20 million rounds of ammo

purple'n'gold

Came across this in the Irish Independent.

“The Sunday Independent had highlighted Israel's success in winning a series of arms contracts in recent years. Israel is also expected to be in the running for a series of new Irish contracts for over 20 million rounds of small-arms ammunition.”
Now my question is not about the moral pros or cons about trading with Israel, but more like “why do we have to buy small arms ammunition”, surely we could manufacture it ourselves under license, and it must be a relatively easy process.

Am I being naive? Maybe some of you military types can answer.

me_right_one

purplengold wrote: »

“why do we have to buy small arms ammunition”, surely we could manufacture it ourselves under license, and it must be a relatively easy process.

Dont know of any ammo factory in Ireland?

Morpheus

because "I think" its forbidden by irish law to manufacture weapons or ammunition and (i think) there may be something in the constitution?

Maybe they could get a plebiscite to allow the creation of an irish defence forces small arms amunition factory though?

purple'n'gold

Morphéus wrote: »

because its forbidden by irish law to manufacture weapons or ammunition and (i think) there may be something in the constitution?

Maybe they could get a plebiscite to allow the creation of an irish defence forces small arms amunition factory though?

That sounds absolutely ridiculous. Please show me a link to where it says Ireland cannot by law manufacture arms or ammunition. Did an Irish company not manufacture Timoney armoured cars?

airvan

I think this was answered before. There is little or no arms manufacturing in Ireland. Certainly no ammunition manufacturer. In order to be viable any manufacturer would have to export most of it's products. Quite simply the Irish defence forces couldn't sustain any company.

Making bullets isn't simply a case of making a few moulds and turning brass cases. It's a rather complex process.

There there's the fact that every export order would fall under the scrutiny of the government for approval and there would be the usual chest beating about our neutrality and the immorality of the arms trade. The factory itself would probably have to be guarded by the army to protect it from protestors who would probably camp outside the place.

Still think it's a good idea?

purple'n'gold

airvan wrote: »

I think this was answered before. There is little or no arms manufacturing in Ireland. Certainly no ammunition manufacturer. In order to be viable any manufacturer would have to export most of it's products. Quite simply the Irish defence forces couldn't sustain any company.

Making bullets isn't simply a case of making a few moulds and turning brass cases. It's a rather complex process.

There there's the fact that every export order would fall under the scrutiny of the government for approval and there would be the usual chest beating about our neutrality and the immorality of the arms trade. The factory itself would probably have to be guarded by the army to protect it from protestors who would probably camp outside the place.

Still think it's a good idea?

Yes I still think it’s a good idea. And the factory should be inside the Curragh military camp area. If protesters try and camp on army property arrest the ring leaders. The remainder would soon tire and find something else to protest about. I can’t see why Ireland should not develop a small arms industry.

concussion

With high wages, high operating costs, high transportation costs and little experience, why would other countries buy from us instead of established companies, who are very likely to be on their own soil?

Evd-Burner

The only time I could ever see us developing our own ammunitions is if there was a war time situation. Other than that what would be the point?

iceage

purplengold wrote: »

Came across this in the Irish Independent.

“The Sunday Independent had highlighted Israel's success in winning a series of arms contracts in recent years. Israel is also expected to be in the running for a series of new Irish contracts for over 20 million rounds of small-arms ammunition.”
Now my question is not about the moral pros or cons about trading with Israel, but more like “why do we have to buy small arms ammunition”, surely we could manufacture it ourselves under license, and it must be a relatively easy process.

Am I being naive? Maybe some of you military types can answer.

Got a link maybe?

purple'n'gold

iceage wrote: »

Got a link maybe?

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/state-bought-836414m-of-weapons-from-israel-2161819.html

minidazzler

Think of the start-up costs, the training, equiptment, initial materials and then subsequent materials, paying employee's, maintaining equiptment, guard on the complex, The cost of the place.

It is not worth our while to make our own ammunition, it would probably cost 14 million a year to run it here making less that 4 million rounds. Especially since anyone working in the plant would be considered to have specific skills and therefore paid more.

We would have to have the equiptment for all rounds we use, 5.56, 7.62, .5, etc...

It's a lot of cost for little or no real return.

It wasn't me!

