BAE Systems has officially opened a new £25 million artillery facility in Sheffield, restoring gun barrel manufacturing to the UK and creating 200 skilled jobs.
The 94,000 sq. ft site, opened by Defence Secretary John Healey, will initially deliver M777 lightweight howitzers and expand to support other artillery and combat systems. Once operational later this year, it will become the UK hub for howitzer production.
“This new factory is a big boost for South Yorkshire and a significant step forward in strengthening our British defence industrial base,” said John Healey. “This is a vote of confidence in our world-leading defence sector and good, skilled British jobs.”
The facility is expected to support over 60 UK-based suppliers. It forms part of a wider government strategy to revitalise artillery manufacturing and improve sovereign capability.
John Borton, Managing Director of BAE Systems Weapons Systems UK, added: “Our significant investment adds to Sheffield’s rich manufacturing history and reputation as an industrial powerhouse. It will develop a highly skilled workforce in the local area, while also forming an important part of the UK’s critical defence infrastructure.”
BAE Systems’ Weapons Systems UK division is the country’s only artillery design house and also produces naval guns. The M777, which will be built in Sheffield, is the world’s only combat-proven lightweight howitzer.
Earlier this year, BAE was contracted to produce 150 UK-designed artillery barrels for Ukraine. The company is also maintaining and repairing 105mm Light Guns in-country and working with local partners to expand support.
The Sheffield facility is the latest in a series of major infrastructure investments by BAE Systems, including £300 million in Glasgow shipbuilding, £200 million in munitions, and £220 million in advanced technologies in Rochester.
If I remember rightly the M777 was a British design that the British Army did not adopt, but the US took it on under licence. So great to see a British gun manufactured in the UK again..!
Cheers CR
I worked on this gin.in 1985 at VSEL in Barrow when it was called the Ultra Light Field Howitzer.It was designed and manufactured in Barrow-in-Furness .It was taken to the Umaha Testing Range in the United States and beat everything the Americans had.
Our engineers were told at the time that we would be stopped by them from being able to sell it unless they became partners.This gun went on to be manufactured in Barrow and exported to the USA where it was assembled and renamed the M777.It has never been an American gun,they have as usual tried to claim all the credit.Last year it was decided to move production to a new facility at Sheffield.A lot of people have been hoodwinked into believing it was sn American gun which it isn,t an never has been.
Americans stealing our glory, who’d have thought it eh.
Doesn’t help when UK itself doesn’t buy it. Uk MoD should have bought a battery, even if never actually fielded said battery (though I suggest it’s a natural augmentation to the 105 light gun). Sometimes with the Americans, if you can afford it, it’s best to ignore them. If you are good enough, they will eventually find you. Just don’t get over enthusiastic when they do & keep one hand on your wallet & your solicitor on speed dial.
Shame we lack resources even to field M777 with reserve units, or stick it on the back of a truck like CAESAR.
Why choose a very expensive gun containing titanium for that role ? It is on the back of a truck.
Why not build a mostly all steel version? Duh!
Ah… those people at BAE again.
Order 150 for the Royal Artillery.
Or more likely, 36 for RA plus 12 for the Royal Marines.
This was a British gun that BAE moved production to the US as well as providing US industry with lots of foreign orders.. it’s good that it’s come back, but essentially BAE turned a UK product into a U.S. product.
To be fair, the Americans did by 1000 units to our none. I don’t think we have much ground for complaint.
Generally speaking any tec transfer comes with Benefits to the donating nation.. so a number build by the donating nation or a good supply chain bumb.. the UK got FA as the US took almost the whole supply chain etc.
And we did a similar thing with Boxer and Ajax. What’s good for the goose as they say ..
Well boxer we actually put a lot into its development and Ajax we actually purchased a lot of the heavy engineering from the original nations.. infact the whole main hull was imported to the UK..
