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Posted on 08/15/2026 8:07:09 PM PDT by delta7
Reporting Highlights -Ready, Fire, Aim: In a rushed process exempted from normal rules, the Army hired General Dynamics, which brought on a Turkish subcontractor with little vetting, to make artillery shells. -Money for Nothing: Despite being paid $533 million, General Dynamics did not produce a single usable shell at its new factory — and has not been held publicly accountable. -Wages of Failure: Since the Army halted two production lines at the factory, the General Dynamics unit responsible for the debacle has received contract awards totaling $2.5 billion.
A robot was on fire. Again. It was the summer of 2024, and the cutting-edge robots inside General Dynamics’ sweltering artillery factory near Dallas were catching fire with startling regularity, according to four former workers there. This wasn’t ideal, as the plant was supposed to be churning out urgently needed artillery shells for Ukraine. The robots, giant metal arms with clamps for hands, would end up drenched in oil, which would then — no surprise — combust as they moved steel blocks heated to 1,800 degrees into and out of a machine that periodically erupted columns of fire.
One blaze that summer melted a robot’s cables, putting it out of commission for a week.
Only weeks earlier, defense officials and executives had touted the factory’s innovative new machinery, imported from Turkey, at a gala opening ceremony. But employees were already used to spectacular mishaps, fiery and otherwise. “After the second, third, fourth time, it just became almost normal,” one former worker said. “It got to the point where I was not surprised by anything that happened there.”
Instead of producing shells in an efficient and streamlined fashion, the pricey machines kept failing in bizarre ways. The robot arms would swing out of control, smashing into carefully calibrated equipment, and sometimes they would unexpectedly drop hunks of steel 5 feet down to the floor. The factory’s signature device, meant to precisely stretch the steel for the artillery shells, instead often cracked it beyond repair. Then there were the giant press machines, which required regular pounding with a sledgehammer to function properly but still botched the shaping of nearly every shell. “We really didn’t have any standardized practice,” said Quantel White, a former employee. “It was just a bunch of guys taking turns going at the machine with a sledgehammer every night.” To workers, even the factory buildings themselves came to feel doomed, with acrid smoke hanging in 100-degree heat over foundations seemingly sinking into the earth.
A press machine at the General Dynamics artillery factory near Dallas
The situation never improved. The U.S. Army, which funded the factory, ordered work halted on two of its three production lines in August 2025. By then, General Dynamics had blown eight deadlines. Work on the third production line continued, but the facility never produced a single usable shell, according to a report from the Department of Defense’s inspector general in July. The fiasco has cost American taxpayers $533 million, according to the Army. But the Army has not held General Dynamics or a key Turkish subcontractor — which provided the factory’s much-hyped but little-proven equipment — publicly accountable for the failures. Nor has it made General Dynamics pay a penny back. Just the opposite: General Dynamics, one of the world’s largest defense companies, has been showered with new contracts, continuing its track record as one of the greatest beneficiaries of Pentagon spending. The company is still in charge of the factory. It recently announced that it will fix things there by bringing in another much-hyped but little-proven technology. “It’s an absolute disaster,” said one former official in an Army office supervising the project. “The Army should’ve gone after recovering money from General Dynamics,” added the official, who, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Publicly, the Army has been tight-lipped about what, exactly, went wrong at the factory, located in a sprawling suburb called Mesquite. The inspector general report described the failure but offered few specifics. It didn’t name the companies involved, much less any of the individuals responsible. The report’s recommendations were tepid: The Army should determine whether the contract was “appropriately issued,” how “the money was spent” and whether it can recoup any of it. It should also “identify and implement a solution” for producing more artillery. Army officials deflected blame, telling the inspector general that they didn’t do anything wrong….
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It was already posted hours ago.
….. The United States still is not close to producing the promised 100,000 shells per month, a former Army official told ProPublica in June, although other investments to increase 155 mm production have turned out better. Ukraine still needs those shells, and Repkon’s American offshoot is now at work setting up a TNT factory after receiving a no-bid contract from the Army worth $435 million. TNT is the primary explosive fill in 155 mm shells.….
