Warren Nobles began his career as the lead engineer in charge of developing chute for the Army Air Corps B-36 bomber.

As lead engineer for the B-36 bomber ammunition chute during World War II, Warren Nobles understood the challenges faced by the warfighter and how to overcome them. Encouraged by his success, he founded Nobles Manufacturing in 1948 and began developing high quality ammunition chutes for the U.S. Army at his facility in St. Paul, Minnesota. The following year Nobles produced its first “Combat-Approved” 12.7mm (.50 caliber) flex chute.

As time went on, Nobles began to expand its product line to accommodate a variety of air, ground and naval weapons. One of Nobles’ earliest ammunition chutes was incorporated into the General Electric’s M61A Vulcan 20mm cannon.  The earliest versions of this gun and chutes were used on the U.S. Air Force’s F-104, F-105, and F-106 aircraft and on the U.S. Army’s mechanized infantry combat vehicles. Later they were installed on variants of the F-4 and F-5 aircraft using Nobles chutes as the sole source.

In the late 1970’s, with the development of the Fairchild-Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft, Nobles expanded into the 30mm range by developing a chute to be used with the A-10’s primary armament - the GAU-8 Avenger 30mm cannon. Today, Nobles remains the sole provider of chutes for this aircraft.

In the late 1980’s, Nobles developed the first composite ammunition chute manufactured specifically for the F-15E Strike Eagle. Composite frames provide superior durability and strength, yet are lighter in weight than the competition’s traditional sheet metal frames. It wasn’t long before Nobles offered chutes for all major ammunition sizes and expanded into magazine and ammunition feed systems. By 2009, our chutes were on every major weapon system in the U.S. military inventory and on over 40 weapons platforms in more than 30 countries.

Today, we offer innovative gun mounts and custom-made weapon stations - in addition to our wide range of ammunition chutes, magazines and feed systems. As a premier provider of high-performance weapon systems solutions to the U.S. military and its allies, our reputation for superior engineering, durability and exceptional value is simply unmatched.

To better reflect our leadership and growth in the industry, we recently changed our name to Nobles Worldwide. What hasn’t changed is our deep commitment to meet the ever-changing needs of the warfighter.