Ukraine's Artillery Shell Shortage 2026: The Ammunition Crisis and Western Industrial Response

Frontline Impact of Shell Shortage

• The operational rationing effect: Ukrainian artillery officers and frontline commanders reported throughout 2023 and 2024 that ammunition rationing imposed by supply shortages forced decisions that had direct tactical consequences. Battery commanders given limited daily or weekly allocation of 155mm rounds faced the choice of concentrating fire on priority targets while other segments of the frontline went under-protected, or spreading ammunition thinly at rates insufficient to provide meaningful suppression or destruction of advancing Russian infantry. Positions that Russian forces advanced toward under insufficient Ukrainian artillery suppression were harder to hold, leading directly to the sequence of Ukrainian tactical withdrawals in the Avdiivka-Donetsk directional contraction of 2024.
• The fire ratio asymmetry: The most often cited shorthand for the ammunition crisis was the artillery fire ratio: at various points in 2023, Ukrainian forces were returning approximately one round for every five to ten Russian rounds incoming, a ratio so asymmetric that commanders described feeling as though they were fighting industrial warfare with artisanal means. Even accounting for the greater effectiveness per round of Western 155mm precision shells compared to older Soviet-standard Russian ammunition, the volume disparity meant that Russian forces could maintain continuous fire pressure to suppress Ukrainian defenders, strip defensive positions of cover, and enable infantry advances despite being targets of individually more accurate return fire. The fire ratio asymmetry was identified by Ukrainian commanders as the single most important factor in determining the pace and outcome of attritional engagements.
• Human cost of shortage: Beyond the purely operational consequences, the ammunition shortage translated into direct human costs. Ukrainian infantry holding defensive positions without adequate artillery support suffered higher casualties from Russian infantry assaults that were not broken up by suppressive fire. Commanders described the psychological effect on soldiers of holding positions under artillery bombardment without the ability to return fire in kind. The cost of the shortage was measured not only in territorial losses but in the lives of Ukrainian soldiers who could not be adequately covered by artillery support within the constraints of available ammunition supply.

The Western Production Gap Problem

• Post-Cold War deindustrialisation of defence: The root cause of the Western artillery ammunition shortage was three decades of defence industry consolidation and capacity reduction following the Cold War. US 155mm shell production capacity, which at Cold War peak could produce hundreds of thousands of rounds per month, had been reduced to facilities capable of producing roughly 14,000 rounds per month at the start of the Ukraine conflict — a figure that represented less than a day's consumption at peak Ukrainian frontline usage rates. European artillery ammunition production had similarly been radically reduced; the entire European 155mm annual production capacity in 2022 was estimated at approximately 300,000 rounds, a figure comparable to a few months of intensive Ukraine frontline consumption.
• Production infrastructure lag: Unlike manufacturing sectors that can quickly scale by adding personnel, artillery shell production requires specialised explosive filling facilities subject to stringent safety and licensing requirements, specialised metalwork for shell casings, propellant production involving energetic chemistry with long regulatory approval timelines for new facilities, and supply chains for components including fuzes and propelling charges that have their own independent production bottlenecks. The consequence is that government decisions to expand production in 2022–23 could not translate into meaningfully increased deliveries until 2024–25 at the earliest, creating a prolonged valley of shortage between the political decision and industrial reality.
• Third-country procurement as bridging solution: Recognising the production lag, Western nations pursued parallel strategies of third-country procurement — purchasing artillery shells from non-NATO countries with 155mm-compatible or convertible production capacity — to bridge the gap while Western production scaled. South Korea was the most significant source, providing shells to the US for transfer to Ukraine under agreements that leveraged South Korea's substantial Cold War-era artillery ammunition stockpiles and ongoing production capacity. Israel and other countries with significant ammunition industries were also explored as potential sources, with varying results. Third-country procurement provided significant volumes of shells more rapidly than industrial expansion but raised its own challenges around export controls, political sensitivities, and the sustainability of drawing down non-Ukrainian stockpiles.

