NATO Now Outproduces the Russian Wartime Defense Industry in Missiles and Drones
NATO Now Outproduces the Russian Wartime Defense Industry in Missiles and Drones
NATO Now Outproduces the Russian Wartime Defense Industry in Missiles and Drones
The declaration matters because industrial capacity is now the decisive variable in an artillery-centric war. Europe’s Act in Support of Ammunition Production is pushing shell capacity toward two million rounds per year by the end of 2025, while the United States has opened new automated “Universal Artillery Projectile Lines” in Mesquite, Texas, and added a 155 mm load-assemble-pack facility in Camden, Arkansas. Washington admits the 100,000-per-month target will slip into 2026, but the trajectory is unmistakable. The effect is to ease Ukrainian rationing, narrow Russia’s daily fires advantage, and restore deterrence by signaling that NATO magazines will refill faster than the Kremlin can deplete them.
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Precision missiles remain scarce by design, but parity in shell output restores the sustained fires that make precision count. Ukrainian batteries can pin Russian units with 155 mm barrages, then layer GMLRS salvos and ATACMS raids that attrit air defenses, fuel depots, and rail junctions inside 300 km. With Storm Shadow shaping depth targets, NATO’s advantage in guidance, seekers, and networked targeting converts into more kills per shot and tighter logistics. This is a battlefield math problem that starts in factories, not on maps.
Russia has officially crossed into the Find Out stage of the FAFO loop.
Whoops!
This article fails to mention the elephant in the room of 155mm artillery shell evolution, the LRMP.
A controlled artillery round that can hit targets from 120 kilometers away in GPS-denied environments was successfully tested at U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona.
General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems’ Long Range Maneuvering Projectile, or LRMP, was fired from an M777 howitzer platform using M231 powder charges during an August test, the company announced Monday.
^ This is a longe range guided munition delivery platform, the world really hasn't gotten that through its head yet, but the cost efficiency, survivability and ease of surrounding with plausible decoys vs. using fighter-bombers or equivalent rocket artillery makes systems like the Bohdana 155mm SPG very powerful as long range force projection platforms.