(UnitedVoice.com) – The US has sent the excess shells from its stockpile to Ukraine over the last two and a half years as the war there rages on. The Pentagon has been working to replenish the ammunition sent to Eastern Europe. A new facility in Texas is going to speed up the process.
In May, the city council in Mesquite voted unanimously to allow General Dynamics Ordnance & Tactical Systems Inc. to build a weapons parts plant. The facility will be a 240,011-square-foot building in a business park along the interstate and provide up to 150 jobs. Fifty of them will be salaried employees. The other 50 to 100 employees will be paid an hourly wage.
The new factory will produce artillery shells for the Defense Department using machinery designed by a Turkish firm. Army Secretary Christine Wormuth recently visited the plant. The CEO of the firm, Ibrahim Kulekci, was at the facility on the day Wormuth visited. She asked if Russia had the same technology that would be used in the state-of-the-art manufacturing facility. The CEO told Wormuth that the Kremlin won’t be getting the technology from his firm.
The Pentagon is trying to bring the production of material critical to national security back to the US. Officials have allocated about $6 billion to expand output.
General Dynamics received a $1 billion defense contract. The machines developed by the Turkish firm are very advanced and will help the company make the ammunition more efficiently and quickly. The hope is that it will help the US dramatically increase production, replenish the US stockpile, and send more to America’s allies.
Currently, the Pentagon’s contractors make about 30,000 155mm shells a month but are hoping to increase production to about 100,000 by the end of next year. The new facility will help the US hit about half of the goal.
The new facility will produce about 30,000 steel shells every month when it reaches its maximum capacity.
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