Investing in range, precision, and supply chain resilience for future conflicts

Hi, I'm Jen Judson, land warfare reporter for Defense News, and I'm here with Morten Branzig

president and CEO of NAMO. Thank you for joining me. It's great to see you again. I've seen you

I think, kind of all over the world. It's good to see you here in the United States

I wanted to ask you about some U.S. Army programs, since we are here at AUSA. NAMO and Boeing

recently tested a 155 millimeter ramjet artillery round. You've been in tests with that. That's a

key U.S. Army priority. How close are you to fielding that capability and what hurdles remain

before you can enter the Army service with this capability? We have done very successful testing

I think on the propulsion side, it's demonstrated that this works very fine. We have some work to

do in the front end. We work together with Boeing on that, but we are a few years away from feeling

it, I think. And this has the opportunity to become really a game changer when it comes to

artillery range. Talk a little bit more, what is Ramjet for folks that are not familiar with the

technology? Yeah. So it's basically an air breather. It means that when you blow with your

mouth into a fireplace, you see you get more air out of the fireplace, more heat. Basically

in a traditional solid rocket motor, you bring the oxidizer with you, travels with you. But in a

ramjet, it eats air from the outside. So it has typically an inlet. But you need to accelerate

the motor to about Mach 2.4 for it to start. So it needs some kind of a booster

But after that, it can fly very long because it doesn't carry

the oxidizer. So it's a good economy. We have focused very much on solid

fuel ramjets. They have less complicated parts and of course, we need to launch this

through an artillery gun and that's a load of 15,000 G. So you need to try that a couple of times before it works

That's a lot of work to do there. Okay. You actually just had a groundbreaking ceremony in Perry, Florida

I believe, for tactical rocket motors. Talk about how you're working to ramp up production for these rocket motors

Rocket motors are very much needed, and the industry is growing in the U.S

What lessons have you learned about scaling manufacturing in the U.S., and where do you still see bottlenecks in this area

I think that there are some critical things that hits us both from the war in Ukraine, but also from the rebuild-up of the war stocks in the West

and it's clearly demonstrated that on the missile side, building capacity for the rocket motors

and on the ammunition side, on the large caliber, that costs a ton of money to build more capacity

We are investing now $200 million in Perry, in Florida, to set up the first production line for tactical rocket motors This is in cooperation with Prime with Raytheon but we are open for business for everyone

And this is really needed. We see the consumption of missiles in Ukraine and also in the Middle East

that the industry has to step up. And we have to step up by a big factor

we cannot compensate this in any way other than increase the business volume

the bottlenecks are clearly on energetic material so although we build capacity

we must have the whole supply chain with us so are there ways that NAMO can contribute

to achieving some shoring up of those bottlenecks when it comes to energetics or anything else

Yeah, I think that what we are contributing with is that we are basically being our own second source

We are sourcing raw material both from Europe and from the U.S.

and that secures the supply chain slightly better than before. All right

You've signed major U.S. Army and Marine Corps contracts for the M-72 fire from enclosure system

I actually got to see that fired years ago, I think about seven years ago

in Arizona. How are U.S. user requirements shaping your next generation of shoulder-launched

weapons now, and what are you kind of learning from places like Ukraine when it comes to

developing this? Yeah, that's a very good question, and it's really shaping the technology going forward

The fire from enclosure M72, now in production with the Marine Corps, is a complete new system

You can fire from almost inside a car and launch an anti-tank weapon

We see the technology is needed, but in the future, that technology will move into other type of systems

being launched from drones and things like this. So this is just one way of using a weapon in the future

We clearly see that there is a transition of the warheads from legacy systems

You need powerful warheads onto new type of drones, whether they are airborne or walking on the floor or whatever

So the knowledge on warhead technology is more important than ever. What are you doing in that space right now

You mentioned that you can put something like this on a drone. So where are you in development, testing

What have you been able to sort of prove out in this area? Yeah, we are building a suite of warheads

where you can adapt it to whatever drone you have. And you can 3D print the interfaces and so on

and they meet military standards. This is what we have learned from the war in Ukraine

and we have discussed with the U.S. Army as well that the rapid learning from the war

really dictates how we should focus the technology in order to deliver the best of the best technology to the warfighters The U Army is focused on range precision resilient supply chains

How is NAMO positioning itself technologically, industrially, to be part of that modernization roadmap over the next five years here in the U.S.

