Poland builds 155mm artillery shells with British help

Poland and Britain are building artillery shells together at scale, and their governments and chambers of commerce have just given that partnership a formal award recognizing it as one of the most consequential industrial collaborations between the two countries. The British Embassy in Warsaw and the British Polish Chamber of Commerce jointly presented the British-Polish Collaboration Award to Polish Armaments Group, known as PGZ, and BAE Systems on May 29, recognizing the two companies’ joint effort to establish a new 155mm artillery ammunition manufacturing facility in Poland as an exemplary model of defense industrial cooperation with real strategic consequences.

Poland and the United Kingdom signed a defense partnership agreement earlier the same week in London, placing the PGZ-BAE Systems collaboration within a rapidly deepening bilateral security relationship between two NATO members that have each concluded, based on watching Russia’s war in Ukraine, that European defense industrial capacity is dangerously insufficient and must be rebuilt urgently. The 155mm shell at the center of the partnership is not an abstract symbol of cooperation but the most consumed artillery round in the current European security emergency, fired by Ukrainian guns in the hundreds of thousands since 2022 and stockpiled by NATO nations at a pace that Western production lines have struggled to match.

Poland has been one of NATO’s most aggressive investors in military capability since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, committing to defense spending exceeding four percent of GDP, the highest proportion in the alliance, and signing some of the largest arms procurement deals in European history including contracts for American HIMARS rocket artillery, South Korean K2 tanks and K9 howitzers, and American F-35 fighters. That investment creates a derived demand for ammunition that Poland cannot fully satisfy from its own industrial base at current scale, and the strategic logic of building domestic 155mm production capacity in partnership with a NATO ally with established manufacturing expertise is straightforward: sovereign ammunition production reduces vulnerability to supply chain disruptions and positions Poland as a contributor to European defense industrial resilience rather than simply a consumer of allied production.

BAE Systems, the British defense giant that manufactures artillery ammunition at facilities in Wales and Sweden alongside its global weapons and electronic systems business, signed the strategic partnership with PGZ in September 2025 to establish the new Polish manufacturing facility. The agreement covers not just the physical production of 155mm rounds but technology transfer and knowledge sharing, allowing Polish engineers and workers to build the skills and institutional knowledge that sustain an ammunition manufacturing capability rather than simply operating a licensed production line. PGZ President Adam Leszkiewicz described both the benefit Poland is receiving and the direction the partnership is expected to travel:

“We are delighted that the British Embassy and the BPCC appreciate the collaboration between Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa and BAE Systems, as evidenced by today’s award. This is an example of collaboration with a foreign partner — on the one hand, we are benefiting from BAE Systems’ vast experience and know-how, and on the other, we are opening a path to the British market, where we can introduce our explosives production technologies. I am confident that this collaboration will continue to develop in a direction beneficial to both sides and, above all, the Polish Armed Forces and the Polish defence industry.”

The reference to Polish explosives production technologies entering the British market is a notable element in Leszkiewicz’s statement, suggesting the partnership is genuinely bidirectional rather than a simple technology transfer from a larger partner to a smaller one. Poland has significant experience in energetics, the chemical compounds that make munitions work, and that expertise represents a real industrial contribution that BAE Systems and the broader British defense industrial base can benefit from as the alliance works to scale ammunition production across multiple sites and supply chains simultaneously.

Miroslaw Janicki, Director of BAE Systems Poland, framed the award in terms of the operational output the partnership is delivering: “We are honoured to be recognised in such a positive way alongside our friends at PGZ. As Poland’s proven defence partner, BAE Systems remains dedicated to the mission of helping to ensure national security through the provision of 155mm artillery ammunition in great quantities and high quality to meet our nation’s objectives.”

The debate about 155mm ammunition in Europe is not about quality, which existing producers can deliver, but about volume. Ukraine has demonstrated that modern high-intensity artillery warfare consumes rounds at rates that peacetime NATO production planning never anticipated, and the gap between what Western nations can currently produce and what a sustained conflict in Europe would demand has been one of the most discussed industrial vulnerabilities in alliance planning since 2022. Every new production facility, every technology transfer that enables a new nation to manufacture rather than simply purchase, and every partnership that diversifies the supply chain adds resilience that a single-source system cannot achieve.

Dame Melinda Simmons, Britain’s Ambassador to Poland, placed the award within the broader bilateral relationship in remarks at the ceremony: “The economic partnership between the United Kingdom and Poland is stronger today than ever before. The second edition of the UK-Poland Business Awards demonstrates how dynamically and on multiple fronts our cooperation is developing — from growing direct investment and trade to joint initiatives in energy transition, new technologies, and security. The recipients of these awards perfectly illustrate the ambition and potential of our cooperation.”

A 155mm artillery shell weighs approximately 43 kg (95 lb) with its propellant charge and is the standard NATO caliber for heavy field artillery, fired by systems including the American M777 howitzer, the German PzH 2000, the French Caesar, and the Polish Krab self-propelled gun. Building more of them, faster, in more locations across the alliance, is one of the most concrete contributions any nation can make to European collective defense right now.