Niewiadów. Private company to produce artillery ammunition near Łódź

The largest Polish private ammunition producer, Grupa Niewiadów, plans to build a large-caliber ammunition factory on the premises of the Niewiadów plant in Łódź province. Production is to begin within two years and ultimately amount to 180,000 155 mm shells per year. The investment cost is approximately PLN 250 million.

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As the president of the Niewiadów Group, Grzegorz Niedzielski, said on Thursday, the company is already at an advanced stage of starting production of 155 mm ammunition – the basic artillery ammunition in NATO – used, among others, in the Krab self-propelled gun-howitzer and the South Korean K9 Thunder self-propelled gun purchased for the needs of the Polish Army. The production line, warehouses and research and development center are to be built on the premises of a former factory in the Ujazd commune near Tomaszów Mazowiecki.

– As the Niewiadów Group, we have the Niewiadów Precision Equipment Plant, which is the successor of a hundred-year-old ammunition factory. Based on this tradition, experience and the infrastructure we have prepared for the production of ammunition, warehouses, and a testing ground, we plan to launch the production of artillery ammunition, including 155 mm ammunition. We have all the permits, certificates, and appropriate concessions. We have the staff, the resources, and we will simply do it – announced Niedzielski.

He pointed out that, as she showed, war in Ukraine – 155 mm artillery ammunition is a key element of the armed forces' equipment. Ukraine ammunition of this caliber is one of the most important in combat operations – 3 to 10 thousand of such shells are fired daily. It is estimated that Ukrainian troops need about 10.8 thousand pieces of artillery ammunition daily, and currently they fire only about 2 thousand of them.

The President emphasized that the demand of the Polish Armed Forces for these missiles is very high, and equipping the army with Krab and K9 gun-howitzers (ultimately 1,000) will multiply these needs. Meanwhile, the production capacity of Polish arms factories, when it comes to 155 mm ammunition, amounts to a maximum of 30,000 per year, while the current storage needs amount to as much as 3 million pieces.

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“The 155 mm ammunition is designed to destroy targets or temporarily slow down the movement of enemy armed forces, destroy stationary targets, places with high concentration of infantry, field covers, lightly armored targets, weapon systems, military and transport equipment, etc.,” we read on the ZSP Niewiadów website.

Niedzielski noted that the company has been investing for two years to launch the plant. In the first stage, the deteriorating warehouses were comprehensively modernized, which will be able to store up to 1.1 million kg of TNT.

– We are currently at the construction stage, on the basis of the old factory infrastructure, of an elaboration plant, i.e. filling the projectile body with explosive material. We want to start production of the projectile in the group within 20 months. In the first stage, there will be three lines for elaborating the projectile body with explosive material obtained from outside. In the second, after a period of about a year, we plan to start production of our own bodies. Our production capacity will be at the level of 180 thousand pieces per year – informed the president of the Niewiadów Group.

As part of this investment, the company also plans to launch a TNT smelting plant, a paint shop and a packaging production line.

In the initial phase, the production of the missiles is to be carried out in cooperation with partners from India (propellant charges), German (Junghans fuse), Slovakia (VOP Novaky primer). The entire process is to be supervised by the Swedish arms company Bofors. Ultimately, however, the Niewiadów Group plans to produce ammunition based on its own documentation.

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– We have started work on our own, Polish technical documentation for 155 mm ammunition. A conference devoted to the development and implementation of new Polish 155 mm ammunition for shooting with AHS Krab and K9 Thunder was held at the Military Institute of Armament Technology in Zielonka. The main assumption of the project is to develop our own product design, which will allow us to independently produce complete ammunition in Poland and freely develop it for subsequent versions,” added Niedzielski.

In connection with this important element of the project, a research and development centre with a 155 mm ballistic station, three shooting axes ranging from 100 m to 500 m in length, a place for fragmentation testing of products, a blasting field and equipment for a full range of various measurements is to be established at the Niewiadów training ground.

The investment is estimated at around PLN 250 million. The elaboration factory is to operate in three shifts and employ 120 highly qualified workers. The auxiliary plants will employ 50 people, and the research and development center will employ 40 engineers.

The company hopes that the ammunition produced in Niewiadów will be delivered to the Polish Army for use with the AHS Krab and K9 Thunder, but talks on this matter are ongoing.

– We want to do it together. We are talking with the Ministry of National Defense, the Polish Armaments Group, the Industrial Development Agency. We want to dedicate it to our army and our security, but there is such a demand for this product that even in an unpredictable scenario in which the Ministry of National Defense would not buy our ammunition, there is no major problem with selling ammunition on third markets – said President Niedzielski.