Propellant charge modules at Rheinmetall AG’s Nitrochemie Aschau factory in Aschau am Inn, Germany, on March 5.
Photographer: Laura Alviz/BloombergEurope Is Short of Gunpowder and TNT When It Needs Them Most
Ammunition manufacturers are working to secure supplies of chemicals and cotton as they prepare for a massive increase in demand for explosives and propellants.
The last stages of gunpowder manufacture at Nitrochemie Aschau look a bit like making pasta. A mass of fibers is squeezed through rollers until it is flat and gelatinous, which is then coiled tightly by hand and fed through a press that squeezes it into a thick cord. Finally, it is passed through a matrix that cuts it into pellets, each measured to within a hundredth of a millimeter.
It is a surprisingly manual process. “You cannot simply put large amounts of explosive materials onto a conveyor belt, no one would want that,” said Oliver Becker, senior vice president of operations at the site, which sprawls across 90 hectares of Bavarian countryside near Munich.