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.
Nitrochemie Aschau is a subsidiary of the German defense giant Rheinmetall. Since Russia¡¯s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the factory has increased production capacity by 60% and is building new facilities to add another over 40% by mid-2025. It has hired around 300 people, picking up workers from the struggling automotive and chemicals sector to bolster its workforce so it can keep production running 24/7, and help meet Europe¡¯s surging demand for ammunition.
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