The Pentagon paid the company about $34 million a year from 2016 to 2021, according to USAspending, a government-run contract-tracking website. Global Military Products got its start by buying Soviet-designed weapons from Bulgaria and other countries for Special Operations Command and “likely” supplying them to Syrian rebels, according to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. 30 contract, which already makes 155mm-related equipment. The Army's choice of Global Military Products illustrates how the war in Ukraine has reshaped the defense industry, with smaller companies now finding they can successfully compete with defense industry giants amid a global hunger for arms and ammunition.įounded in 2013, the Florida-based company is not a natural player in the market for NATO-designed artillery shells-unlike Northrop Grumman, the defense-industry behemoth that shares the Jan. Both VMZ and Transmobile advertise 155mm shells on their websites.ĭefense One also contacted Global Military Products CEO Marc Morales, who declined to comment. The second, Transmobile, did not respond to repeated emails. The first, VMZ, said that it did not have the ability to make the ammunition. The Bulgarian embassy did not provide comment to Defense One.ĭefense One contacted two companies identified by Bulgarian officials as having the experimental capability to make 155mm shells. The $402 million contract could buy as many as 800,000 155mm shells at $500 apiece, though George cautioned that shipping, packaging, and other services would likely drive the per-unit cost higher. Others concurred, such as Mathew George, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, and Jerry McGinn, a former senior career official in the Defense Department’s Office of Manufacturing and Industrial Base Policy who is now the executive director of the Greg and Camille Baroni Center for Government Contracting at George Mason University. “Manufactured in Bulgaria is the most straightforward explanation here,” said Greg Sanders, deputy director of the Defense-Industrial Initiatives Group at think-tank CSIS. contracting documents, however, imply the existence of major 155mm production capabilities in Bulgaria, experts said. “Unfortunately, when this project was announced, we expressed passivity,” Defense Minister Todor Tagarev said. The award stands in contrast to the declarations of Bulgarian politicians, particularly Russian-leaning President Rumen Radev, who said in March that Bulgaria would never supply the round.Įven Bulgarian officials sympathetic to Ukraine noted that their largely Soviet-equipped army has no stocks of the NATO-designed ammunition and said that their country has only “ experimental production” capabilities.Īnd after Radev was overridden by the new, pro-European government that formed in June, officials regretfully explained that Bulgaria would be unable to swiftly contribute to the European Union’s plan to send one million 155mm rounds to Ukraine. It also indicates where the shells are coming from: Bulgaria.
But information posted to the Federal Procurement Data System shows that the bulk of the money-$402 million-has already been allocated to Global Military Products. The contract announcement (along with a correction issued later) said the two firms would compete for smaller orders under the $522 million cap through 2027. Delivery was to start in March, the Army said. Army contract awarded in January to defense giant Northrop Grumman and a smaller company, Global Military Products. effort to feed Ukrainian cannons has taken many forms, but one of the largest is a $522 million U.S. Ukraine’s hunger for shells has defined the artillery-centric war, with Ukrainian gunners firing as many as 240,000 rounds a month, or 12 times the U.S.’s monthly production. The hitherto unreported deal sheds light on how the United States has procured the coveted munition, how Bulgaria is delicately balancing its foreign policy, and how some small companies have unseated major defense giants amid the stresses of the Ukraine war. contracting documents, Bulgaria has been providing 155mm shells to Ukraine all along-through the United States, with deliveries scheduled through next year.
He appeared to lose that battle in June, when the country’s pro-Ukraine defense minister declared that the NATO ally would “not exclude” the possibility that domestic firms would produce the ammunition.īut according to Army and U.S. For months, Bulgaria’s pro-Russian president fought to keep his country from joining an EU effort to make 155mm artillery shells for Ukraine.
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