A bit of a tradition with our technology and innovators, arm, Deep Mind and recently Engineered Arts, becoming essentially US Companies, don’t know about the last (likely similar thinking to expand) but core originators of the first two substantially blamed the lack of City willingness to invest in what’s deemed risky technology start ups, while of course it’s a very different atmosphere in the US even in the present madness, especially in California so our innovation just gets picked off sadly by Big Brother benefitting their economy far more than ours sadly. Not sure where our growth will come from as this pattern rinses and repeats.
About time we got the M777 into service in the British army. Standardise on the 155mm guns, remove the 105mm light guns and donate to Ukraine.
The M777 is a similar weight but fires over a greater range and delivers a higher payload than the 105mm gun
At 4.5tons it could be towed by a medium weight vehicle such as a supacat 6×6 ATV, most military grade logistics trucks. We should purchase 100 as a minimum , a highly useful second line artillery capability to back up MLRS, RCH-155
That’s already been done on s supacat 8 x 8 as the M777 Portee.
RCH-155
Archer
M777 Portee
Would be three similar platforms so complexity in the maintenance and logistics domains.
Given that Archer is the interim AS-90 replacement, it’s very puzzling that RCH-155 was chosen, not M777 Portee.
I’ve no knowledge of any evaluation competition but RCH-155 does align with UK German defence agreements, which might have been enough to win.
Presumably the decision not to purchase M777 counts against, and despite the history it could now be seen as an American product.
Lon, I thought most by now knew that the army was not at all involved in selecting the replacement for the AS-90. It was a political decision by Sunak to select the Boxer RCH-155. The army had of course planned a competitive evaluation of about 4 options in the usual way but Sunak binned it to select RCH-155 as an example of Anglo-German cooperation.
Perhaps counting against a portee artillery solution is poor crew protection.
I have never considered the M777 as an American product just because the Americans boight this British product…but US heritage would not anyway disbar its consideration. There was a time when most of our army’s artillery was American – M109, M110, M107, Lance, MLRS…
Thanks for your clarification. I suppose that political interference is the default for strange decisions. Sunak had to meet his German counterparts and say nice things about collaboration. He’s not accountable for the logistics, maintenance and finance complexity that it adds, never mind annoying the senior responsible officer for Artillery.
Hopefully the Strategic Defence Review Transformation and appointment of the Director of Equipment will improve that in future.
On US equipment, VPOTUS was clear at the Munich summit that Article 5 is not just optional but USA default response is not interested in European problems. Thus the rationale for interoperability or purchase from USA goes away when European jobs,profits and taxes are delivered by purchasing European products and solutions.
European taxpayers can reasonably ask why USA kit should be the default. The potential lack of sovereign control would be a problem for example long range precision fire that depends on current US software, data or space vehicles.
M777 is more like twice the weight of the 105 light gun. The ammo is also significantly heavier (which is logistical problem in itself), The 105 can be moved by most military helicopters, vehicles or manhandled if you have to. You can even back pack in the ammo. M777 & its ammo is more like a medium lift helicopter.
Is where we could reequip the 105 light guns with the M777’s would be on Gibraltar. There the guns are unlikely to ever be airlifted by helicopters. The M777 would easily cover the straits with 100 lb shells and provide a reassuring defence for the Rock. This is not rocket science.
M777s lost opportunity for the British Army ,it’s been a world beater .
Perhaps we could start building tank guns again… rather than buying German ones…
Rob, not worth building a factory for such small orders of tank guns.
It’s normal to agree that production is partly localised so not a 100% import of foreign manufacturing.
In automotive the tariffs forced local manufacturing from new factories though volume and duration were much larger.
Subcontractor manufacturing is normal for smaller volumes, and flexibility a big deal: CAD, CAM, FMC etc..
‘The M777, which will be built in Sheffield, is the world’s only combat-proven lightweight howitzer.’
Is that true? Surely not. What about the UK 105mm Light Gun, for starters?