Watervliet Builds America's Cannon Tubes

The U.S. Army relies on one industrial plant, the Watervliet Arsenal near Troy, New York, to make cannon tubes for the M1 Abrams tank, M109 Paladin self-propelled howitzer, and M777 lightweight howitzer. Founded in 1813, the nation's oldest arsenal increased production after the United States began sending howitzers to Ukraine in 2022, and output tripled over the next three years. The Army modernized the facility and began seeking secondary producers because dependence on Watervliet created a single point of failure.

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