Fiasco in the Factory: Taxpayers Funded a $533 Million Artillery Plant That Made Nothing

Photo of normal artillery shells: 155mm LAP and warheads facility at General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems in Camden, Arkansas – February 27, 2026. Photo credit: DoW photo by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Alexander Kubitza via DVIDS. Public Domain. Article by Jesse Coburn. ProPublica – August 12, 2026.

A robot was on fire. Again. It was the summer of 2024, and the cutting-edge robots inside General Dynamics’ sweltering artillery factory near Dallas were catching fire with startling regularity, according to four former workers there. This wasn’t ideal, as the plant was supposed to be churning out urgently needed artillery shells for Ukraine. The robots, giant metal arms with clamps for hands, would end up drenched in oil, which would then — no surprise — combust as they moved steel blocks heated to 1,800 degrees into and out of a machine that periodically erupted columns of fire. One blaze that summer melted a robot’s cables, putting it out of commission for a week. […]

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