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Britain is to expand production of explosives as the government seeks to strengthen its defence resilience and reduce the country’s reliance on imports, including from the US.
BAE Systems, Britain’s biggest defence group, has over the past five years invested £8.5mn in novel manufacturing methods to be able to produce its own supply of cutting-edge explosives and propellants. The company previously imported RDX explosives, which are used in 155mn rounds for British army guns and other weapons, from the US and France.
The new manufacturing methods will remove the need for nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine, key raw materials for the production of energetics and propellants used in ammunition and which have been in high demand since the war in Ukraine.
Defence contractors have struggled to scale up output of ammunition because of supply chain constraints of various outputs, including nitrocellulose, also known as “guncotton”. Germany’s Rheinmetall earlier this month agreed to buy a small producer of propellants for ammunition to strengthen its supply chain.
BAE’s “leap forward in synthetic energetics and propellant manufacture will strengthen the UK’s supply chain resilience,” said Steve Cardew, business development director for the company’s maritime and land defence solutions.
The novel methods would also “support our ramp up of critical munitions production to meet growing demand in response to the increasingly uncertain world we’re living in”, Cardew added.
The move comes amid growing concerns over Washington’s commitment to its Nato allies under the Trump administration. It will allow BAE and the UK to produce munitions that do not contain parts from the US.
A pilot of the new manufacturing technology has already demonstrated that the explosives can be produced in small nodes, removing the need for a large-scale factory, according to BAE. The company plans to erect shipping containers at sites across the UK to produce the materials.
BAE also announced that by the summer it expects to have increased production of 155mm artillery shells 16-fold over the past two years to meet the demand. The 155mm ammunition is the standard for most Nato howitzers — long-range artillery launchers — including America’s M777 and France’s Caesar, both of which have been sent to Ukraine.
BAE said it had invested more than £150mn in its UK facilities over the past three years, including in a new explosive filling facility at Glascoed in south Wales which will become operational in the summer. The company secured a £280mn contract from the Ministry of Defence to boost output in 2023.
