German industry is changing a lot loosing against China, so they have been moving to war related stuff for the past years. Personally, I know a bunch of people who were offered get transferred from VW to a military drone company.<p>On one side I understand that manufacturing a lot of weapons could be somehow a protection for the future, but also Germany provides a lot of ammunition to Israel that is killing thousands of innocents in Gaza and Lebanon. Germany is friend of Israel despite many people disliking it in Germany (they are still waving Israeli flags in many official places).<p>Also, weapons will lead to more weapons, more violence and more war, specially if you have investors behind willing to see their shares going up...
I find it puzzling why they won't pivot to industries that actually matter like making competition to Micron or Samsung and manufacture RAM at scale.<p>Amping up military production is basically a reaction to certain countries electing maniacal pedos as presidents instead of jailing them.
Reads like a total different Germany I live in. Really odd.
I always wonder about these production numbers in the military. The US has a large military complex and Germany is an industrial power and North Korea is a small military autocracy suffering from raw material shortages, but Googling around I see[0]:<p>> <i>The expert also said that the North’s annual production estimate of 2 million 152-millimeter artillery shells is premised on peacetime manufacturing rates.</i><p>But here Germany is the largest ammunition producer and they're making 1.1 million (presumably both are per-year rates).<p>This link[1] says the US makes 672k/year (I'm annualizing their per-month number) so definitely Germany is making more than the US.<p>I get the impression a lot of these things need some contextualization. Are the rates per month or per year, is production dispatchable, do some countries have stockpiles or refurbish shells? Because just looking at raw numbers here results in strange results like North Korea being way larger than Germany at this.<p>0: <a href="https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2023-11-06/national/northKorea/Expert-says-North-likely-to-ramp-up-production-of-shells-for-Russia/1907006" rel="nofollow">https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2023-11-06/nationa...</a><p>1: <a href="https://breakingdefense.com/2026/02/army-official-not-happy-with-gds-handling-of-155mm-contract-as-production-lags/" rel="nofollow">https://breakingdefense.com/2026/02/army-official-not-happy-...</a>
Maybe the article is counting the “medium-caliber ammunition” as well; Germany seems to have boosted that quite significantly.<p>> medium-caliber ammunition from 800,000 to 4,000,000, and artillery shells from 70,000 to 1,100,000<p>Of course it isn’t really obvious that this would be an apples-to-apples comparison (I suspect it isn’t). Then again it isn’t obvious that a NK artillery shell is an apples-to-apples comparison to a German one (I’d hope the German ones are a bit more modern).<p>Context is needed but I suspect the full context is complicated—the US doesn’t shoot as many artillery shells just because of the way we do war, so it isn’t obvious that in-context this is a meaningful metric anyway.
The US spends much of its defense budget on building expensive high-tech toys.<p>North Korea spends much of theirs on artillery shells.
The US (and Europe) have been under investing in shell production since the end of the cold war.<p>North Korea is a dictatorship, which one of its main deterrents is to shell soul to oblivion.
From less than a day ago -<p>Germany Overtakes US in Ammunition Production Capacity<p>141 points, 163 comments<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47944924">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47944924</a>
It also probably helps since Russia is now sanctioned that Germany is basically filling in the huge void right ?
I don't know if you guys are history buffs…
What could possibly go wrong by waking up the Europeans war talents?
The actual risks of modern day Germany going on a hegemonic rampage across Europe are extremely low. Their interests these days are much more aligned with maintaining proper democratic institutions, the EU, and being a voice for the free non-russia-aligned world.
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…again.
What could go wrong?
More than Russia? I kind of doubt it.
Germany is producing weapons to fight the last war.<p>WWIII will be fought with drones, not artillery. They should invest part of this money into becoming the leader in drone manufacturing, not this.<p>Since it's Germany, the money for this manufacturing ramp-up was probably allocated around 2023-2024, when older artillery was needed and before drone superiority was obvious. So maybe this is the expected outcome. If the money was allocated today, we might see it distributed differently.<p>Both China and the US have moved on to drones. China has purchased 1 million kamikaze strike drones to hit targets across Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan [0]; and the US is trying to invest $55 billion into drone procurement [1].<p>[0] <a href="https://www.warquants.com/p/one-million-suicide-drones-with-chinese" rel="nofollow">https://www.warquants.com/p/one-million-suicide-drones-with-...</a><p>[1] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47953787">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47953787</a>
You haven't seen the drone videos where they drop artillery shells from drones? Or the vast webs of fiber optic cables strewn across crater filled Ukrainian farmland from the necessitated by the massive amount of drone jamming and crowding of RF channels?<p>Artillery is still queen of the battlefield regardless of what highlight reels from r/CombatFootage would have you believe.