My understanding is that the factory is UNIONIZED, so it’s unfair to blame the the company - instead, blame FDR for allowing these ‘entities’ to exist in the first place.
The article posts many pictures…..nothing to do with unions, defective Turkish equipment built with Chinese steel! ….many other causes also noted.
“The article posts many pictures…..nothing to do with unions, defective Turkish equipment built with Chinese steel! ….many other causes also noted.”
I wouldn’t expect them to point out the problems dealing with the unions. Once you have union problems, nothing else really matters.
Exactly, people should read the article, it was a terrible, terrible mess, and Hegseth and the Trump administration better dig deep into it.
DoD needs a mean keeper. We need to establish another War Production Board that is judge, jury and executioner and does all three fast. If we did we might get a whole lot closer to balancing the budget.
Speaking of the budget, it is nothing more than an wish list and piggy bank for both the Medical and Defense Industrial Complexes. The same judge, jury and executioner board needs to be set up for Medicine. Neither would have to be in place for very long to make a serious dent in gooberment cost, fraud, waste or abuse.
I know, I’m dreaming.
General Dynamics makes the electric catapult that is failing and over budget.
Trump has ordered an evaluation of steam catapults vs EMALS. Despite what the MSM says, there has been no determination as to which system should be used going forward.
In the 1990’s government, investment bankers, and academia decided globalism was our nation’s future. They entered trade agreements and adopted economic policies resulting in the destruction and offshoring of the greatest manufacturing supply chain on the planet to China. No thought was given to the strategic implications of the loss of our industrial production nor the economic and social repercussions of simultaneously gutting the middle class.
Today we live with the consequences which include a defense structure that cannot be resupplied quickly. Our nation does not have the manufacturing capability to fight World War II today, much less a protracted conflict with China, or possibly Iran.. The Iran war has made it evident the only choice in a war against China and Russia is to go nuclear and hope our aging missiles work while we wait for the incoming missiles to kill us. The debacle in Iran should be a wake up call to government, industry and the American people that the path our nation chose to follow in the 1990’s is the road to nowhere.
We are 40 trillion in debt and do not have the investment capital, knowledge, skills, or will to execute a 20 year plan to create a world leading 21st century manufacturing base that will permit our economy to be self sufficient again. Trump talks about rebuilding manufacturing but we don’t see the commitment of Congress, business, and the billionaire oligarchs controlling the politicians to this goal. Nor are the American people aware of the danger we face. The powers vested in the status quo are simply doing nothing and waiting for Trump to leave office.
The majority of citizens today do not have the willingness to stop buying cheap imported products and pay for quality domestically produced products. Without a national will to do what is necessary to survive, the U.S. faces a bleak future. The grandchildren of today’s illegal immigrants living in the America of 2050 will enjoy the same third world economy and culture their parents came to the U.S. to escape.
They should change their name to "Acme."
Regards,
I believe DOGE was an exceptional antidote to government waste. It was shut down by hundreds of democrats and republicans and dozens of federal judges.
There are trillions of dollars floating around every year in government money. Defense, medical, foreign aid, social services.
Sometimes I wonder if that million dollar missile might have been better spent in our own country? For our own people.
Then I remember that our entire government from city-county-state-federal is corrupt and that one million dollars will result in about $50,000 after every level of Mr. Ten Percent takes their share.
How come Congressmen spend millions of dollars on campaigns for an $80k/yr job? Something is wrong.
The only enemies of “Them” that were hit by this were the American Taxpayer.
Taxpayers still handcuffed to ankles
The government helped create this mess by getting out of the defense business. There used to be a number of armories that ended up getting shut down in the name of progress I suppose.
Then again, there aren’t a lot of people in Congress or across the government able to act like an adult or actually manage anything.
Oh this factory produced LOTS.....
of money funneled to democrats
Well, it is at least a $200k a year jib but the point remains valid.
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