In recent months, the Forges de Tarbes have been running at full speed. Long in danger, the activity of this only French industrial site still capable of producing 155 mm shell barrels, has been revived by the enormous needs of the Ukrainian forces for this type of ammunition.
Shafts of glowing steel pile up near the forge core after being fashioned there at over 1,000 degrees. In a few minutes, machined on other workstations, they will take their ogive shape before reaching the delivery pallets at the entrance to the factory. Since the fall, the Hautes-Pyrénées factory has produced approximately 1,500 barrels of a 155 mm caliber shell, the LU.211, each month, which equips the dozens of Caesar guns, supplied by France to Ukraine. . “The situation in Ukraine has made clear the need for sovereignty and therefore to strengthen the industrial sector which makes it possible to manufacture ammunition”, underlines Anthony Cesbron, deputy director of Forges de Tarbes.
The Tarbes site also plans to produce a more standard 155 mm, the M.107, to feed other types of guns, used by kyiv. These needs “represent much more than the combined production of all NATO countries”, specifies Jérôme Garnache-Creuillot, CEO of Europlasma, parent company of Forges de Tarbes. Ukraine indeed fires “5 to 7,000 155 mm shells per day, or about 2 million per year”, explains Anthony Cesbron, deputy general manager of Forges de Tarbes. The Tarbes factory intends to play its full part in this supply. Modernizations are planned and recruitments already underway: from 25 employees at the start of the crisis, the workforce has increased to 30 and should even reach 50 by the end of 2023.