Ask any procurement officer in a NATO country what the top item on their shopping list is right now, and most of them will give you the same answer: 155mm artillery rounds. Not fighter jets, not submarines, not the latest generation of precision-guided missiles. A shell design that has been in service for over half a century has become the defining commodity of the current global security environment — and the industrial base set up to produce it has been caught almost completely off guard.
The numbers are stark. Before February 2022, Western manufacturers were producing roughly 300,000 rounds per year in total across all NATO member states. Ukraine alone was consuming that figure — and more — every month at the height of the eastern front fighting. The gap between what the alliance could make and what was actually being fired in the field exposed a production deficit so severe that it became a strategic problem in its own right, reshaping procurement policy, defence budgets, and industrial investment priorities across Europe and North America simultaneously.
The 155mm calibre occupies a particular position in modern ground warfare that has proved extremely difficult to displace. It delivers enough explosive effect to suppress fortified positions and destroy armoured vehicles, while remaining compatible with a wide range of delivery platforms — from towed howitzers like the M198 to self-propelled systems like the German PzH 2000 and the French CAESAR. That cross-platform compatibility is part of what makes it so central to NATO logistics: a 155mm round produced in Poland works in an American M109 Paladin just as well as it works in a Norwegian M109A3GN.
There is also the guided munition factor. The Excalibur GPS-guided 155mm shell — which can strike targets with sub-metre accuracy at ranges of up to 57 kilometres — has demonstrated a precision-to-cost ratio that nothing in its class can currently match. A single Excalibur round doing the work that would otherwise require dozens of unguided shells changes the calculus of both logistics and lethality. As precision-guided 155mm variants become more widely available, demand from militaries that previously relied on unguided rounds has accelerated accordingly.
"The 155mm shell has become the oil of modern land warfare. Everyone needs it, no one has enough of it, and controlling its supply matters enormously."
The shortage has triggered a level of investment in munitions manufacturing not seen since the Cold War. The United States has committed to tripling its 155mm production capacity, with Scranton Army Ammunition Plant in Pennsylvania and several other facilities undergoing major expansions. The goal — 100,000 rounds per month by the mid-2020s — would have seemed extraordinary a few years ago. Today it is considered the minimum acceptable floor.
Europe has moved even faster on the policy side. The EU's Act in Support of Ammunition Production (ASAP) — a €500 million initiative — was designed specifically to accelerate shell output across member states. Countries like Norway, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Spain have all announced new or expanded production arrangements. South Korea, which had maintained significant 155mm manufacturing capacity for its own deterrence requirements, quietly became one of the largest suppliers to Western stockpile replenishment efforts, shipping hundreds of thousands of rounds that allowed frontline supply chains to keep functioning during the production ramp-up period.
The demand is not limited to the European theatre. Gulf states — which have been steadily modernising their artillery capabilities throughout the 2010s and early 2020s — have become significant buyers of 155mm ammunition and the platforms that fire it. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar all operate 155mm-capable systems, and the regional security environment since 2023 has pushed procurement timelines forward considerably. When your neighbours are watching the same conflict footage and drawing the same conclusions about industrial depth, the effect is a simultaneous surge in demand across multiple regions at once.
Israel's sustained operational tempo since late 2023 has added further pressure to an already strained system. IDF artillery units have fired at rates that draw direct comparisons to the eastern European theatre, and the resupply logistics — managed partly through US emergency stockpile drawdowns — have become a politically contentious element of the broader policy debate in Washington.
The practical effect of all this has been a seller's market for 155mm shells that shows no real sign of easing. Lead times that once ran to a few months now routinely stretch to two or three years for large orders. Prices have risen sharply. And the list of countries actively seeking to either increase domestic production or secure long-term supply agreements has grown to include not just traditional NATO members but also partners in Asia, the Middle East, and parts of Africa where the lessons of the past four years have landed with particular clarity.
For defence trading firms, the 155mm market has become one of the most active categories in the sector. Governments that spent years running stockpiles down on the assumption that large-scale conventional war was a relic have had to reverse course at speed, and the procurement channels that can move quickly and reliably are at a significant premium.
The 155mm shell is not a glamorous product. It does not generate the press coverage of a new stealth aircraft or a hypersonic missile programme. But in the current security environment, it is arguably the most strategically significant item on the global defence market — and the race to produce and procure enough of them is one of the defining industrial stories of this decade.