First British-made artillery barrels head to Ukraine

The first British-made artillery barrels are being delivered to Ukraine under a £61 million contract with Sheffield Forgemasters, marking the first time forged artillery barrels have been produced in the UK for almost two decades.

The 105mm and 155mm gun barrels, 150 in total, are being manufactured at the Yorkshire firm under a contract awarded by the UK Government to BAE Systems and announced by President Zelensky last year, with the work supporting hundreds of jobs in Sheffield and more than 60 businesses across the UK supply chain standing to benefit. The first four barrels have been shipped as development forgings, allowing Ukraine to test its own manufacturing processes, and the Sheffield line is now turning out eight forgings a month, with the barrels forged in Yorkshire before being sent to Ukraine for finishing and integration.

The announcement came as Defence Secretary Dan Jarvis visited Sheffield Forgemasters for the first time as a minister, having previously toured the site as Mayor of South Yorkshire. “Steel forged in Sheffield defended Britain in its darkest hours. The barrels produced here in South Yorkshire – the first made in Britain in almost two decades – will help Ukraine on the battlefield, while creating good, skilled jobs in the UK,” he said, as quoted in the announcement. “Our Defence Investment Plan backed by £298 billion is delivering greater national security for our nation and our allies, and opportunities for people across the UK. This is about rearming Europe by reindustrialising places like South Yorkshire.”

Sheffield Forgemasters, which manufactures specialist steel forgings and castings for critical defence programmes and employs 780 skilled staff, has been owned by the Ministry of Defence since its nationalisation in 2021, a move driven principally by the need to secure supply for the nuclear submarine programme. The government say it invested more than £420 million of additional funding in the company last year to bolster sovereign steelmaking for defence, including gun barrels and submarine components, and the firm is building a new 13,000 tonne forging line and a 30,000 square metre machining hall as part of an MoD-funded £1.3 billion recapitalisation programme.

The barrel work builds on the opening of BAE Systems’ new £25 million artillery factory in Sheffield, which became operational earlier this year and has created a further 100 highly skilled jobs, consolidating the city’s position as the home of UK howitzer production. The loss of domestic barrel forging capability had long been identified as a gap in the UK’s defence industrial base, with barrels previously sourced from overseas suppliers, and the war in Ukraine, in which artillery has dominated the battlefield and barrel wear has proven a constant drain on gun availability, has lent the shortfall a new urgency.

The Sheffield production forms part of the UK’s wider package of military support for Ukraine, and the MoD says the return of domestic barrel manufacture strengthens the defence industrial base while delivering skilled employment and investment in communities across the country, with Forgemasters’ sovereign steelmaking serving civil nuclear and offshore energy work alongside its military programmes.