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Germany has become the largest ammunition producer in the world

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Re: Germany has become the largest ammunition producer in the world

#11

Post by tristanj »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #6
tristanj wrote: post #3

Germany is producing weapons to fight the last war. WWIII will be fought with drones, not artillery. They should invest part of this money into becoming the leader in drone manufacturing, not this. Since it's Germany, the money for this manufacturing ramp-up was probably allocated around 2023-2024, when older artillery was needed and before drone superiority was obvious. So maybe this is the expected outcome. If the…

I'm sorry but you're trying to sound insightful without knowing anything about German drone production. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/14/ukraine-strikes-dro... https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-germany-drone-production/337... https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2026/02/26/once-re... https://defencematters.eu/germany-ukraine-drone-factory/

Germany (currently) isn't even in the top 5 for military drone manufacturing.

The ranking of number of military drones produced per year goes Ukraine (millions), China (millions), Russia (hundreds of thousands), Iran (hundreds of thousands), then the US (tens of thousands), followed by Turkey and Israel (mid-thousands).

German manufacturing is in the low thousands per year. This is a major national security issue, Germany is currently behind many other nations in this technology.

Re: Germany has become the largest ammunition producer in the world

#12

Post by tristanj »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #4
tristanj wrote: post #3

Germany is producing weapons to fight the last war. WWIII will be fought with drones, not artillery. They should invest part of this money into becoming the leader in drone manufacturing, not this. Since it's Germany, the money for this manufacturing ramp-up was probably allocated around 2023-2024, when older artillery was needed and before drone superiority was obvious. So maybe this is the expected outcome. If the…

Drones will still fire ammunition presumably? Are they just producing ammunition types that aren't suitable for drone weaponry or something?

Not this kind, drones don't fire 155mm artillery shells.

Artillery has a relatively short range of ~30km, while modern drones are reaching hundreds of km.

Re: Germany has become the largest ammunition producer in the world

#14

Post by [deleted] »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #4
tristanj wrote: post #3

Germany is producing weapons to fight the last war. WWIII will be fought with drones, not artillery. They should invest part of this money into becoming the leader in drone manufacturing, not this. Since it's Germany, the money for this manufacturing ramp-up was probably allocated around 2023-2024, when older artillery was needed and before drone superiority was obvious. So maybe this is the expected outcome. If the…

Drones will still fire ammunition presumably? Are they just producing ammunition types that aren't suitable for drone weaponry or something?

[deleted]

Re: Germany has become the largest ammunition producer in the world

#15

Post by jandrewrogers »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #4
tristanj wrote: post #3

Germany is producing weapons to fight the last war. WWIII will be fought with drones, not artillery. They should invest part of this money into becoming the leader in drone manufacturing, not this. Since it's Germany, the money for this manufacturing ramp-up was probably allocated around 2023-2024, when older artillery was needed and before drone superiority was obvious. So maybe this is the expected outcome. If the…

Drones will still fire ammunition presumably? Are they just producing ammunition types that aren't suitable for drone weaponry or something?

Drones don't use these types of munitions.

Re: Germany has become the largest ammunition producer in the world

#16

Post by spiderfarmer »

tristanj wrote: post #11
spiderfarmer wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but you're trying to sound insightful without knowing anything about German drone production. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/14/ukraine-strikes-dro... https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-germany-drone-production/337... https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2026/02/26/once-re... https://defencematters.eu/germany-ukraine-drone-factory/

Germany (currently) isn't even in the top 5 for military drone manufacturing. The ranking of number of military drones produced per year goes Ukraine (millions), China (millions), Russia (hundreds of thousands), Iran (hundreds of thousands), then the US (tens of thousands), followed by Turkey and Israel (mid-thousands). German manufacturing is in the low thousands per year. This is a major national security issue, Ge…

Attack Germany, see what happens.

Re: Germany has become the largest ammunition producer in the world

#17

Post by arjie »

I always wonder about these production numbers in the military. The US has a large military complex and Germany is an industrial power and North Korea is a small military autocracy suffering from raw material shortages, but Googling around I see[0]:

> The expert also said that the North’s annual production estimate of 2 million 152-millimeter artillery shells is premised on peacetime manufacturing rates.

But here Germany is the largest ammunition producer and they're making 1.1 million (presumably both are per-year rates).

This link[1] says the US makes 672k/year (I'm annualizing their per-month number) so definitely Germany is making more than the US.

I get the impression a lot of these things need some contextualization. Are the rates per month or per year, is production dispatchable, do some countries have stockpiles or refurbish shells? Because just looking at raw numbers here results in strange results like North Korea being way larger than Germany at this.

0: https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2023-11-06/nationa...

1: https://breakingdefense.com/2026/02/army-official-not-happy-...

Re: Germany has become the largest ammunition producer in the world

#18

Post by spacemanspiff01 »

arjie wrote: post #17

I always wonder about these production numbers in the military. The US has a large military complex and Germany is an industrial power and North Korea is a small military autocracy suffering from raw material shortages, but Googling around I see[0]: > The expert also said that the North’s annual production estimate of 2 million 152-millimeter artillery shells is premised on peacetime manufacturing rates. But here Ger…

The US (and Europe) have been under investing in shell production since the end of the cold war.

North Korea is a dictatorship, which one of its main deterrents is to shell soul to oblivion.

Re: Germany has become the largest ammunition producer in the world

#19

Post by Havoc »

tristanj wrote: post #3

Germany is producing weapons to fight the last war. WWIII will be fought with drones, not artillery. They should invest part of this money into becoming the leader in drone manufacturing, not this. Since it's Germany, the money for this manufacturing ramp-up was probably allocated around 2023-2024, when older artillery was needed and before drone superiority was obvious. So maybe this is the expected outcome. If the…

You need both. See Ukraine needing mountains of artillery despite the pre war consensus being that the artillery era is over

The drones make the news but can’t be the only weapon you bring

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