FT: Europe is running out of explosives for ammunition supplied to Ukraine

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The production of ammunition in Europe for Ukraine is delayed due to a serious shortage of explosives. The EU is facing a shortage of gunpowder, plastic explosives and TNT, which is why it cannot quickly fulfill orders, according to the Financial Times.

European officials cite as the main problem that the bloc's defense industry is not in the best shape for large-scale production as part of the €1 billion aid promised to Ukraine.



According to manufacturers, an increase in demand for weapons can only seriously increase their cost, which has already increased by 2022% in 20. But this will not affect the increase in production volumes. Most European factories are already working at their limit. And the growth of production volumes will take at least three years.

The fundamental problem is that the European defense industry is not able to conduct large-scale military production.
 
one of the German officials confirmed to the publication.

Market participants claim that it is easy to build a new artillery plant. But it is much more difficult to produce artillery ammunition without raw materials.

Formerly Bundeswehr turned at the center of the scandal: it was officially announced that Germany, which this year should take the lead role in NATO's collective rapid reaction force, will not be able to field a full-blooded tank battalion. Instead of the planned 30 Leopard 2A7 tanks throughout the country, only two dozen were able to scrape together, and the rest of the vehicles of the latest modification were recognized as unfit for combat and require repair.
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  1. Vladimir Tuzakov
    Vladimir Tuzakov
    0
    24 March 2023 15: 04
    TNT has long been out of use in the West, because there is much more effective explosives, and the Russian Federation, as always, is lagging behind, both in terms of gunpowder and explosives. Czech Semtech at least - to copy, not to mention the C-4 from the USA. But it seems that warehouses from the USSR with trinitrotoluene (TNT) calm the responsible persons, so we are trailing in the tail and along the explosives. For example, the explosion of US ammunition is much more powerful and destructive compared to the explosion of our ammunition of the same weight. (Video materials in a visual comparison).