Mackenzie Eaglen
Key Point and Summary – After decades of neglect left its stockpiles “far too shallow,” the United States is undertaking a massive revitalization of its munitions industrial base. Spurred by the demands of supporting allies like Ukraine and Israel, Congress is pouring billions into the effort. New, modern factories for 155mm artillery shells are opening for the first time since World War II, and domestic production of critical materials like TNT, which ended in 1986, is being re-established. This foundational effort, backed by a new Pentagon “munitions war room,” aims to restock America’s military arsenals for an era of great power competition. America Is Building a New Ammo Plant for the First Time Since 1940
The United States Army’s ammunition boss told Congress he recently visited the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant in Independence, Missouri. He asked the team there, “When’s the last time we built anything new at Lake City?” President Harry S. Truman’s library shows a photo of then-Senator Truman with his fedora and trench coat putting a shovel in the ground when the last new facility opened in Lake City. Congress has been pouring money into the armed forces’ organic and defense industrial bases (the former is government-owned and the latter is contractor-led).
Those investments are starting to pay off. And still more is to come , thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act for defense. As realization sinks in across the Defense Department that America’s military magazine depth is far too shallow, actions are underway to reverse course and increase the “health of the shelf” of the nation’s munitions production levels. Army leaders told Congress 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.”
In parallel, the Army is “expanding and modernizing existing facilities to increase speed, flexibility and capacity.” The goal is to implement “21st-century production capabilities that can generate the ammunition stockpiles necessary to sustain our national defense” during a long war. As the US Army officially reached its goal of quadrupling production rates of 155 projectiles this past month, it has also sought to expand surge capacity by “moving shell production from a single facility to four separate facilities this year.” Just a few weeks ago, a new fully automated 155mm artillery shell production factory called UNION Technologies opened outside of Dallas.
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