Thread by @noclador

The problem with artillery ammo production is that you have to manufacture perfectly identical shells to ensure firing them is safe.

If the shell is too thick it will get stuck in the barrel, if it is too thin the gases will blow by it and the shell will fall short, if the
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shell's wand is uneven it will tumble and crash. And once you have perfect shells, you need to pour in the molten TNT (or Composite B or IMX-101)... and the shell must be perfectly and evenly filled or it will wobble in flight and crash.
And before you can pour the explosive
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another factory needs to produce it. Usually the explosive factory also produces the charges, which you need to actually fire the shell... and these too need to be perfectly precise. If the charges are not all identical the shell will overshoot the target or fall short.
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If you have the charges and shells, you have finished with the easy part, as the most complex part of artillery ammunition are the fuzes... point detonating already require a lot of work, but proximity fuzes, which include a radar, are much more complex.

But, even though
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artillery, mortar, etc. ammo is all precision manufacturing the West can produce as much as Ukraine and the free world needs, IF governments start paying for the expansion of production. So far only the US is investing in expanding ammo production.
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No European ammo producer has the financial resources to invest in new production lines or factories, UNLESS European governments sign NOW multi-year orders for massive amounts of ammo.
This Western European stinginess has to end! We need war time production levels NOW.
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