For Europe’s war effort, the time has come for boom or bust. Specifically, it needs more boom. On Monday, Sir Keir Starmer trumpeted the UK’s £1.5 billion investment in six new munitions factories, creating over 1,000 jobs. But we are still miles behind Russia and the rest of Europe when it comes to ammunition.
Russia, with assistance from North Korea’s six explosives factories, currently produces over four million artillery shells per year. The European Union and the UK are still collectively trying to drag their production above one million combined. On the front line, this means Russia can fire 12,000 rounds per day, compared with around 7,000 fired by the Ukrainians, according to Ukrainian military figures,
BAE Systems announced last month that the UK will erect shipping containers at secret sites across the land, but each container will produce just 100 tonnes per year of RDX explosives. When you consider every 155mm artillery shell requires 11.3kg
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