While headlines focus on military modernization, a section of the Big Beautiful Bill allocates billions to ammunition production. It's only the latest sign that defense officials have woken up to the crisis in ammunition production and are pouring money into production lines to close the gap between what's needed and what is currently available.
It's a readiness problem that was made worse in some respects by our massive support of ammunition to Ukraine in the early days of the war and to Israel. The U.S. was the only NATO nation with the stocks on hand to help Ukraine withstand the initial blows from Russia.
The crisis, however, preceded Ukraine and has been part of a planned "managed decline" of military stocks that began in the early 2000s.
Now, with China becoming more aggressive and North Korea a wild card, replenishing ammunition stocks, especially of 155mm shells, becomes a critical necessity.
In congressional testimony, Army officials told Congress that they’ve “invested $4.9 billion to build new [munitions] production lines and add new capacity and resiliency to our supply chains across the country.” Also, the army is “expanding and modernizing existing facilities to increase speed, flexibility, and capacity.”
The end-goal is to create “21st-century production capabilities that can generate the ammunition stockpiles necessary to sustain our national defense” during a long war.
The Army reached its goal of quadrupling the production of 155mm shells this month by moving shell production to four separate sites. A new, fully automated 155mm artillery shell production factory called UNION Technologies opened in Texas a few weeks ago, and another new load, assembly, and pack factory opened in Arkansas last April.
In Indiana, a new explosive railcar holding yard is under construction, the first in decades.
Another deficiency related to the ammunition crisis is the lack of facilities and upgrades for munitions production. The U.S. has also failed to manufacture "abundant or novel energetics to power these explosives," writes Mackenzie Eaglen of the American Enterprise Institute.
America last produced Trinitrotoluene (TNT) in the United States in 1986. After scrambling for new sources of foreign supply beyond Poland as the Ukraine war dragged on, the Army is at last set to “reacquire an in-country production capability for high explosive material” at a new site in Kentucky.
This follows recent approval of environmental permits to allow the Pentagon to reopen a mine in Idaho to make precursor material in all of our conventional ammunition using DPA Title III investment funds.
Also, thanks to recent new funding, the Radford Army ammunition plant is integrating advanced chemical processing capabilities into its manufacturing lines. This is the sole nitrocellulose and propellant manufacturing site in the US, built in, you guessed it: 1941.
Meanwhile, up at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, Army officials are helping produce “promising technologies such as next generation explosive fills, advanced initiation systems, and improved processing techniques that increase range survivability and lethality.” Key research and development programs are “applying emerging technologies from AI and robotics to additive manufacturing to unlock energy-driven weapon system performance.”
Army leaders told Congress, it’s “better to buy now and use later than wait for a crisis and rely on intermittent investments to surge production and capability” for munitions rapidly. The Pentagon has created a "Munitions War Room," which is working to “expedite the qualification, scale up, facilitization, and adoption of new technology for energetics components and long lead time items.”
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act recently allocated an additional $25.3 billion for munitions, missiles, counter-drone, and supply chain investments. As necessary, the bill establishes three munitions reserve programs to expand capacity. Specifically, the bill allocates $1 billion for the expansion and acceleration of qualification activities and technical data management to enhance competition in the defense industrial base, and an additional $500 million for the expansion of defense advanced manufacturing techniques in munitions.
Along the lines of our Civil Reserve Air Fleet model, Congress is seeking to establish what is essentially a manufacturing-ready reserve for munitions. This voluntary program partners Uncle Sam with private industry to agree ahead of time to provide resources in an emergency. In return, companies are given preferential treatment in moving troops and cargo during peacetime.
A military is only as powerful as the perception of it among its enemies. Maintaining adequate stocks of munitions that solidify our war-fighting capability is part of our overall deterrence strategy.
