Bang for Army’s billions of bucks not measuring up in 155 mm shell production, IG says

A push to put the U.S. artillery industry on a war footing has fallen far short of its goals, according to a new watchdog agency report that says the gap could undermine readiness for combat in the years ahead.

The Defense Department’s aim was to produce 100,000 rounds a month of 155 mm shells by October 2025. But as of March, the Army was producing only about 36,000 rounds per month, the DOD inspector general said in a new report.

The current shortfall stems largely from the failure of a $469 million contractor-operated plant in Mesquite, Texas, to produce a single shell meeting Army specifications, the IG said. 

Between February 2022 and September 2025, the Army spent $4.5 billion on production of 155 mm shells, according to the report.

The munition is the Army’s standard artillery round, which is fired from howitzers and used across NATO. The drive to rebuild U.S. stockpiles of the shells came after more than 3 million of the rounds were sent to Ukraine because of high demand in that country’s ongoing war with Russia.

The lack of production could increase the “risk of not meeting the operational needs of the United States, allies, and partner nations in potential future conflicts,” the report said.

A Marine handles a 155 mm shell during a training exercise at Twentynine Palms, Calif., on June 6, 2025. The munition is the Army’s standard artillery round and is used across the NATO alliance. (Scott Jenkins/U.S. Marine Corps)

While the Army has boosted monthly production well above the 14,000 rounds per month it was producing before Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, contractor problems have stymied efforts to ramp up even faster, the IG said.

The Mesquite plant was supposed to operate three production lines capable of turning out a combined 30,000 projectile metal parts a month.

But problems emerged at the facility, with various production difficulties connected to a decision to adapt older equipment to produce newer-model projectile rounds, the IG said.

Army ammunition officials described the project as a “high-risk, high-reward opportunity” that was expected to be a faster way to increase production, the IG said. 

Instead, the unproven manufacturing process led to significant production challenges, the report said.

Without the Mesquite factory output, the Army expects three other projectile-body plants to reach a combined capacity of only 71,000 parts a month by September. 

The report did not state when the Army was expected to reach the 100,000-round-per-month threshold.

The IG recommended that the Army review the contract with the Mesquite plant, examine whether it can recoup funds and find alternatives for making up for the shell shortfall.

The Army largely accepted the findings and said it was shifting some of the work away from the Texas facility.

Inspectors, however, said that the Army’s plans lacked sufficient detail and that uncertainty remains over how the service would achieve Pentagon production goals.