Ukraine seeks British factories to make casings for artillery

UKRAINIAN officials are scouring the UK for foundries to make artillery casings as the country burns through thousands a day, The Sunday Telegraph understands.

Supplies of the 155mm artillery rounds are proving hard to source given the high specifications, according to people familiar with the search. The rounds are six inches thick and waist high when standing upright on the ground. They must be capable of withstanding the force of the explosion that fires the projectile from howitzers.

BAE Systems makes these rounds for the Ministry of Defence in the UK, which in turn has been sending them to Ukraine as aid. It is understood that BAE has some potential to increase supplies, but Kyiv is hunting for additional companies capable of manufacturing the rounds to ensure continued supply.

BAE currently manufactures the shells at its plant in Washington in the North East of England before they are filled with a charge and assembled in Glascoed in Wales. The finished product is X-rayed to make sure there are no faults in the shell.

There is thought to be some capacity to add shifts to production lines to increase supply, although precise

‘The approach by which each country donates a battery of guns is turning into a logistical nightmare’

figures on capacity and stockpiles are not public information.

The 155mm ammunition is the bread and butter for most Nato howitzers such as Us-provided M777s, French Caesars, and German PZH 2000s, all of which have been gifted to Kyiv.

But heavy use has run down stockpiles in the West. Last week, Pentagon sources told The Wall Street Journal that US stocks of 155mm had become “uncomfortably low” after it shipped 806,000 rounds of it to Ukraine.

Russia has several years’ worth of artillery munitions at its disposal, according to a July report from the Royal United Services Institute. Russia is firing 20,000 shells per day compared with Ukraine’s 6,000, it said. Ukraine will need a regular, diverse supply of ammunition, the RUSI said.

The report said: “The current approach by which each [Nato] country donates a battery of guns in a piecemeal way is rapidly turning into a logistical nightmare for Ukrainian forces with each battery requiring a separate training, maintenance and logistics pipeline. Making support to Ukraine sustainable requires the provision of one or two kinds of gun and for countries to step up production of the appropriate ammunition.”