> <i>the drone videos where they drop artillery shells from drones</i><p>No, Ukraine does not drop artillery shells from drones. They typically drop VOG-17/25 grenade launcher rounds or RGD-5/F-1 fragmentation grenades, neither of which are considered artillery shells.<p>> <i>the vast webs of fiber optic cables strewn across crater filled Ukrainian farmland</i><p>That's massive evidence <i>for</i> using drones over artillery. It proves how effective drones are.<p>I'd have a look at the latest Ukraine military procurement data. Over 50% of Ukraine's military procurement budget is going into drones. Only 15% is going into artillery and ammunition. That's a clear signal of which technology is more effective.<p>> <i>Artillery is still queen of the battlefield</i><p>That was true in 2023, but we are now in 2026, and drones are clearly superior.
You need both. See Ukraine needing mountains of artillery despite the pre war consensus being that the artillery era is over<p>The drones make the news but can’t be the only weapon you bring
This is more of a doctrine issue. Ukraine was given mountains of artillery by western nations, so naturally they were going to use it. But artillery has lower RoI than drones, drones are cheaper, more accurate, more versatile, and have longer range. It makes the most sense to heavily invest in drones, not artillery. If we look at what Ukraine spends its military budget on, >50% of its military spending goes towards drones. Only 15% is going towards artillery & ammunition.<p>We can also look at present wars to view where the trend is going. I'd estimate that during the latest conflict between Israel/Iran/US + gulf states, approximately zero artillery shells were fired*.<p>During a hypothetical US/China/Taiwan + Korean/Japan conflict, I'd expect this number to be similar.<p>*excluding rocket artillery such as HIMARS
The same pre war consensus also thought that war with Russia was unthinkable, it is Russia that focused on artillery tactics so the two assumptions went hand in hand.<p>It’s my opinion that artillery is out of date and by the end of the Ukraine war they will be even more out of date. It’s hard to make artillery more cost effective than it already is yet still many more opportunities to increase drone effectiveness.
It’s rare for military technology to completely “move on” to other things. Typically, the new just gets added to the old. So, yea, drones are new, but drones don’t cause artillery to become completely obsolete, in the same way that aerial bombs didn’t cause artillery to become obsolete. You’ll end up spending on both.
Germany is manufacturing artillery shells because Ukraine specifically needs them and has been suffering shell starvation for years.<p>Ukraine's massive use of them has drained the stocks of the European powers, from my understanding.<p>So, no, the answer is unfortunately they need to do both. Though after the war I suspect Ukraine will take the lead on drone development.
Drones will still fire ammunition presumably?<p>Are they just producing ammunition types that aren't suitable for drone weaponry or something?
Not this kind, drones don't fire 155mm artillery shells.<p>Artillery has a relatively short range of ~30km, while modern drones are reaching hundreds of km.
Artillery and drones do different things. An artillery shell costs ~$2k and provides a much bigger bang (and faster speed, totally non-jammable) than a $2k drone (a shahed is ~$20k and much more intercept-able). Drones are 100% useful, but so is artillery.
Drones don't use these types of munitions.
I'm sorry but you're trying to sound insightful without knowing anything about German drone production.<p><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/14/ukraine-strikes-drone-production-deal-with-germany" rel="nofollow">https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/14/ukraine-strikes-dro...</a><p><a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-germany-drone-production/33723276.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-germany-drone-production/337...</a><p><a href="https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2026/02/26/once-reluctant-germany-goes-big-on-one-way-attack-drones/" rel="nofollow">https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2026/02/26/once-re...</a><p><a href="https://defencematters.eu/germany-ukraine-drone-factory/" rel="nofollow">https://defencematters.eu/germany-ukraine-drone-factory/</a>
Germany (currently) isn't even in the top 5 for military drone manufacturing.<p>The ranking of number of military drones produced per year goes Ukraine (millions), China (millions), Russia (hundreds of thousands), Iran (hundreds of thousands), then the US (tens of thousands), followed by Turkey and Israel (mid-thousands).<p>German manufacturing is in the low thousands per year. This is a major national security issue, Germany is currently behind many other nations in this technology.