The Czech Ammunition Initiative

• Structure and mechanics: The Czech Republic, under President Petr Pavel and the Fiala government, took the initiative in early 2024 to organise a coalition of donor states to collectively purchase artillery ammunition from third-country suppliers and deliver it to Ukraine outside the standard EU and NATO procurement frameworks, which had proven too slow. The Czech initiative identified approximately 800,000 available 155mm rounds from sources outside Europe and organised a consortium of 17+ contributing nations to co-finance the purchase. The Czech government acted as the procurement agent and contracting authority, using its existing commercial relationships and the flexibility of bilateral rather than multilateral procurement. Deliveries under the initiative began in spring 2024, providing a meaningful volume boost during a period of particular shortage on the frontline.
• Political significance beyond volume: Beyond the direct supply impact, the Czech initiative had important political and institutional significance. It demonstrated that determined allied nations could find practical pathways around the institutional bottlenecks of collective procurement. It created a template for coalition-led procurement that subsequent initiatives for other categories of military equipment could reference. And it demonstrated specifically to Central and Eastern European states, whose political leaderships were sometimes frustrated by the pace of Western support, that their leadership on Ukraine support could directly shape outcomes on the battlefield on timescales relevant to the ongoing military situation.
• Continuation and expansion: Following the success of its initial ammunition round, the Czech initiative was extended for additional procurement tranches, expanding to include 152mm Soviet-standard ammunition for Soviet-origin Ukrainian artillery systems alongside 155mm. The Czech government has positioned itself as an ongoing hub for this type of coalition procurement, leveraging the relationships and legal frameworks established in the initial initiative to continue facilitating artillery ammunition delivery at a cadence that supplements but does not replace the expanding direct contributions of major allies.

US 155mm Production Scale-Up

• Production targets and progress: The US Army announced multi-year programmes to expand 155mm shell production dramatically from the pre-war baseline of approximately 14,000 rounds per month. Intermediate goals of 20,000 rounds per month, then 40,000, then 85,000 per month were set across a timeline running to 2025–26. Progress toward these targets was achieved through a combination of restarting idled production lines at existing Army ammunition plants, expanding shift operations at active plants, qualifying additional private sector shell casing manufacturers, and making capital investments in new production equipment. By late 2025, US monthly production had reached approximately 50,000–60,000 rounds per month, representing a roughly 4-fold increase from baseline but still below the 85,000 month target.
• Propellant and fuze bottlenecks: Shell casing manufacturing proved easier to expand than propellant and fuze production, creating secondary bottlenecks that limited the effective ammunition output even as casing production rose. The propellant required for artillery rounds involves processes similar to manufacture of other energetic materials, with strict safety requirements and limited facility base. Fuze production involves precision electronics manufacturing that requires qualified suppliers and longer tooling lead times than steel casing work. The US and allied governments invested in addressing these secondary bottlenecks, but the sequencing of investments — focusing initially on casing production before the constraint shifted to propellant and fuzes — meant that progress on total deliverable round output lagged casing production statistics at several points in the scaling trajectory.
• Industrial base implications and durability: The US production scale-up has prompted reflections on the broader implications for American defence industrial strategy. The investment to reach 85,000 rounds per month represents a roughly $3–4 billion capital programme across the Army ammunition enterprise — an investment that creates durable production capacity that will persist beyond the Ukraine conflict. The question of whether to maintain this expanded capacity after the conflict ends — at substantial ongoing cost against peacetime demand that is a fraction of the scaled capacity — or allow the base to shrink again is a live policy debate that will shape the Western arms industry's ability to respond to the next major conflict requiring industrial-scale ammunition output.

European Production Efforts

• EU ammunition plan and ASAP: The European Union adopted in May 2023 a plan to deliver one million 155mm artillery rounds to Ukraine within 12 months — a commitment that proved aspirationally achievable on a longer timeline than originally announced. The instrument created to support European production expansion was the Act in Support of Ammunition Production (ASAP), which provided joint EU financing for member states' national investments in production capacity expansion. By channeling demand signals and providing co-financing across multiple member states simultaneously, ASAP aimed to create the commercial visibility for private sector ammunition manufacturers to justify major investment in capacity without each individual national customer providing sufficient scale on its own. Norway, France, Germany, and several smaller producers all invested in production expansion under frameworks related to ASAP.
• Rheinmetall and private sector expansion: German defence industrial giant Rheinmetall announced major expansions of its artillery ammunition production capacity, including investments in facilities in Germany, Lithuania, and Romania that together represented the most significant European ammunition industrial investment in a generation. Rheinmetall's Lithuanian investment in particular was strategically notable — a new production facility near the latvian border symbolising the shift of European defence production gravity toward the eastern flank states most exposed to Russian threat and most politically committed to sustained Ukraine support. By 2026, European combined 155mm production capacity has roughly doubled from its 2022 baseline, reaching approximately 600,000–700,000 rounds per year — still below Ukraine's peak annual consumption but representing a substantially improved supply baseline compared to the crisis period of 2022–23.
• Coordination and deconfliction challenges: A recurring challenge in the multinational Western ammunition production effort has been coordination to avoid simultaneous purchases from the same limited third-country sources driving up prices, to align calibre priorities to actual Ukrainian inventory, and to synchronise delivery timelines to the actual consumption pattern at the frontline rather than storage constraints. The Ukraine Defence Contact Group — the Ramstein format convened by the US — added an ammunition procurement coordination function specifically to address these deconfliction and coordination needs among allies who were each managing separate national procurement processes potentially competing for the same supplier capacity.

