Rheinmetall Expal Munitions

Rheinmetall Expal Munitions is the Spanish ammunition house that used to trade as Expal Systems. Rheinmetall agreed to buy it in late 2022 and completed the purchase on 1 August 2023, taking the company whole and folding it into the group's weapon and ammunition business. The head office is in Madrid. Manufacturing is spread across six Spanish plants, at Trubia, Burgos, Navalmoral, El Gordo, Albacete and Murcia, with a separate demilitarisation site at Hooks, outside Texarkana in Texas. Expal Systems is still the name on older contracts and product literature, and much of the trade press has kept using it. Rheinmetall put the Spanish operation to work quickly as European artillery demand climbed after 2022.

Artillery ammunition is the anchor. The 105mm and 155mm field ranges are qualified for NATO howitzers and in service with more than thirty countries. Naval natures in 40mm, 76mm and 127mm come from the same lines, as do medium calibre air and naval rounds in 20mm, 25mm and 30mm. Mortar and grenade systems are the other pillar, covering 60mm, 81mm and 120mm bombs in high explosive, smoke and illuminating fillings. Fuzes and rocket motors are made in house, alongside propellants and modular propelling charges. Air armament rounds the catalogue out with general purpose bombs of the MK 80 family, fin and tail assemblies, and the 70mm CAT-70 rocket for air-to-ground use.

The company sells complete mortar systems as well as the ammunition that feeds them. EIMOS mounts an 81mm or 120mm tube on a light vehicle with an automatic fire control system and full 360 degree laying, so a crew can fire without dismounting to dig in a baseplate and can move again immediately. A twin-tube version was shown in 2025 on a Vamtac light tactical vehicle. Spain ordered 84 of the 81mm systems in late 2024 for delivery by the end of 2027. Around the tube sit the TECHFIRE fire support information system and its ballistic computers, and simulators that let mortar crews train through the full fire mission without expending rounds.

The last strand is disposal rather than delivery. Rheinmetall Expal demilitarises time-expired ammunition, destroys stockpiles, runs explosive ordnance disposal and counter-IED work, remediates contaminated ground and sells demolition stores for military engineers. That business is the reason for the Texas plant, which handles North American disposal work well away from the Spanish production estate, and it gives the company a revenue line that runs counter-cyclically to new ammunition orders. Since the acquisition, European funding has gone into lifting 155mm output at the Spanish sites, and the group has said annual production of propellant modules and RDX explosive will start at scale from 2026. Spain remains the anchor customer, with contracts since 2024 covering 155mm projectiles, modular charges and well over 100,000 mortar rounds, and the Spanish plants now feed Rheinmetall's wider European supply.