By the end of 1941, the Germans occupied most of the industrial territory of the USSR, where 59 blast furnaces, 126 open-hearth furnaces and 13 Electric arc furnace, 16 converters and 105 rolling mills functioned, about 66% of Soviet pig iron, more than 50% of steel and 60% of aluminum were produced. During 1941-1942, equipment and personnel of 832 large factories, which ended up in the front-line zone, were evacuated to the Urals. At the Novotagilsk Plant, an armored mill was launched, removed from the Kirov Plant. At the Sinarsky Plant, a thin-walled pipe workshop was launched from the equipment of the Dnepropetrovsk Pipe Plant. A middle-sheet workshop was built at the Magnitogorsk plant with equipment from Zaporizhstal, and an armored mill was evacuated from the Mariupol Plant. The Urals became the main supplier of metal in the country. The production of civilian products was minimized. All metallurgical plants switched to the production of weapons. To increase the production of alloy steels required for the manufacture of military equipment, the production of ferroalloys was often carried out in units not intended for this - blast furnaces and open-hearth furnaces. 
During the war years, the construction of metallurgical enterprises continued. Magnitogorsk and Nizhnetagilsky combines, Zlatoust, Pervouralsky, Beloretsk Iron and Steel Works, Chusovsky Metallurgical, Magnitogorsk Hardware, and Chelyabinsk Ferroalloy Plant  were declared shock construction sites. In total, during the war years, 10 blast furnaces and 32 open-hearth furnaces, 16 electric furnaces, 16 ferroalloy furnaces, 2 Bessemer converters, 12 rolling and 6 pipe rolling mills, 11 coke batteries, more than 100 shafts and coal mines were built, and launched in the Urals. Chelyabinsk and Chebarkul Metallurgical, Chelyabinsk Pipe Rolling, Magnitogorsk Calibration, Berezniki Magnesium, Bogoslovsky Aluminum, and  Miass Machine-Building Plant were also built.
In conditions of martial law, it was required to dramatically increase the volume of mined ore. Priority was given to the rich and accessible deposits of the Magnitnaya and Vysokaya mountains, which in 1943 accounted for 81.1% of all Ural iron ore. Intensive production at these fields led to their rapid depletion. To provide manganese in a short time, the Polunochnoye and Marsyatskoye fields were developed in the north of the modern Sverdlovsk Oblast. At the Magnitogorsk Combine, the smelting of armor steel in open-hearth furnaces was first mastered and extended to other plants. During the war years, the Izhevsky Metallurgical Plant mastered the smelting of 19 new grades of steel, and for the first time applied stamping of breeches and planting of barrels on horizontal forging machines. At the Pervouralsk Novotrubny plant, reinforced with evacuated equipment from Ukrainian factories, during the war, 5 new workshops were built and the production of 129 types of pipes was mastered. At Uralvagonzavod, Uralmash, and the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant, the production of tanks was launched in the shortest possible time. In Sverdlovsk, and Ust-Katav, from the framework of the evacuated equipment, the production of artillery pieces and shells was built, supplementing the potential of the Motovilikhinsky, Zlatoust, and Izhevsky arms factories. 
Due to the expansion of the Ural Aluminum Plant, the volume of aluminum production increased during the war years from 13.3 to 71.5 thousand tons. In 1942, UAZ produced 100% of aluminum in the USSR. About 80% of all shell and cartridge cases during the war years were made of copper smelted by the Pyshminsky plant. The South Ural Nickel Plant significantly increased the production of nickel and cobalt. The Chelyabinsk Zinc Plant provided 75% of zinc supplies by the end of the war. At the Solikamsk Magnesium Plant, the design capacity was closed 4.5 times due to the addition of evacuated equipment. On July 22, 1943, the first magnesium was produced by the Bereznikovsky Plant, having been completed in a short time because of a simplification of the project. Evacuated equipment spread to Revda, Kamensk-Uralsky, Verkhnyaya Salda, and Orsk. Plants for the processing of non-ferrous metals and the production of aluminum and magnesium alloys were created. In 1942, the Kirovgrad Hard Alloys Plant was commissioned, which began to produce hard alloy armor-piercing cores for shells and cartridges. In March 1942, the Kamensk-Uralsky Foundry was launched, which throughout the war was the only enterprise that produced aircraft wheels.
During the Great Patriotic War, the scientific potential of the Urals was strengthened by evacuated institutes. The Academy of Sciences of the USSR was located in Sverdlovsk. Academicians I. P. Bardin and M. A. Pavlov made a great contribution to the development of Ural metallurgy during the war years. Geological research in the Urals was led by A. N. Zavaritsky, D. V. Nalivkin, and V. I. Luchitsky. Academician L. D. Shevyakov made a significant contribution to the development of the Ural coal industry. V. V. Wolf developed and introduced a new method of processing Ural bauxite. N. S. Siunov invented a transformer to improve welding performance. A. E. Malakhov discovered new cobalt deposits. P. S. Mamykin was engaged in the development of new refractory materials.
In general, up to 90% of iron ore, 70% of manganese, and 100% of aluminum, nickel, chromium, and platinum were produced in the Urals during the war years. Pig iron production increased by 88.4%, steel by 65.5%, rolled metal production by 54.9%, rough copper by 59.9%, electrolytic copper by 94.8%, nickel by 186.5%, aluminum by 554.1%, and cobalt by 1782.1%. The volume of production of defense equipment has grown sixfold. In total, the Urals produced about 40% of all military products of the country: 70% of all tanks (including 60% of medium and 100% of heavy), 50% of artillery pieces, and 50% of ammunition.