The facility ‘will significantly increase our country’s ability to manufacture parts that are used to produce artillery ammunition,’ John Kirby said.
The Biden administration is opening a new facility in Mesquite, Texas, that will greatly improve the rate of manufacture for critical munitions used in Ukraine and elsewhere.
The plant will be operated by General Dynamics and produce parts for 155-millimeter artillery shells, according to National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby.
He told reporters on May 29 that the new facility “will significantly increase our country’s ability to manufacture parts that are used to produce artillery ammunition.”
The facility began construction last year and will be operated in part with funds allotted by the $95 billion security supplemental passed by Congress last month “to stand up new production lines as part of a national effort to significantly increase the number of artillery shells that we produce every month,” according to Mr. Kirby.
“These 155-millimeter shells and, of course, the guns that go with them, have absolutely made a significant impact on Ukraine’s ability to repel Russian attacks,” he said.
The Biden administration has delivered millions of 155-millimeter shells to Ukraine since 2022 through presidential drawdown authorities, which directly transfer the rounds to Ukraine from U.S. stockpiles.
The continued flow of such rounds to Ukraine, which has, at times, fired thousands in one day, has led to increasing concern among U.S. military leadership that the United States might face its own shortages.
Last year, Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth said demand for the rounds had pushed production to “the absolute edge of defense-industrial capacity.”
At that time, Ms. Wormuth said the Army was spending $1.5 billion on new munitions production facilities and depots and was working with industry partners to simultaneously replenish the nation’s stocks and support Ukraine.
Then-Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley similarly said the nation had “a long way to go” to replenish its sorely depleted stockpiles.
Mr. Kirby expressed optimism that the new facility would begin to correct that trend. He noted that the Biden administration had doubled its production of the rounds since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and will likely have more than quintupled production by the close of 2025.
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