Texas 155mm Parts Plant Failure Slows Army Production Ramp
In a report that shines a harsh light on one of the fundamental realities of manufacturing, the Pentagon inspector general found that an entire factory designed to make metal projectile parts for 155mm artillery rounds had failed to produce any parts that met the contract requirements as of March 2026, after having opened in May 2024 and receiving $469 million in Army funding.
Why? Because the Mesquite, Texas plant was meant to help provide 30,000 projectile metal parts each month, and the Army-wide production push of 155mm rounds continues to under-deliver. With a stated goal in 2024 of increasing production from 14,000 rounds to 100,000 by October 2025, the service was making only about 36,000 per month as of March 2026.
And the gap is not a single-bottleneck failure. The Mesquite plant’s inability to perform on time is an example of an old manufacturing problem. A 155mm artillery round is not manufactured in a single location. There must be a manufacturer that produces the projectile bodies, which are then loaded and assembled elsewhere in the industrial base. And if the metal projectile parts are not delivered according to specification in sufficient quantities, there is nothing that can overcome the deficit in capacity downstream. According to officials involved in the Army’s ammunitions program, with only three facilities producing the required projectile metal parts, the Pentagon will be able to reach monthly production of 71,000 rounds by September 2026.
The failure highlights the fact that capital expenditure is not a guarantee of output. As described in the report, the failure in Mesquite was linked to the risk taken by the Army’s officials when accepting the equipment procurement plan of the contractor. In the language of manufacturing, it is the difference between investing in equipment with a proven process capability or accepting that the equipment will have to be adapted.
But that gamble went wrong, and as of March 2026, the plant still did not produce any metal projectile parts that met the contract requirements. In addition, according to a timeline included in the inspector general’s review, the Army contracting office had requested to stop work at the plant in August 2025 due to an evaluation of whether it could fulfill its obligations and resolve production issues.
As General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems, the owner of the Mesquite facility, reported, the company has worked out a plan with the Army on the future operations of the factory, which includes further company investments into the project. This may be seen as evidence that the program is not being abandoned, but it does not change the arithmetic of the current production. An Army spokesman also confirmed that the information in the report still remains accurate as of this month.
The bigger readiness concern is obvious. Within the past four years, the Pentagon’s 155mm inventory decreased by 3.6 million rounds. Over 3 million rounds were transferred to Ukraine, around 112,000 rounds were used for training and testing, and another 218,000 were sold to other countries. The report does not say how many rounds remain in stock, but the statistics itself shows why the Army was seeking to increase production aggressively.
However, what the Mesquite case shows is that rapid industrialization in the field of defense manufacturing faces more challenges than financial concerns. They include the challenges of equipment qualification, selection and process engineering. Even though a factory might be a modern facility on the paper, the combination of equipment, process controls and acceptance criteria may not allow turning it into a production one. When it comes to munitions manufacturing, any deviation from the contractual requirements is unacceptable; parts must fully comply with the specification requirements for them to be counted as production.
The inspector general goes even further and concludes that “the Army’s expenditure of $469 million to establish the Mesquite facility could have been used to address other Army or [Department of Defense] priorities.” This is a harsh conclusion, but it shows the true opportunity cost of manufacturing projects that face delays. Funding blocked in a non-performing line is funding not allocated to other tasks.
For anyone following U.S. defense manufacturing, the main take-away is not that the production capacity goals are unattainable. On the contrary, what the Mesquite case shows is that production ramp-up depends on some quite basic things like qualified equipment, stable processes and realistic assumptions on how quickly a new line can transition from setup to full output compliance. Mesquite reminds us that for munitions manufacturing, the production bottleneck is rarely in the demand or funding or even the final assembly capacity. It is in the ability of a particular component facility to manufacture parts to specification and at rate each month.
By Robert McKinney – Editor-in-Chief for AMI’s automotive and mobility coverage with mechanical engineering degree and decade of experience reporting on powertrain technologies, electric vehicles innovations and global vehicle manufacturing.
