Damien Cave
On the grassy plains of Australia’s vast interior, an industrial evolution in the American war machine is gathering momentum. In munitions factories with room to grow, Australia is on the verge of producing heaps of artillery shells and thousands of guided missiles in partnership with American companies.
Made to Pentagon specifications, the weapons will be no different from those built in the United States, and only some of what rolls off the line will stay in Australia. The rest are intended to help replenish U.S. stockpiles or be sold to American partners in an era of grinding ground wars and threats from major powers.
It is all part of an Australian push to essentially become the 51st state for defense production, an ambitious vision that is now taking shape with a giant yellow mixer for explosives and a lightning-protected workshop for assembling missiles known as GMLRS — or “gimmlers.”
“We’re not buying a commodity, we’re investing in an enterprise,” said Brig. Andrew Langford, the Australian director general responsible for domestic manufacturing of guided weapons and explosives. “And that’s where it’s really novel.”
The Benalla munitions factory makes a variety of ordnance, including artillery shells and large bombs.
The embrace of joint production reflects a wider awakening in Washington and other capitals: The United States by itself cannot make enough of the weapons needed for protracted warfare and deterrence. Vulnerable partners like Taiwan are already facing delayed orders for American equipment even as China’s military capabilities continue to grow.
So while the Pentagon waits for changes to Cold War-era laws that prioritize protecting — not sharing — military technology, and as the Ukraine and Gaza conflicts push U.S. factories to their limits, officials are leading a worldwide campaign to make more American weapons with friendly nations.
Poland, Japan and India are a few of the countries in various phases of production partnerships. But Australia, the closest of U.S. allies, having fought alongside Americans in every conflict since World War I, has gone further and faster with the Defense Department and U.S. contractors like Lockheed Martin.
Together, they are testing a more collective approach that demands greater trust, investments in the billions of dollars, and cross-continental sharing of sensitive technology for American weapons systems, along with complex production and testing methods.
The Benalla munitions factory is set on the grassy plains of Australia’s vast interior, with room to grow.
“We’re really pleased at the momentum and speed we’re generating with Australia,” said Bill LaPlante, the under secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment. “Efforts like these act as a kind of blueprint for additional U.S. co-development, co-production and co-sustainment agreements around the world.”For Australia, a distant island of 26 million people, going first adds opportunity and stress.
At a time when China’s military keeps leaping forward, with seemingly endless production lines for warships and missiles, Australia’s push into joint production could make the country more of a “porcupine,” with sharper defenses that would deter China or another adversary. It could also create a much bigger weapons export industry with a U.S. stamp of approval — Australian officials have been lobbying for a broad exemption to military export laws, a status only Canada has now.
“We are there to supplement, not supplant, the American industrial base,” said Pat Conroy, Australia’s minister for defense industry, who recently returned from a trip to Washington. “They should see this as an opportunity for us to be a second supply line.”
The risk is that the United States loses interest. Some Australian officials worry that their costly bet on American cooperation — which accelerated in 2021 with plans for nuclear-propelled submarines — could be endangered by another isolationist Trump presidency, or simply by an objection from a member of Congress who sees foreign factories as a threat to American jobs.
Bombs for the Australian Air Force are also made at the Benalla munitions factory.
Factory staff are not allowed to carry phones or other electronics into sensitive areas.
Analysts argue that weapons co-production will deliver the benefit of greater deterrence only if the manufacturing process advances with alacrity in Australia and around the region.
“There is strength in numbers,” said Charles Edel, the Australia chair and a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “but only if those numbers materialize rapidly and in sufficient quantity to give Beijing pause.”
Mr. LaPlante stressed that joint production agreements signaled a long-term commitment, with multiyear contracts for munitions. In Australia, it’s something of a revival: During World War II, the island hosted American troops and served as a military supply center.
That legacy can still be found at a factory in Mulwala, a small town a few hundred miles from Australia’s eastern coast where the United States shipped over the machinery for making weapons propellants in the 1940s to support Allied operations in the Pacific.
Cartridges from Benalla go to the Australian military and other defense forces in the region.
One of the original buildings, with the musty smell of a museum, has photos on the walls from that era, but the rest of the complex points to the future.
Mulwala is a hub of Australia’s public-private explosives industry. It’s where the volatile materials that fill artillery, bombs and rifle rounds are made in heavy concrete buildings set far apart from each other and protected with hair-trigger alarms and wet floors to minimize static electricity.
Most of the 2,500-acre site is managed by Thales, a multinational defense contractor, which also oversees munition production at a second location nearby in Benalla. Both sit on government land with a large pastoral buffer that could allow for expansion during what Australian officials described as the “crawl, walk, run” process of collaborative manufacturing.
First, the United States and Australia are finalizing joint production of unguided 155-millimeter artillery shells, which Pentagon officials described as “an early win.”
Next, in the coming months, Lockheed Martin will start assembling GMLRS (Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System) with American components at a location where other missiles are maintained, ramping up from a few units to a few hundred.
Thick concrete and natural barriers are standard at Australia’s munitions factories.
Emergency slides are attached to many of the buildings that contain heavy explosives.
And as walking turns to running, Australia expects to be producing around 3,000 GMLRS per year with at least some local parts — most likely those that rely on “energetics,” a term that includes the explosives that are used to fly a missile and blow up its target.
“The intellectual knowledge is here,” said Col. Tony Watson, who is leading a program to upgrade government factories at Mulwala and Benalla. “So it’s easy to grow and expand.”
Production, by all accounts, will increase with caution. James Heading, director of programs for Lockheed Martin Australia’s missiles and fire control division, said that coordinating safety procedures for dangerous liquids, differences in voltage and other issues had already required considerable back and forth.
He added, however, that Pentagon approvals for Australia now often take weeks rather than months or years — and that the hurdles are worth overcoming primarily because the end products are in demand.
Making explosives involves mixing, drying and packing volatile chemicals. Much of the production is done remotely from control rooms to minimize danger.
GMLRS are launched from tubes on trucks known as HIMARS, and they can hit targets 50 miles away with 200 pounds of explosives using GPS for precise strikes.
Last year, the United States supplied Ukraine with at least 20 HIMARS systems, along with GMLRS, and they rapidly shifted momentum in the conflict.
Taiwan has ordered at least 29 HIMARS launchers since 2020, adding another potential customer for Australia. Israel makes its own rocket systems, but American and Australian officials have discussed potential sales to allies in Europe.
GMLRS, an established, relatively straightforward product, would be what the Australians call a “pipe cleaner” — it will help clear out problems with joint production, paving the way for more missile and munition manufacturing.
In the Pentagon and Australian vision of the future, Australia and other U.S. partners will soon be the nodes of a global supply chain, producing interchangeable weapons with greater ramp-up capacity in more places where extra firepower could be needed.
New explosives mixers will soon be installed at the Mulwala explosives factory, with a goal of doubling capacity for missiles co-production.
The weapons would be at least partly American. They just won’t have all come from America — and that may make avoiding a war or fighting one a lot easier.
“The West has a great opportunity to harness its collective industrial base, to ensure we maintain a rules-based global order,” said Air Marshal Leon Phillips, Australia’s most senior military official in charge of guided weapons and explosive ordnance. “We’re moving toward a just-in-case model, and away from just-in-time.”
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