US Army breaks ground on 6.8 mm ammunition factory

The US Army has broken ground starting the construction of a factory to produce its 6.8 mm family of small arms ammunition at the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant, in Independence, Missouri, according to a 6th February article published on the Army website. 

The facility will be operated by Olin Winchester and has been designed over 18 months in a process led by the Army’s Joint Program Executive Office for Armaments and Ammunition. Once finished, the factory will cover 41,800 square metres and be able to address all elements of ammunition production including cartridge case and projectile manufacture, and loading and charging ammunition.

“Once operational, the facility will have an annual production capacity of 385 million cases, 490 million projectiles and 385 million load-assemble-pack operations for 6.8 mm ammunition,” the US Army article states. 

The Lake City Army Ammunition Plant is a government-owned, contractor operated ammunition plant, the new facility forms a part of a significant modernisation. The facility is much larger than the factory that will produce 6.8 mm ammunition, and includes facilities for 5.56, 7.62, and 12.7 mm ammunition. In 2018, Northrop Grumman – the operator of the plant at the time – indicated that it would produce more than 1.4 billion rounds that year. 

The machinery and facilities at the rest of the plant were modernised in the early 2000s as some of the equipment dated back to the 1940s and 70s. The production of all natures at that time totalled 400 million rounds per year, increasing to 1.4 billion by 2007.

Calibre comment

The 6.8 mm round is fired by the US Army’s XM7 Rifle and the XM250 Automatic Rifle, which were selected under the Next Generation Squad Weapon programme, to replace the M4 carbine and M249 squad support weapons respectively, as well as the 5.56×45mm NATO calibre ammunition that has been a NATO common calibre since 1980. The projectile was designed by the US Army and SIG Sauer’s 6.8×51mm hybrid bottlenecked cartridge was selected to complete the round. 

The US Army believes that greater lethality is required for its infantry, especially in the face of improved body armour. The 6.8 mm round also delivers more energy than a 5.56 mm round after penetrating a wall, which may be beneficial in urban warfare. However, some analysts have indicated that existing NATO calibres are sufficiently lethal as they are. So, the wider adoption of the 6.8 mm round may not be certain.