So for range, both on the artillery rounds and on the rocket motor side

We are doing a lot of R&D work on the Ramjet side, and that is going well

We are also cooperating very much with the primes, where we see what type of rocket, traditionally solid rocket motors, can be needed in the future

We see, of course, MLRS turning into GMLRS and then ERGMLRS. So range is everything

But the combination of range and precision, we need also new technology

We cannot afford to shoot $2.5 million pop to take out a Chinese drone

Yes, exactly. Yes. You've said that the West shouldn't try to match Russia one-to-one in ammunition output

but should instead win on range and precision and quality. What does that look like in practice

and where do you see the biggest bottlenecks in scaling production from your perspective in Norway

I think that the biggest challenge we have in order to support Ukraine

is not actually in the defense industry to scale up now. It's in the tier below to get the raw material

to get the explosives, the nitrocellulose, all the stuff that's needed. So we need to make the governments aware that we are not better

than the weakest link in the whole supply chain. Absolutely. What are you doing in that space

How are you trying to solve that bottleneck issue with the raw materials

So I think from our side, we are integrated more vertically. We have our own nitrocellulose factory

We do not have an explosives factory. I wish we had. But, of course, we need to work very close with even commercial companies

that make raw material for the explosives industry that we have a secure supply chain

Okay. You've argued that the defense industry needs 10 to 15-year commitments

from governments just to justify new plants or equipment. So how receptive are governments to that idea, and how should risk be shared between industry and the state in this new era of sustained demand

Yeah, I think that when typically three and a half years ago when the war broke out, it was kind of a hard message to sell to the governments that they had to invest in industrial capacity into an industry that was already making money

But now they have seen that the investments are so huge and we are building a very big capacity

We see that this has now developed into long contracts We see it on the missile side in the US that there are more multi contracts coming out

And in Europe, we see that there are a couple of plus 10-year contracts coming out

When these type of contracts come, then we can finance the whole program ourselves

So slowly by slowly, we are getting there. But I would say there is a huge momentum with the governments now

They do understand the defense problem. And there is a massive support, both from the U.S. government, of course

but also a huge support in Europe from EU to set up defense industry programs to support this effort

Yes. You know, we're seeing that in the U.S. with things like the new multi-year contract

billions of dollars for PAC-3 MSC, for instance. So I think it's good to see that

especially after companies have invested pretty heavily in advance anticipating something like that and hoping that it comes to fruition

You've been outspoken about Europe needing to prioritize electricity for defense production

You even joke governments must choose between cat videos and critical facilities

How real is that constraint today? I think we talked about this a couple years ago last time we sat down

What policy changes would make a big difference for you and have you seen any movement on that

It's when we build up the parts of the defense industry needs more energy, of course, like any other industry

What we are seeing is that typically data storage facilities is eating up a lot of the national grid

So we need to have some government prioritization about who's going to get the electricity

I have a recommendation that we don't store the video number four of your cats

Just leave that for the trash. Then we can have some energy left for ammunition production

But seriously, it is moving. I think the governments are more aware, especially in Europe

that there are some dilemmas around this on energy capacity. And we are seeing that there is a lot of effort solving this issue now

Looking ahead, as wartime demand eventually stabilizes, how do you see NAMO's mission evolving, both in technology like ramjet, precision, automation, and in sustaining industrial momentum for Europe's defense base

I think that we, well, it's hard to say when this demand will go over

I thought when the Ukrainian war started about a year, after two years, I said five years

Now I say ten years. So it will take definitely a long time. But after that, I think that we will, the winners in ten years from now are those who invest the most in R&D

and make sure that you are relevant as a company in 10 years from now

If you only focus on production, you will lose out at the end of the day

because you cannot stop the rapid development cycles that are going now

Well, thank you so much for taking the time here at AUSA. I hope you have a great rest of the show

It's good to talk to you again. Thank you very much. Same to you