Turkey and Pakistan to Meet World’s Insatiable Demand for 155mm Ammo

The Turkish defense company Repkon and Pakistan’s Wah Industries Limited (WIL) signed an agreement on Thursday to develop a production line to produce 120,000 155mm artillery projectiles each year. This is against a background of reported worldwide shortages of the munition brought about by the war in Ukraine, according to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency.

Repkon, a leading metallurgical technology company supports the defense, aviation and space sectors and has partnerships with defense manufacturers in the US and Europe. WIL, a major defense contractor for Pakistan Ordnance Factories, supplies weapons and ammunition both to the Pakistani Armed Forces and internationally.

Repkon USA, is already establishing 155mm artillery ammunition production in Texas under a contract with the US Department of Defense to produce 30,000 rounds a month, which will represent around 30% of all US-manufactured 155mm ammunition in 2025. It has also secured a $435 million contract to design and construct a TNT production plant in Kentucky, which will be the first such plant built in the US since 1986. The plants are aimed at reducing US reliance on foreign supplies of critical materiel as well as supporting Ukraine’s operations against Russia.

The demand for 155mm artillery ammunition on the modern battlefield has been highlighted by expenditure rates in the Russo-Ukrainian War, where both sides have expended millions of rounds during the almost three years since Russia’s full-scale invasion commenced. The US aims to increase its monthly output of 155mm shells to 100,000 while the European Union targets an annual production of 1 million rounds a year by 2025.

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Fatih Yurtsever, a Turkish defense industry analyst commented on the strategic nature of the Repkon-WIL agreement and Pakistan’s role in supplying ammunition to Ukraine:

“In 2022, Pakistan signed a $364 million contract with American companies Global Military and Northrop Grumman to supply ammunition to Ukraine. The weapons were transported by British cargo planes, first to British bases in Southern Cyprus and then to Ukraine,” Yurtsever told the Turkish Minute news outlet. “Given Turkey’s balanced policy in the Russia-Ukraine war, it might be planning to export 155mm artillery ammunition to Ukraine via Pakistan. I believe this consideration influenced the agreement signed between Repkon and WIL.”