAGs are short administrative documents: an aim, an interoperability requirement, and ratification machinery, with the real technical content living in the Allied Publication they cover. STANAG 4170 does more than that. Alongside the agreement itself it carries its own definitions, its own methodology clause, and two mandatory tables setting the categories of data a National Authority needs before it will qualify a material. AOP-7, the Allied Publication it points to, is not where the substance moves to instead; participating nations agree that this STANAG's own data requirements are the minimum, "supported by additional requirements described in AOP-7."
Qualification, in this STANAG's own terms, is the National Authority's assessment of whether an explosive material has properties making it safe and suitable for its intended role. A material that passes is a Qualified Explosive Material, and the document is explicit that this is only "an intermediate risk reduction stage prior to Final (or Type) Qualification" - the separate step, covered instead by STANAG 4297 and AOP-15, of assessing the material as part of a specific munition's design. The two are not the same decision: a material can be Qualified in its own right with no immediate application in view, to sit available to weapon designers later, and Qualification under this STANAG does not by itself imply Final Qualification for any particular munition.
Qualification also attaches to the material, not to the company that makes it. Where the National Authority is satisfied, it issues a formal certificate, in the format shown at Annex B, naming the explosive, its specification, its composition and its qualified role against the National Authority that granted it. There is no scheme here for a company to be certified, and the STANAG describes none.
The methodology clause has a National Authority identify the composition and intended role, the characteristics relevant to that role, how the material behaves in its original state, as used, and after ageing or service degradation, its stability, its compatibility with the ammunition components it will contact, how it behaves when ignited, its sensitivity to external hazards, its mechanical behaviour and performance characteristics, and toxicity and disposal data as far as possible. Two tables set out the categories this data has to cover, at a minimum, for a given intended role, and a further table cross-refers the family of NATO explosive test STANAGs used to generate it, with AOP-7 filling any gap where no test STANAG exists. Once testing is complete, the National Authority, or an organisation it approves, produces a Qualification report comparing the new data against materials with a known, proven satisfactory history in the same role. The STANAG deliberately sets no pass/fail criteria of its own for that comparison, except where a specific test STANAG or AOP-7 states one.
Qualification relates to a defined specification from a particular manufacturer and manufacturing location, using a particular process. A change to the specification, the source of raw materials, the manufacturing process, the manufacturer or manufacturing location, or a loss of manufacturing know-how, means the original judgement cannot be assumed still valid, and requalification, or partial requalification, may follow. An explosive material already in service, with a history of satisfactory application and an unchanged specification, may be treated as Qualified for the same role without further testing; it is a genuinely new composition, or a change to an existing one, that puts an organisation back in front of this process.
STANAG 4170 binds a nation once it has been ratified, recorded in the NATO Standardization Document Database. Implementation is a further, separate step: the STANAG "is implemented when a nation has issued the necessary national instructions/orders that new, modified, and in-service explosive materials shall be assessed" against these principles. For a supplier or a manufacturer, it reaches them through whatever national procurement route, contract or tender invokes that national instruction, not by existing on its own.
The work STANAG 4170 describes is technical assessment: a National Authority reviewing test data against a material's specification, not something a compliance platform performs. What ComplyTrain supports is the record-keeping around that process. That means holding the specification, manufacturer and manufacturing-process baseline a Qualification depends on under change control, so a change that should trigger requalification is not the one that gets missed. It means keeping the data set a National Authority asks for organised and evidenced ahead of a submission, rather than assembled under pressure once a tender lands. And it means recording the procedures, training and internal reviews that back up a company's part in a Qualification submission or an in-service problem review.
ComplyTrain does not test, characterise or handle explosive material, does not generate Qualification data, and cannot issue, hold or claim a Qualification on a company's behalf. That decision, and the certificate that follows it, stay with the National Authority and the material it was granted to.
Which explosive and ammunition standards actually apply to a given programme, and at what tier, is set by the contract and the customer's quality clause. Browse the standards explorer to see what sits alongside STANAG 4170, and talk to us about the evidence trail once you know which ones are in your contract.
Tell us how you need to work with STANAG 4170 and what you need from it. We will come back to you about what ComplyTrain can do.
Thank you. Your list is on its way to your inbox, and we will come back to you on what working with these standards in ComplyTrain involves, usually within one business day.
Only where a nation has ratified and implemented it, and it reaches a supplier only where a contract or a national requirement invokes it. The STANAG itself binds nations; a company meets it because a customer's quality clause says so, not because the STANAG exists.
No. Qualification under STANAG 4170 is granted to an explosive material by a National Authority, and the certificate at Annex B names the material, its specification and its qualified role, not a company. There is no scheme here for an organisation to hold a certification.
Qualification under STANAG 4170 assesses whether a material is safe and suitable for an intended role, on its own or ahead of any specific application. Final, or Type, Qualification is a separate, later step that assesses the material as part of a specific munition's design, and is covered by STANAG 4297 and AOP-15, not by this STANAG.
STANAG 4170 sets the categories of data a National Authority requires and cross-refers the family of NATO explosive test STANAGs used to generate it; the test procedures themselves sit in those STANAGs and in AOP-7. The document sets no pass/fail criteria of its own, except where a specific test STANAG or AOP-7 states one.
Not if nothing about it has changed. Where the specification is unchanged and there is a history of satisfactory application, the National Authority may consider the material Qualified for the same role without further testing. A change to the specification, raw materials, manufacturing process, manufacturer or manufacturing location is what puts it back in front of the assessment.
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