The most forward-leaning European producer has been Rheinmetall. It has committed to annual production of 700,000 artillery rounds by the end of 2024, and will this year open production and maintenance facilities in Ukraine for armoured vehicles. Most of its orders are paid for by Germany. Mr Tusa contrasts this to France, whose orders have not matched President Macron's rhetoric about shifting to a war economy.
One way for Europe to ramp up faster could be to relax technical specifications. Shells will rarely meet fine-tuned Western accuracy demands anyway when fired from Ukraine's often worn-out artillery barrels (the country will probably need 2,000 new barrels per year). And safety regulations for long-term storage make little sense for shells that will be fired within days. In wars of attrition the need for quantity nearly always overrides quality.
