Denmark Awards Ammo Deal to Rebuild 155mm & 120mm War Stocks for ATMOS and Cardom 10 Artillery.

Denmark’s Defence Acquisition and Logistics Organisation awarded EUR 213.7 million to Excalibur International for 155 mm artillery and 120 mm mortar ammunition under an accelerated national security procedure. The deal replenishes war reserves for ATMOS howitzers and Cardom 10 mortars, reinforcing Denmark’s readiness for high-intensity NATO operations.

Denmark has quietly taken another step away from the post-Cold War comfort zone and back toward the hard mathematics of industrial war. A contract notice published on the European Union’s Tenders Electronic Daily (TED) on February 17, 2026, shows the Danish Defence Acquisition and Logistics Organisation (DALO) awarding EUR 213.7 million to Excalibur International a.s. for 120 mm mortar ammunition and 155 mm artillery ammunition. The procurement was handled under an accelerated process justified on essential national security grounds, with Copenhagen prioritizing delivery speed, operational suitability, ammunition technical quality, and price after receiving bids from three economic operators in autumn 2025.
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Denmark's DALO awarded Excalibur a EUR 213,7 million deal for 120 mm and 155 mm ammunition to rebuild war reserves for Cardom 10 mortars and ATMOS howitzers, mirroring Europe's push to restock for high-intensity (Picture source: Army Recognition Edit).

The award notice is sparse on the details that gunners care about most, including quantities, projectile families, fuze types, or delivery phasing. That absence is telling in itself. Across Europe, ministries are increasingly treating ammunition as a strategic commodity whose exact mix signals plans and vulnerabilities. Denmark’s own rationale in the TED text is explicit: the ammunition is intended to fill readiness and war reserve magazines, and the timetable attached to the notice runs from a contract conclusion date of 24 November 2025 through 7 December 2026, pointing to near-term replenishment rather than a distant modernization effort.

Understanding how this ammunition will be used requires looking at Denmark’s current indirect fire architecture, which has been rebuilt at pace since 2023. Denmark fields two modern systems directly relevant to the contract: the Israeli-designed ATMOS 155 mm truck-mounted howitzer and the Cardom 10 120 mm mortar integrated on the Piranha 5 8×8. Those platforms are not boutique capabilities. They are designed for the sort of fire and move tempo that dominates contemporary counter-battery contests, where drones, radars, and electronic warfare compress the time a gun can safely remain in a firing position.

On the artillery side, Denmark is fielding ATMOS as its principal 155 mm tube system after donating its CAESAR wheeled howitzers to Ukraine. ATMOS is a self-propelled gun mounted on a MAN 8×8 chassis, firing 155 mm rounds to a maximum range of approximately 40 km depending on ammunition type, with a semi-automatic loading system capable of up to six rounds per minute and an on-board capacity of roughly 30 to 36 projectiles. Denmark ordered 19 ATMOS systems, with full operational capability planned for the mid-2020s, underscoring that ammunition procurement now becomes the limiting factor for training density and sustained readiness.

This means the contract supports a 155 mm NATO-standard ecosystem built around modular charges, fuzes, and projectiles tuned for 52-caliber-class guns. Even if Denmark is buying primarily high-explosive rounds, the tactical value is far from basic. A modern 155 mm battery lives on responsiveness: rapid occupation of a firing point, digital fire mission processing, short intense salvos, then immediate displacement before enemy sensors can cue loitering munitions or counter-battery fire. In that construct, ammunition reliability and ballistic consistency become operational attributes. They determine how quickly a fire direction center can shift between charge zones, how confidently a battery can execute time-on-target effects, and how safely it can fire at high rates in harsh Nordic conditions without unpredictable pressure behavior.

The mortar portion is equally consequential, especially for brigade maneuver. Denmark’s heavy mortar capability is embodied in the Cardom 10, a 120 mm system installed in the Army’s armored Piranha 5, crewed by five soldiers and designed to deliver fast, mobile close support. The system can engage targets out to approximately 10 km, is ready to fire in under 30 seconds, and can shoot a rapid burst before relocating in little more than a minute, enabled by an autonomous navigation suite paired with a modern fire control computer and a semi-automatic loading arrangement. A heavy mortar platoon typically fields four Cardom 10 systems, aligning with NATO practice of concentrating mortars as a battalion or brigade-level asset to mass fires quickly.

In tactical terms, 120 mm mortar ammunition is Denmark’s near fight volume fire. It enables rapid suppression of enemy infantry and anti-armor teams, smoke screens to break line of sight for drone observers, and precision munitions, illumination for winter darkness, and high-angle engagement into dead ground where direct fire cannot reach. The emphasis on speed from halt to first round is precisely the survivability currency in a drone-saturated battlefield. If ATMOS extends the brigade’s reach and counter-battery punch, Cardom 10 gives maneuver battalions a fast-reaction hammer that can move with them, fire from covered positions, and relocate before return fire arrives.

The supplier choice also fits the wider European pattern of diversifying sources while rebuilding mass. Excalibur International operates within a Czech defense-industrial ecosystem that has positioned itself as a vertically integrated large-caliber ammunition player, controlling significant segments of the production chain from energetics to finished 155 mm and 120 mm rounds across multiple European facilities. For Denmark, that kind of industrial footprint matters as much as price, because the central lesson of the war in Ukraine has been that ammunition supply is not simply a procurement issue but an endurance challenge.

At the strategic level, Denmark’s move is part of a continental reversion to Cold War arithmetic. European governments are ramping up 155 mm production, refilling national stocks while sustaining support to Ukraine, and treating ammunition capacity as a pillar of readiness for high-intensity war. Recent reporting and policy initiatives across the European Union reflect the same underlying anxiety: stockpiles that appear adequate in peacetime planning can collapse quickly under sustained artillery rates measured in thousands of rounds per day. Denmark’s justification, centered on urgent replenishment of readiness magazines, reads like a national translation of that broader NATO problem set.

The headline figure of EUR 213.7 million is therefore less about a single purchase than about Denmark buying back time. Training cycles for new ATMOS crews, live-fire qualification for Cardom 10 units, and the credibility of a brigade’s fire support plan all hinge on having enough rounds to shoot, not merely enough guns to display. In Europe’s renewed era of industrialized warfare planning, Denmark is treating ammunition not as an accessory to modernization, but as the modernization itself.

Written by Evan Lerouvillois, Defense Analyst.

Evan studied International Relations, and quickly specialized in defense and security. He is particularly interested in the influence of the defense sector on global geopolitics, and analyzes how technological innovations in defense, arms export contracts, and military strategies influence the international geopolitical scene.