the companies wrote<\/a>. \u201cAI transforms production facilities into strategic assets,\u201d Deterrence\u2019s CEO said in the release. \u201cWe\u2019re building autonomous manufacturing systems that learn, adapt, and scale in real time.\u201d<\/p>\nThese pronouncements have baffled former Mesquite workers. \u201cWhat are they talking about? There\u2019s nothing to learn or adapt or scale,\u201d one said. \u201cIt\u2019s all broken.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
General Dynamics is doing this even as it replaces most of the Repkon equipment with traditional machines like those used in Scranton. How AI will wrest miracles from decades-old technology is unclear. But General Dynamics told investors it expects to be in production next year, and the Army told the inspector general that\u2019ll amount to 20,000 shells a month.<\/p>\n
Compared with Repkon, Deterrence is perhaps an even less conventional choice. Deterrence was established just three years ago and has never received a DOD contract. Its website gives no indication it has ever helped to manufacture anything. Its three founders have no prior defense experience. One of them worked at Tesla; the other two created a startup that enabled people to lock and unlock buildings with smartphones. Deterrence did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
General Dynamics also pledged to put $200 million into the project. That\u2019s a small sum for a company that generated more than $50 billion in revenue last year and gave CEO Novakovic a compensation package worth more than $25 million. (Meanwhile, the company furloughed or laid off most of the Mesquite workers.)<\/p>\n
The Army says it won\u2019t spend any more money on the project, but it has hardly blackballed General Dynamics. Since the Army shut down work on two production lines in Mesquite one year ago, General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems has received contract awards totaling $2.5 billion, the Army told ProPublica. (The service said this was for \u201cdistinct production lines and critical national defense requirements\u201d unrelated to Mesquite.)<\/p>\n
Repkon\u2019s 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. Repkon Turkey\u2019s CEO co-founded the American company, which was originally named Repkon USA. In March, it changed its name to Paligen Technologies. Some interpreted this as an effort to create distance from the Mesquite disaster. Paligen told ProPublica that it and Repkon are \u201cdifferent and wholly separate companies.\u201d Repkon Turkey did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
The one thing that key decision-makers appear to agree on is that they are absolutely not to blame. Gezen, the former General Dynamics executive, told ProPublica that the company and the Army did nothing wrong. In a brief conversation at his apartment door in a ritzy section of Washington, D.C., in May, Gezen maintained his sunny optimism. The Repkon equipment was a good option, and it may still be a good option, he said, holding an iced coffee in one hand and restraining a large dog with his other. In any case, he added, \u201cit was the fastest option available.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bush, the Army\u2019s former acquisition chief who had assured reporters there were \u201cno major delays\u201d to increasing artillery production, also declined to be interviewed. In a terse conversation in May, peering out from his half-closed front door in Northern Virginia, he told ProPublica: \u201cAll of this was done through appropriate procedures.\u201d<\/p>\n
Others who were involved, speaking on the condition of anonymity, engaged in mutual finger-pointing: The White House demanded too much too fast, Repkon and General Dynamics overpromised, the Army didn\u2019t perform due diligence and Congress underwrote the whole thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The United States still is not close to producing the promised 100,000 shells per month, a former Army official told ProPublica in June, <\/strong>although other<\/a> investments<\/a> to increase 155 mm production have turned out better. Ukraine still needs those shells, the official said, but attention has once again shifted. In the Middle East, it\u2019s other munitions that the Trump administration has rapidly burned through<\/a> during its war with Iran. Trump officials are now calling for<\/a> ramping up production in those areas \u2014 and fast.<\/p>\n\u201cConventional ammo is back on the back burner,\u201d the official said. \u201cEverything now is about interceptors, missiles.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
General Dynamics makes components for those too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 \u2014 and has…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[3315,4178,316,4177,857,2601,81,4179],"class_list":["post-2218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-army","tag-artillery","tag-build","tag-dynamics","tag-failed","tag-general","tag-propublica","tag-shells"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2218\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}