It's not economically feasible, as said. The R&D costs that go into the manufacture of ammunition are stupidly high. You'd be looking at four machines for the defence forces, producing 5.56mm, 7.62mm, .50 BMG and 9mm Para, which would be astronomically expensive to buy, store, set up and man. The operating costs are going to be massive as well, as you either have to buy in and transport massive, massive amounts of powder, primers, bullets and brass, or develop entire industries to support it here. The R&D just to design bullets is an astronomically huge enterprise, and it can take years to design a decent one. (Hell, look at how often the 5.56mm bullet used by various forces has been redesigned and changed since its adoption) So you'd be looking at changing the design and reprogramming the machines each time. Then you've to account for wear and tear on the machines, the cost of repairs and replacements, and transport for parts and technicians. Add to that the absolutely tiny market for it (The Defence Forces, the Gardai and the 200,000-odd civilian shooters wouldn't make it worthwhile for Hornady to open in the morning, for example, to say nothing of the fact that the ammunition produced would be useless to all but a negligible amount of the civilian market in this country, since it would be non-expanding) and the resultant fact that you'd have to export the vast, vast majority of your product just to pay for the running of the factory, with the resultant cost of transport and government bureaucracy and it all becomes clear that there's no way that could not run at a loss. The domestic gun-making industry in Ireland is largely dead. There are some extremely talented gunsmiths producing beautiful and very expensive guns, but on a custom basis. Hell, even Rigby is now based in England, when once it was a very strong house, along the lines of Holland and Holland or Purdey, and one of the biggest makers of Safari rifles. This is a complete non-runner, for a myriad reasons.

Avgas

Didn't there used to be a munitions/re-loading factory in Galway...IMI or something that made .303 rds in the good old bad days....when TV was black and white......or have I taken the wrong tablets again?

cork2

purplengold wrote: »

Did an Irish company not manufacture Timoney armoured cars?

ya they did but the timoney isnt a weapon its an armoured car weapons mounted on it. the mounted weapons probably werent manufactured here

gizmo555

It wasn't me! wrote: »

Hell, even Rigby is now based in England, when once it was a very strong house, along the lines of Holland and Holland or Purdey, and one of the biggest makers of Safari rifles.

In fairness, they've had no Irish presence since 1897 . . .

It wasn't me!

gizmo555 wrote: »

In fairness, they've had no Irish presence since 1897 . . .

Their manufacturing plant closed then but they had a boutique in Dublin well into the 20th century as I recall. The manufacture moved to England while small repairs, orders and sales continued here.

Morlar

The french army recently saw it's contract for bullet supply going to israel. However they discovered that even though it was a lot cheaper there were serious quality issues which affected their troops in the field, from what I recall due to the significant quality issues the French broke the contract with israel and decided to manufacture them more expensively in france rather than cheaply in israel. I don't have any online links to this as I read it recently while in France. If anyone has more information on that let me know.

Rovi

Avgas wrote: »

Didn't there used to be a munitions/re-loading factory in Galway...IMI or something that made .303 rds in the good old bad days....when TV was black and white......or have I taken the wrong tablets again?

Yep, Irish Metal Industries at Nun's Island in Galway.
They used to manufacture shotgun cartridges for (or under licence?) Eley.


edited to add:
I was thinking I'd seen some of these recently, here's a post over in Shooting with some photos of IMI Galway manufactured cartridges:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=65818319&postcount=20

Oh, and it appears that they were located at Earls' Island.

oncevotedff

purplengold wrote: »

Did an Irish company not manufacture Timoney armoured cars?

I was under the impression that the Timoney was designed here but manufactured in Belgium.

As a design it wouldn't be a great advertisment for Irish industry. I don't think I've ever seen one actually being driven.:D

BrianD

airvan wrote: »

There there's the fact that every export order would fall under the scrutiny of the government for approval and there would be the usual chest beating about our neutrality and the immorality of the arms trade. The factory itself would probably have to be guarded by the army to protect it from protestors who would probably camp outside the place.

Still think it's a good idea?

Ironically, some neutrals are also have large arms industries e.g the Swiss and Swedes. Mainly because to be truely neutral you have to be able to independently defend yourself which leads to a high defence budget which in turn drives a local defence industry. Ireland on the other hand decided to rely on NATO to defend our so called neutrality. Quite cost effective in many ways.

Manic Moran

oncevotedff wrote: »

I was under the impression that the Timoney was designed here but manufactured in Belgium.

They purchased the license to build them as the BDX.

NTM