The shells are being manufactured at a new plant in the rural Queensland town of Maryborough and exported to Germany. Once there, they will be filled with explosive material and receive a fuse – and after that they go into the pool of ammunition to be transferred to Ukraine. While it is impossible to track each individual shell, some – or all – of the Australian production run will be fired against Russian invaders.
This is not being done via the Australian government – indeed 100% of the factory’s current output is going to Germany. This is a consequence of the ownership of the plant, which is a 51-49 joint venture between industrial giant Rheinmetall Waffe Munition and family-owned Australian company NIOA. While the JV is currently producing German DM121 shells at a rate of 20,000 per year, this will progressively increase because of global demand to an annual total exceeding 100,000.
CEO Rob Nioa explained during a media visit that the decision to build the Maryborough factory in 2020 was a mixture of practicality but also sentiment. The business case to warrant investment from Rheinmetall, the Queensland and Federal governments – and NIOA itself – had to be rock solid to reach a collective target of $90 million.
However, the town – with a population of 25,000 – is also the home of the Nioa family and at the time regional unemployment was stubbornly high. Now the plant employs 150 people working three shifts a day for five days a week. The company has expansion plans not only in Maryborough but also Benalla in Victoria where it produces medium calibre ammunition and a variety of pyrotechnics.
At the moment, Australia imports all 155mm rounds from another member of the industrial family, Rheinmetall Denel Munitions (RDM) of South Africa – which the author has also visited. Known as the Assegai – Zulu for spear – this is a modular approach to ammunition with the ability to mix and match projectiles, propelling charges, fuses and primers.
Even though there is huge global demand for 155mm ammunition, the Australian Army has future proofed supply with a series of 5-year contracts, the most recent of which came into effect in June 2023. At the time the company said:
“Over the past five years, NIOA and supply partners JUNGHANS Microtec GmbH, Nitrochemie Aschau GmbH and Rheinmetall Denel Munitions have worked in close collaboration with Defence to deliver and integrate this artillery system into the Army’s M777A2 howitzers and are preparing for integration into K9/AS9 Protected Mobile Fires platforms.
“Projectile variants include conventional HE, Insensitive Munition High Explosive (IHE), IHE Pre-Fragmented (PFF), screening smoke, illumination (infrared and visual), base-bleed and Extended Range Velocity Enhance (V-LAP), practice and inert projectiles.
“A key recommendation of the recent Defence Strategic Review (DSR) was to accelerate and shore up supply of critical munitions and projectiles which have been included in a $2.5b investment in Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance (GWEO).”
Australia could move to local production of Assegai, which would involve investment to produce fuses – especially one with the ability to guide the round – and increase capacity to fill shells and make the explosive charges necessary to fire the shell.
Another recent development is that Canberra and Washington are considering the local manufacture under licence of a standard US Army 155mm round known as the M795. This seems to be based on the fact that US factories alone cannot meet the demand for 155mm ammunition, especially as Ukraine needs to have the ability to fire at least 5,000 rounds per day if it is to have a realistic chance of fighting back against Russia.
If this progresses, it seems logical that NIOA will be involved since they operate the only 155mm shell press in the country.
Manufacturing shells is a blend of precision engineering and mass production techniques. They have to be churned out at a rapid rate to meet demand, but at the same time must be produced to exact tolerances for reasons of safety, reliability and performance.
The Maryborough plant was designed by NIOA – with the invaluable assistance of Rheinmetall – and has a number of unique features. These are protected by patents but include things such as the use of water-based lubricants for the forge – which has to operate continuously at 1,200 Celsius – and the spin-balancing of each shell. Those that don’t pass – about 10 percent – can then be re-machined if necessary, so that each one is delivered to the highest quality standards.
The production process is very exacting and starts with a steel blank weighing 65kg – each one cut from a 2.5 tonne section imported from Germany. Australia used to have the ability to manufacture steel of the requisite quality and produce it in the necessary size and shape, but those days are long done.
After being heated, an industrial robot places each section in the forge with everything glowing red hot, and in a series of steps squashes the metal into a very precise steel tube. As it moves through the carefully monitored production process, the nose is tapered and the outside is machined so the finished shell is gradually produced, etched, painted and then batched for delivery. The end product weighs 32kg – so about half of the steel is lost in the process – and can be filled with 8kg of explosive.
Mr Nioa explained the background to establishing the forge, which alone cost $17 million:
“First of all, in 2017 we won the future Army artillery contract to supply their new shells – and at that time Australia had lost the ability to forge an in-service shell. We thought it was an important capability to bring on-shore – and we put some proposals to government that were ultimately supported, originally through a regional jobs program.”
This was before the Russian invasion of Ukraine when everyone assumed that the warning time for a major conflict would be around 10 years, so the original rate of production was modest. He continued:
“Now we are ramping up production – and we have proposals for further expansion involving extra equipment and additional facilities. When everything comes together as we have recommended, we will be able to produce more than 100,000 rounds per year.”
This would more than double the current capacity of the factory. According to Mr Nioa, all of the IP is available to move to the production of the entire round, not just the shell. He believes that investment in guided fuses in particular would be worthwhile because it greatly increases the accuracy of each round. He said:
“We also need to increase the capacity to fill shells, particularly with a higher rate of production – which means additional plant and equipment. We also need to consider the nature of the explosive. At the moment we make low-cost TNT, which is fine for training munitions. It’s also a satisfactory war shot for some nations, but it is not the preferred fill for Australia because of our need for insensitive munitions (IM).”
“To that can be added things such as double based propellants and combustible cartridge cases. We also need to make the primer, which is a bottleneck in the production not only of 155mm artillery rounds but a number of other things, including 120mm tank ammunition and 5” shells for naval gunfire.”
The Defence Strategic Review is prioritising long range strike, but as the fighting in Ukraine is showing on a daily basis, conventional artillery is still playing a dominant role at the front line. The Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance (GWEO) is looking at ways of industrialising the production of weapons to increase Australia’s sovereign capabilities and the full domestic production of 155mm ammunition would seem logical.
Such a move would mean Australia could contribute to the allied pool – particularly in the Indo-Pacific region – and possibly export directly to countries such as Ukraine.
(Disclaimer: The author travelled to Queensland as a guest of NIOA.)
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