Russian Artillery Advantage

• Industrial base inheritance and expansion: Russia entered the war with the largest artillery ammunition stockpile of any military in the world — the direct inheritance of Soviet-era production and storage infrastructure built to supply a massive land war in Europe. While Russian forces consumed ammunition at extraordinary rates in the first phase of the war, and faced their own supply management challenges, Russia's underlying production capacity — maintained at a meaningful if reduced level throughout the post-Soviet period — provided a foundation for wartime expansion that the post-Cold War Western industrial drawdown had eliminated from the Western arsenal. Russia's 152mm ammunition production capacity was estimated at 1–1.5 million rounds per year in 2022 and has been expanded through multi-shift operation and factory repurposing since then, supplemented by imports from North Korea amounting to several million additional rounds.
• North Korean ammunition imports: The single most significant external contribution to Russia's artillery ammunition supply has been the transfer of large quantities of North Korean 152mm shells, which are technically compatible with Soviet-standard Russian artillery systems. Estimates based on shipping container movements, railway freight data, and satellite imagery of North Korean ammunition storage facility drawdown suggest that Russia received in excess of two million rounds of North Korean ammunition in 2023–24, a contribution that materially sustained Russian fire rates during the period of maximum Ukrainian ammunition shortage. The North Korean rounds have included some quality variations relative to Russian domestic standards and have generated some premature detonations and barrel wear reports, but in volume terms they have represented a highly significant contribution to Russian operational fire capacity.
• Barrel wear and system attrition: The sustained high rate of Russian artillery firing has imposed its own costs on Russian gun systems through accelerated barrel wear. Artillery barrels have defined service lives measured in rounds, and firing at the rates documented on the Ukrainian frontline wears out barrels far faster than in peacetime or lower-intensity operational conditions. Russia has had to manage barrel replacement at unprecedented rates, drawing on both domestic manufacturing and remaining stockpile stocks. Some Russian artillery units are reported to have operated with weapons outside normal service life parameters, which affects accuracy and creates safety risks for crews. Artillery barrel production and refurbishment capacity has therefore become an additional factor in longer-term Russian fire sustainability assessments.

Precision Munitions as Compensating Factors

• Excalibur and M982 GPS-guided rounds: The introduction of Excalibur GPS/inertial guidance-enabled 155mm rounds into Ukrainian service was a qualitative force multiplier that partially compensated for quantity disadvantage. With accuracy of less than 5 metres compared to approximately 100–300 metres for standard artillery, a single Excalibur could achieve destruction effects against a hardened point target that would require tens or hundreds of standard rounds. Ukrainian forces used Excalibur extensively for high-value point targets including ammunition depots, command posts, bridge spans, and specific hardened defensive positions where precision delivery was operationally critical. Excalibur availability was nevertheless limited by overall production constraints and its higher unit cost relative to standard shell, restricting usage to genuine high-priority targets rather than the mass fire missions that constitute most artillery usage.
• Drone-artillery integration: Ukrainian forces have developed innovative integration of drone observation with artillery fire that has partially compensated for round shortage through improvement in first-round accuracy and kill probability. Using drones to observe fall of shot and transmit near-real-time corrections, Ukrainian artillery crews have significantly reduced the number of rounds needed to achieve desired effects against observed targets. The round-per-kill ratio improvement from drone-assisted observed fire over traditional unobserved or estimated fire enables more ammunition-efficient destruction of high-value targets. This tactical innovation has spread throughout Ukrainian artillery practice to become a standard operating procedure whose value has been so clearly demonstrated on the battlefield that it is being studied and adopted by NATO member state armies as a future force model.
• Drone strike complementarity: The broader explosion of Ukrainian unmanned systems capability — from kamikaze FPV drones to heavier attack drones capable of carrying substantial warhead payloads — has provided a partial substitute for artillery fire in certain mission sets, particularly at night and against point targets at ranges that FPV drones can efficiently attain. While drone munitions cannot replace artillery for area suppression, counter-battery fire, or high-volume reactive fire missions, they have shifted part of the attack mission load away from artillery, reducing the effective ammunition demand that would otherwise fall on the 155mm supply chain. The combined-effects warfighting approach — integrating drone capabilities at multiple altitude and range bands with artillery applied selectively to missions where it is irreplaceable — represents a genuine warfighting adaptation to the ammunition constraint environment that will outlast the constraint itself.

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