Army ‘hitting stride’ with 155mm production, but general worries over what’s needed next
When it comes to predicting the needs of future conflicts, Maj. Gen. John Reim said, “the Army’s gotten it wrong 100 percent of the time.”
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. on October 17, 2025 12:28 pm
AUSA 2025 — After decades of stagnation, America’s ammunition industry is beginning to boom again, according to a senior Army official.
New production sites are popping up around the country as $5.5 billion in funding — appropriated over the last three years in response to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine — finally percolates through the contracting process, said the two-star general in charge of inter-service ammunition production.
“I’ve had the privilege of doing nine ribbon-cutting ceremonies here in the last year,” Maj. Gen. John Reim, the Joint Program Executive Officer for Armaments and Ammunition (JPEO-A&A), told the Association of the US Army conference here on Wednesday. “We’re bringing new capabilities online. We’re replacing legacy production methods. … Most of our facilities, they date back to World War II.”
The bad news? The new, more flexible facilities are just starting to ramp up — and the ones that exist are overwhelmingly focused on one type of ammunition: the 155 mm howitzer rounds that proved crucial in the early phases of the Ukrainian war. Production of these artillery shells has surged from 14,000 rounds per month in early 2022, which was just enough to cover what the Army and Marine Corps typically expended in training, to 40,000 a month by late 2024. That’s still well short of the Army’s objective of 100,000 a month.
https://breakingdefense.com/2025/10/army-hitting-stride-with-155mm-production-but-key-general-worries-over-whats-needed-next/
