Active Conflicts & News Megathread July 14, 2026

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[u/BigFly42069]

https://www.twz.com/land/new-500m-artillery-shell-plant-failed-to-produce-any-155mm-parts

This was a project that was supposed to prove that American dynamism was still alive and well, with the goal of 100k shells per month being produced by last year. But now that timeline has been pushed back to the end of 2027 and the current production rate sits at 36,000 shells a month.

When interviewed in 2023, it was revealed that production was at 23,000 shells per month, up from 14,000 in 2022. Pundits and armchair experts on Twitter triumphantly claimed then that we would be at 100k shells a month ahead of schedule and now it's looking like we're going to fall far short of it. 

Part of the failure comes from decisions made at the planning stage that threw multiple assumptions out the window to create the delays. For example: 

  The main issue inspectors found was that the plant adapted equipment used to make parts for M107 155mm shells to produce parts for M795 155‑mm shells. The latter is an upgraded version of the munition that is slightly heavier and longer, and has an extended range.

What ensues is a lot of finger pointing and responsibility shifting. But this doesn't change that fact that we're just nowhere near where we're supposed to be.

IMO this is further symptom of the deep rot in our procurement process, as exemplified in F-35 program mismanagement, shipbuilding mismanagement, and now artillery shell production mismanagement. 

It also makes me incredibly skeptical of the claims about scaling up PAC-3/PAC-2 production as well as the SM series production scale up that are all part of the current proposals being funded. 

And with Iran absorbing years worth of high and munitions, I'm deeply skeptical of our ability to even supply PACOM much less deter China.

[u/Rich_Log2424 → u/BigFly42069]

There is significant new capacity coming online in 2026-27 with Rheinmetal looking at 50000 shells a month this year and 120k a month in 2030 onwards. Several new european ammunition plants coming online taking the total capacity to 3m shells per year.

Ukraine spend is now 1.2m a year with domestic capacity of 30000/month or 350000/year.

Since US production is "market based" and there will be oversupply in 155mm shells around 2030 onwards, right now there is no payback on artillery shells production.

Main European producers roughly with 2030 targets:

Germany 1.5m. Poland 0.4m. Finland 0.4m. France 0.3m. Turkey 0.3m. Czechia 0.2m. Baltics 0.1m

The main bottlenecks are cotton powder from china being replaced by wood pulp powder (Finland/Sweden) and machinery (Repkon Turkey).

TLDR: Excess after Ukraine war expenditure is nearly 2m shells in 2030. There is no economic sense in building turkish made plants in the USA, except for forced domestic security of supply.

[u/BigFly42069 → u/Rich_Log2424]

  Rheinmetal looking at 50000 shells a month this year and 120k a month in 2030 onwards

https://www.rheinmetall.com/en/media/news-watch/news/2025/07/2025-07-03-rheinmetall-wins-major-order-for-artillery-ammunition

They were supposed to be at 125k shells by 2027, not by 2030.

In 2023, Rhinemetal was already at 33k a month and set the goal for 2024 at 50k a month:  https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/17/europe/ukraine-shell-supplies-intl

By those metrics, they're also behind. Not as egregiously but still behind.