DLA-NDS Depots

[Gelrir]

A resource the Project, especially a "classic-era" Project, should track: the Defense Logistic Agency - National Defense Stockpile depots.

For example: in the late 80s, the fluorspar stockpile stood at a million tons of acid-grade fluorspar, and 374,000 tons of metallurgical-grade fluorspar. One major DLA-NDSC depot for fluorspar (and other materials) was near Gallup, NM; it held about 39,000 tons of fluorspar, 206,000 tons of manganese, and 4,000 tons of mercury. Most of the depots are listed below, with some of their contents for a classic campaign:

• Baton Rouge Depot, Baton Rouge, Louisiana (tin)
• Binghamton Depot, Binghamton, New York (210 metric tons of mercury in 6100 flasks)
• Clearfield Depot, Clearfield, Utah (on part of what was once Clearfield Naval Supply Depot, adjacent to Hill AFB)
• Curtis Bay Depot, Curtis Bay, Maryland (at the Curtis Bay USCG Yard; manganese)
• Gadsden Depot, Gadsden, Alabama (manganese metal; tin)
• Gallup Depot, Gallup, New Mexico (formerly Fort Wingate Army Depot; fluorspar, manganese, mercury)
• Hammond Depot, Hammond, Indiana (low and high carbon FeCr, tungsten metal powder, tungsten O&C; pig iron; tin)
• New Haven Depot, New Haven, Indiana
• Point Pleasant Depot, Point Pleasant, West Virginia (a former ammunition plant and major Superfund site -- ferromanganese ore, tin)
• Scotia Depot, Scotia, New York (low carbon FeCr, electrolytic chromium metal, talc, tungsten O&C, zinc)
• Somerville Depot, Somerville, New Jersey (chrome ore, lead, tin, copper, zinc, nickel, graphite, rubber, antimony, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, copper, cobalt, iodine, mica, quartz, rubber, tannin, titanium sponge, tungsten, ferrochrome, columbium carb, ferrocolumbium, ferrotungsten, talc, tantalum, asbestos and 2615 metric tons of mercury in 75,980 flasks)
• Stockton Depot, Stockton, California (tin)
• Voorheesville Depot, Voorheesville, New York (formerly part of the Schenectady Army Depot)
• Warren Depot, Warren, Ohio (aluminothermic and electrolytic chromium metal, low and high carbon FeCr, ferromanganese, talc, tungsten metal powder, tungsten O&C; lead, tin, copper, zinc, nickel, graphite, rubber, and 563 metric tons of mercury in 16,355 flasks)
• Wenden Depot, Wenden, Arizona (manganese ore)

Starting in 1990, the Defense Department began slowly selling off the contents of these depots. There is still a fair amount of stuff in four or five of the depots currently (2013), but it's only a fraction of what once was.

Storage conditions depend on the material: some items are stored in the open in big piles; some are in bank-type vaults. Items like platinum, diamonds, etc. tended to be in vaults, of course.

And of course some of these depots are adjacent to possible nuclear targets. For example, on Robert O'Connor's excellent target list, Fort Wingate Army Depot is struck by two MIRV warheads from an SS-18 missile (each ~600 kilotons yield) as surface blasts, plus one SS-N-20 airburst (100 kilotons). A couple hundred thousand tons of manganese isn't gonna all be destroyed, but it may end up scattered around a bit.

In our current campaign, this came up when the players wondered about how to make sulfuric acid more efficiently than the lead chamber process ... they were hoping to find a supply of vanadium oxides to use as a catalyst.

--
Michael B.