The U.S. Army has nearly tripled its production of 155mm howitzer shells since the Ukraine war began, millions of which have been sent to that country\u2019s front lines. It\u2019s going to miss its\u00a0 goal of making 100,000 per month by October, but likely by just a few months.<\/p>\n
The service\u2019s current monthly output stands at 40,000, up from 14,500 when Russia launched its full-scale invasion more than three years ago, according to data provided by the Army. The original plan called for making about twice as many by now.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeveral of the investments that we made are just coming online now, a little later than we had hoped, but these were big bets, and we were given the mission to go fast,\u201d Maj. Gen. John Reim, head of the Joint Armaments and Ammunition Program Executive Office, told Defense One.<\/em>\u00a0\u201cWe put multiple bets down, and realized some risk\u2026but we will continue to work through that.\u201d<\/p>\n In February 2024, the Army\u00a0announced that it aimed to produce 60,000 shells per month by October, 75,000 in April 2025, and 100,000 by October 2025<\/p>\n So far the service has funneled nearly $5 billion into the project, mostly through supplemental funding, upgrading existing plants as well as opening new ones. Reim himself has attended seven ribbon-cuttings and groundbreakings.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know, I tell folks all the time that we’re literally making history, and that we’ve not seen this level of investment in our industrial base since World War II,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The investment could be a model for the other services, like the Navy, whose leaders and\u00a0advocates in Congress\u00a0have said time and again\u00a0desperately needs investment\u00a0in its shipbuilding industrial base.<\/p>\n Making a plan<\/strong><\/p>\n Most of the Army\u2019s ammunition manufacturing facilities opened during World War II, Reim said. Service leaders made only minimal upgrades to those plants in the decades that followed, a policy that accepted a certain amount of risk, he said.<\/p>\n A new ground war in Europe, and a would-be ally\u2019s desperate cries for\u00a0anti-tank rounds, forced their hand.<\/p>\n So in 2022, the service submitted the\u00a0Army Ammunition Plant Modernization Plan. It laid out broad goals like increasing automation and producing more materials in the United States, as well as specific projects, like opening up a facility to produce nitrocellulose \u2013 an ingredient in all ammunition propellants \u2013 at Radford Army Ammunition Plant in Virginia.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the same time, the Ukraine war started to get hot and heavy, and we were given the edict that\u2019s like, \u2018hurry up and go fast\u2019,\u201d Reim said.<\/p>\n That included surging production at existing facilities such as the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant.<\/p>\n \u201cThey quickly went from a single shift to three shifts, largely running almost 24\/7,\u201d Reim said.<\/p>\n A\u00a0new facility\u00a0then opened in Mesquite, Texas, with the capacity to crank out 30,000 rounds a month, followed by\u00a0another\u00a0in Canada, which is just coming online at a rate of 10,000 a month, he said.<\/p>\n The latest,\u00a0opening in April\u00a0in Camden, Arkansas, will crank out another 50,000 per month. Another in Parsons, Kansas, should open later this summer, Reim said, with an estimated rate of 12,000 per month.<\/p>\n Once those are at full production, likely early next year, the Army will surpass that 100,000 rounds-per-month goal.<\/p>\n At the same time, the effort has pushed the Army to re-open old production lines.<\/p>\n The U.S. hasn\u2019t manufactured its own TNT since 1986. Instead, Reim said, the Army had been buying it from Ukraine and Russia, which of course are no longer options. The service has since found vendors in South America, Australia and Asia, and has secured funding for\u00a0new TNT facilities.<\/p>\n \u201cWe’ve learned a lot of lessons from our Ukraine experience, and we’re just so fortunate that we’re learning that now, and not with our blood and treasure on the line,\u201d Reim said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The U.S. Army has nearly tripled its production of 155mm howitzer shells since the Ukraine war began, millions of which have been sent to that country\u2019s front lines. It\u2019s going […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2802,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[463,77],"class_list":["post-2271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-army","tag-artillery","tag-us-army"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/amunition.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2271"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2803,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2271\/revisions\/2803"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}