On April 24, 2026, Armin Papperger, head of the German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall, declared before the Club of Hamburg Business Journalists that Germany had overtaken the United States in conventional ammunition production capacity. The statement is cited by the German press agency dpa via the newspaper Die Zeit and the Swiss SDA via Blue News; it has not yet been independently confirmed by Reuters, Bloomberg, or AP.
For 155 mm artillery shells, Papperger's figures hold up. Rheinmetall plans to produce 1.5 million shells annually by 2027 — the company announced this following a major order in July 2025. The US Army was aiming for 1.2 million shells per year (100,000 per month) by mid-2026, but has not yet met that target; production is stagnating at around 480,000 units annually.
Part of the plan includes a long-term increase in the workforce from the current 44,000 to roughly 70,000 by 2030 — this is the figure of 26,000 new jobs that made headlines today. However, Papperger has been repeating this since summer 2025; the only new detail is the figure that the company receives 350,000 applications per year.
In a parallel interview for NZZ, Papperger attributed Germany's lead to more predictable European budgets compared to the American budget deadlock and aging manufacturing facilities in the US. For Europe — including Slovakia — this means that the main supplier of ammunition to Ukraine is gradually becoming the European arms industry base, rather than the American Pentagon.
Germany has overtaken the US in ammunition production, says Rheinmetall chief
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