Bombshell Report: Touted "Futuristic" 155mm Factory in Texas Produced Zero Shells in MIC Mega-Flop
A bombshell report has been published by ProPublica which has been making the rounds concerning the much-vaunted new General Dynamics factory in Mesquite, Texas which was meant to massively boost US production of critical 155mm artillery shells for Ukraine and beyond.
You’ll recall we covered this factory several times, as far back as 2024, citing a NYT piece at the time which proclaimed the plant would double US production and help reach the goal of 100k monthly shells by 2025:
Here, in the Pentagon’s first new major arms plant built since Russia invaded Ukraine, Turkish workers in orange hard hats are busy unpacking wood crates stenciled with the name Repkon, a defense company based in Istanbul, and assembling computer-controlled robots and lathes.
The factory will soon turn out about 30,000 steel shells every month for the 155-millimeter howitzers that have become crucial to Kyiv’s war effort.
First, a major spoiler: the US never reached even remotely close to their 2025 goals. A recent report from the Department of Defense Inspector General found that the US still struggles to produce a measly 36,000 rounds, which has been the ceiling for the past two years:
Recall at a time when Russia was producing upwards of 250-350k monthly shells per the West’s own estimates, pro-Ukrainian cheerleaders promised us the indomitable American MIC would easily catch up to the impoverished Russians. It turns out the US is physically incapable of course-correcting its obvious industrial decline.
The Military Times piece above noted the US simply can’t source enough metal for the shells:
Shell production requires first building the projectile at a metal parts factory, followed by packing the shell with explosives at another facility. But this means “projectile metal part production is the limiting factor for reaching the 100,000 round-per-month goal for 155-mm artillery rounds,” the report noted.
The Army has not been able to forge enough metal parts to ramp up production of projectiles. In particular, “at a contractor-owned, contractor-operated facility in Mesquite, Texas, the contractor has been unable to produce any projectile metal parts that meet contract specifications,” the report reads.
Now the ProPublica bombshell tells an even more shocking story. The greatly heralded General Dynamics plant, which was said to be the most advanced of its kind, utilizing a state-of-the-art fully automated Turkish production line, has gone kaput.
Are you surprised?
Let’s dig in to the fiasco.
