Defense Industry
US Army: $4.17 billion contract across 11 companies for its ammunition plants – which plants it covers
The Pentagon’s November 5 contract list shows a $4.17 billion firm-fixed-price contract for building and running facilities at Army ammunition plants, shared among eleven companies that will compete for each order.
The U.S. Army is opening a new round of projects at its ammunition plants. The Pentagon’s daily contract list for Thursday, November 5 shows a firm-fixed-price framework contract of $4,171,491,000 for the design, construction and commissioning of facilities at the government-owned, contractor-operated (GOCO) ammunition plants, as well as for their operation and maintenance.
The contract does not go to one contractor. Eleven companies will compete for each individual order: Clark Construction Group of Maryland, Burns & McDonnell of Kansas City, Hensel Phelps of Colorado, Alberici Constructors of St. Louis, BAE Systems Ordnance Systems of Kingsport, Tennessee, J Kokolakis Contracting of Tarpon Springs, Florida, M.C. Dean and Parsons Government Services of Virginia, the Bering-Weston joint venture of Alaska, Applied Research Associates of New Mexico and MSM Group North America of St. Petersburg, Florida.
The solicitation was issued on May 21 and exactly eleven bids were submitted, so all the bidders were selected. The places of performance and the funding will be set with each order, while completion is estimated for November 4, 2031. The contracting authority is the Army Contracting Command at Rock Island, Illinois.
Seven plants and the 155 mm target
The work concerns the network of government plants that supplies the U.S. Army: Holston and Radford for explosives and propellants, Lake City in Missouri for small-calibre ammunition, the Iowa plant for loading and assembling medium and large-calibre rounds, Scranton in Pennsylvania for artillery shell bodies, Milan in Tennessee and the large-calibre cartridge case facility at Quad Cities. The scope covers new buildings, upgrades of production lines, automation and maintenance of infrastructure.
The challenge shows in the artillery numbers. A Pentagon Inspector General report recorded production of 36,000 155 mm rounds a month in March 2026, against a target of 100,000 that had been set for October 2025. In parallel, the Army is seeking new manufacturers for 155 mm gun tubes beyond the Watervliet arsenal.
Among the contractors, MSM Group North America, a subsidiary of the Czech group CSG, stands out. The company is already building for the Army a new artillery shell production complex in Iowa, under a contract of up to $635 million. The plant is expected to enter operation in 2029, with a capacity of up to 36,000 155 mm rounds a month. The same group, through Slovakia’s MSM, had presented to the Hellenic Army General Staff a proposal for domestic production of 155 mm shells with Hellenic Defence Systems (EAS).
BAE Systems Ordnance Systems, the company that runs the Holston plant, also takes part in the contract. The new framework gives the Army a ready tool to distribute projects quickly among many contractors, without a new open solicitation for each project.
