Rheinmetall Opens a EUR 20 Million Medium-Calibre Plant at Albacete — 1.2M Projectiles, 1.8M Cases, 650 Mortars a Year
Albacete, 16 October 2026
Key points
- Rheinmetall Expal Munitions has commissioned a modernised and extended medium-calibre facility at Albacete; Rheinmetall puts the investment at about EUR 20 million
- The 5,700 m² building is to make about 3 million components a year, 1.2 million projectiles and 1.8 million cartridge cases in 20 to 35 mm, for armour-piercing, time-fuzed and AHEAD air-defence rounds used by infantry fighting vehicles and anti-aircraft guns; Burgos processes them further
- A new 5,200 m² hall, built in under a year, is sized for more than 650 mortars a year in 60, 81 and 120 mm and 40 Dual-Eimos 81 mm systems, and can also take aircraft maintenance
- The workforce grows from about 210 to about 300; Amparo Valcarce, Spain's secretary of state for defence, and the German ambassador attended with Armin Papperger
Rheinmetall's Spanish munitions arm has added a medium-calibre components line at Albacete, and the group's own release supplies the yardstick for it.
The site makes parts, not finished rounds: projectiles and cases leave Albacete for filling and assembly elsewhere, Burgos among the named sites. The product list is the one Europe's counter-drone purchases depend on. AHEAD is the programmable airburst ammunition fired by Rheinmetall's Skynex and Skyranger guns, the systems Romania took in its SAFE-financed package. The release, which Signal No. 169 carried on the day, names no customer and no public financing; Valcarce spoke of deterrence that requires armed forces "properly equipped".
Albacete's 1.2 million projectiles a year are under a third of Rheinmetall's 4 million medium-calibre target. The same release restates the group's goal, to make 4 million medium-calibre rounds a year by 2030 at the latest, with 1.5 million 155 mm shells and 240,000 rounds of 120 mm. Papperger calls Albacete strategic for Spain and Europe; by the group's arithmetic it is one of several sources it needs. The mortar hall is the more self-contained step: 650 tubes a year is an end product, not a component. What would show Albacete working at its rating is a named order for its medium-calibre parts or its mortars, by Madrid or another buyer.
Related · Rheinmetall's European ammunition plants
