“When government and industry work together and Congress gives us sufficient latitude, we can still do great things in this country really fast.”
Douglas R. Bush
Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology
.…on a new General Dynamics factory in the Dallas suburb of Mesquite, which will soon produce 30,000 shell casings each month for 155-millimeter howitzers, via the New York Times.
Last year, we told you about General Dynamics planning to open a major new artillery casings plant in the Mesquite 635 industrial park at LBJ Freeway at U.S. Highway 80 east of Dallas. Today the New York Times reported that the plant will soon be producing about 30,000 steel shell casings each month for 155-millimeter howitzers, nearly doubling the current U.S. manufacturing output.
Florida-based General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems has worked with the Istanbul, Turkey-based defense company Repkon to get the plant up and running as fast as possible, the Times noted—in large part to get desperately needed artillery shells to Ukraine for its war with Russia, as well as to reinforce the U.S. arsenal.
“Despite all our starts and stops with the government, the continuing resolutions and getting the last supplemental, the industrial base responds when you fund it and it’s done right,” said the Pentagon’s top acquisition official, William A. LaPlante, according to the Times.
The factory in Mesquite will have three production lines running in multiple buildings, with one splitting square footage with a Frito-Lay distribution center, the Times added.
![](https://s24806.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Mesquite-635-Creation.jpg)
LGE Design Build, alongside developer Creation and Crow Holdings, completed the more than half-million square-foot Mesquite 635 industrial park in 2023. [Image: Creation Equity]
You can read the Times story here.
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