The U.S. Army is hoping to double the monthly production of a key ammunition used in Ukraine by October, according to recent comments by Doug Bush, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology.
America's monthly output of the 155mm artillery shell—highly sought by Kyiv as it continues to fend off Russia's invasion—sits at about 28,000 per month as of October 2023. Bush said during a roundtable discussion with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on Monday that the Army is aiming to produce about 60,000 shells per month by October 2024.
"It will allow us to support Ukraine more fully," Bush said during the CSIS event, adding that increasing artillery production will also allow the U.S. Army "to restock ourselves and also restock our allies."
Looking forward, the Army is hoping to rapidly increase production to 100,000 shells per month by October 2025. Bush said that the branch is on track to increase production to 80,000 shells per month in the fall using the current allotted funding, but that additional support from Congress would be needed to bump up production to the 100,000 mark.
The increase in output will be made possible in part by a new factory being constructed in Texas, which Bush said will have "an entirely new way of making the shell" using technology that the Army has "never used before." The speed at which additional 155mm shells can be produced is also contingent on the rate the Army can make the explosive material used to fill them.
Supplemental funding for artillery production was included in President Joe Biden's $106 billion emergency funding request in the fall. The Army said in a previous release that the emergency request allocated $3.1 billion for 155mm "production and facility modernization." But additional aid for Ukraine has been hung up by political fights in Congress—Senate Republicans voted on Wednesday to block a bill that would have allocated $10 billion for aid to Kyiv.
Ukraine has also complained about artillery shortages as its war against Russia heads toward its two-year mark. According to a report by The New York Times last month, Kyiv's troops are struggling to fire off around 2,000 rounds daily, while Moscow is firing nearly 10,000 shells a day. Over the summer, Western analysts estimated that Ukraine was firing up to 7,000 artillery rounds a day.
Newsweek reached out to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry via email for comment on Wednesday.
A handful of NATO members signed a $1.2 billion contract last month to provide Ukraine with up to 220,000 rounds of 155mm artillery shells over the next several years. The alliance's secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, told reporters at the time that "the war in Ukraine has become a battle of ammunition," according to a report from Reuters.
The European Union is also set to provide Ukraine with over 1 million artillery shells by the end of 2024, EU High Representative Josep Borrell said during a press conference Wednesday.
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