IN Brief:
- Albacete has design capacity for 1.2m projectiles and 1.8m cartridge cases annually.
- The €20m investment includes new facilities for medium-calibre ammunition and mortars.
- Planned employment growth and capacity targets are not measured annual production.
Rheinmetall is commissioning new medium-calibre ammunition manufacturing capacity at its Albacete site in Spain under the Firepower production programme, alongside an expansion of planned mortar output. The €20 million programme includes buildings, machinery and technical infrastructure, with its new medium-calibre line scheduled to be commissioned during October 2026. Rheinmetall describes the work as additional European ammunition capacity, without identifying a newly awarded single-customer order for the plant.
The new medium-calibre operation covers components for ammunition from 20mm to 35mm. Rheinmetall states that the facility has an annual capacity of approximately 1.2 million projectiles and 1.8 million cartridge cases, or roughly three million components combined. That figure describes two component categories, not three million completed rounds or documented output during 2026. Additional processing occurs elsewhere within the group’s manufacturing network, including its Burgos site.
Rheinmetall Expal Munitions has modernised and extended a building at Albacete to accommodate the new line, providing approximately 5,700 square metres for machinery and associated technical infrastructure. The company also built a separate 5,200-square-metre hall in less than a year for mortar manufacturing. Its announcement says the latter building can also support aircraft maintenance, although it does not describe a specific new maintenance contract.
The new line manufactures projectiles and cartridge cases, both of which need further processing before they form accepted complete rounds. A projectile incorporates the parts that provide the required effect at the target, while the case is one component of a cartridge assembly. Before final ammunition can be delivered, the relevant components must be processed, assembled and qualified to the specified round configuration. Rheinmetall identifies the Albacete line as part of a networked production system rather than a standalone facility producing every element of each ammunition family.
The production scope includes components used in ammunition for infantry fighting vehicles and anti-aircraft gun systems. Rheinmetall cites armour-piercing ammunition, kinetic energy time-fuzed types and its AHEAD air-defence ammunition as examples of product families supported by the network. Counter-uncrewed aircraft applications create particular demand for suitable air-defence ammunition, but the announcement does not provide an itemised order book, confirmed delivery quantities or a split among the various projectile designs.
Albacete’s existing specialisation in mortars is also being expanded. Rheinmetall says the site is intended to reach annual capacity for 40 Dual-Eimos 81mm mortar systems and more than 650 mortar weapons in 60mm, 81mm and 120mm calibres. The company identifies the EIMOS 81 as an established focus and EIMOS 120 series production as forthcoming. These targets cover weapons and systems, which are separate manufacturing categories from the medium-calibre projectile and cartridge-case figures.
An increase in automated machining and processing capacity can relieve production bottlenecks, but it also changes the demands placed on materials procurement, dimensional inspection and assembly scheduling. For a multi-site network, consistent process controls are necessary so that components can move between plants and remain compatible with downstream manufacturing and qualification requirements. Rheinmetall says the site will work with other facilities in Spain, Germany and Switzerland, creating a production route involving more than one national industrial base.
Rheinmetall plans to increase Albacete employment from approximately 210 to 300, an increase of about 90 positions, or 43 per cent using the company’s stated endpoints. This differs from the “almost a third” description in its announcement. The recruitment remains planned rather than completed, and no breakdown has been given for engineering, production, inspection or maintenance roles.
Firepower is a broader corporate expansion effort. Rheinmetall is targeting annual group capacity of 1.5 million 155mm artillery rounds, 240,000 rounds of 120mm tank ammunition and four million rounds of medium-calibre ammunition by 2030 at the latest. The group targets cover finished ammunition across several factories and cannot be added to Albacete’s rated projectile and cartridge-case capacity or reported as current production.
The newly installed machinery also requires continuing maintenance and trained operators if rated capacity is to translate into sustained, accepted production. The expansion follows new plant investments elsewhere, including Unterlüß in Germany and Baisogala in Lithuania, together with upgrades to established sites. Albacete adds an immediate manufacturing location and a larger planned mortar operation to that programme. Actual annual throughput, the pace of recruitment and future deliveries will depend on production ramp-up, qualification, supply inputs and customer requirements that have not been quantified in the October announcement.
