Most amazing ammunition expenditure figures?

[Recidivist]

This is a little bit of a chance for you to show what you know and to also hear about massive, almost silly, enormous ammunition expenditures.

You can use any time, place, and origin. Be it the number of shots fired by the North Hollywood bank robbers, be it the number of .30 cal rounds fired on Guadalcanal, or the number of rounds it took to kill one man in Iraq. Lets hear the astounding, the insane, and the unbelievable...

Hey if you want, you can even just quote the millions of pounds of TNT that all the ordinance dropped onto Germany in WW2 is equivalent to.

Knock yourselves out...

Oh, btw, here's mine, not a big deal, but just a little something to get us rolling.

Check it:

In Would War II, the United States and its allies expended 25,000 rounds of ammunition to kill a single enemy soldier. In the Korean War, the ammunition expenditure had increased four-fold to 100,000 rounds per soldier; in the Vietnam War, that figure had doubled to 200,000 rounds of ammunition for the death of a single enemy soldier.

In contrast, United States Army and Marine Corps snipers in the Vietnam War expended 1.3 rounds of ammunition for each claimed and verified kill, at an average range of six hundred yards, or almost twice the three hundred meters cited above for combat engagements by the average soldier.

[Pook2]

Statistics are misleading, thats all I have to say.

[ramy]

dang, no wonder war is expensive...

I heard that the Cdn Forces are buying their ammo at over $1 a round... Got this info from someone in the CFs....

[Laworkerbee]

dang, no wonder war is expensive...

I heard that the Cdn Forces are buying their ammo at over $1 a round... Got this info from someone in the CFs....

Dang! that's robbery!

[soma]

dang, no wonder war is expensive...

I heard that the Cdn Forces are buying their ammo at over $1 a round... Got this info from someone in the CFs....

We're making our own now from lead... so it's down to like 48cents a round.

[Recidivist]

Statistics are misleading, thats all I have to say.

Hey. Averages can be deceiving. Sure, in some small unit actions, there have been instances of say 30 enemy killed for just maybe 300 or even less rounds fired but when you add in all the massed rifle fire, suppressing fire, air support gunfire, armor support non-cannon fire, and so on and so forth, you rack up a lot of rounds. Think about it... AH-6... 2000 rounds on board... sweeps the decks at 6000rpm, kills maybe 20 hostiles. That's still 100 rounds per man... now think of a vehicle mounted M240 gunner laying down suppressive fire over a whole engagement... maybe two hours or so. Expenditure? A few thousand rounds... Victims? Possibly none...

I love my cheap cheap Salt Lake City made XM193 ammo... so cheap...

[Mark Sman]

Lake City Arsenal (now Lake City Army Ammunition Plant) is in Independence, Missouri.

Possible BS, have not checked source.

After one of the battles (*****sburg) of Civil War the discarded 37,574 rifles were collected and sent to Washington to be inspected and reissued. Approx. 24,000 of them were still loaded.
- 25 % of them (6,000 rifles) had 1 round in the barrel
- 75 % (18,000 rifles) had 2 to 10 rounds in the barre

[Angelino]

I wonder if they convert a bomb into a equivalent # of bullets in those calculations. (Apologies in advance for using metric instead of imperial units -- the math is just easier this way)

Say, Bin Laden, Al Zawahiri and the Blind cleric dude (I forget his name) are conferring somewhere in Podunk, Pakistan. Suddenly, a B52 sails by and deposits one BLU-82 Daisy Cutter on said scumbags.

Hence, we have:
# of casualties = 3
Weight of BLU-82 = 15,000 lbs = 6818 kg (source: http://www.military.com/)
Weight of 5.56 NATO round = 4.01 gm = 0.00401 kg (source: http://www.olive-drab.com/od_firearms_ammo_556mm.php)

Therefore, Daisy cutter's equivalent in 5.56 ammo = 6818/0.00401 = 1700249.376 = 1,700,250 rounds (approx.)

Hence, # of rounds per person = 1700250/3 = 566750 rounds/scumbag approximately.

So this leads to a figure of 566,750 rounds per casualty for one BLU-82. Are they using numbers like this for statistics :).

[James]

Lake City Arsenal (now Lake City Army Ammunition Plant) is in Independence, Missouri.

Possible BS, have not checked source.

After one of the battles (*****sburg) of Civil War the discarded 37,574 rifles were collected and sent to Washington to be inspected and reissued. Approx. 24,000 of them were still loaded.
- 25 % of them (6,000 rifles) had 1 round in the barrel
- 75 % (18,000 rifles) had 2 to 10 rounds in the barre

I've heard of that before. A bunch of poor scared kids kept going thru the motions, loading, aiming and...not firing... they forgot to put caps under the hammer.

[ridenrain]

I was trying to find reference to the use of water cooled machine guns for indirect fire in WW1. I recall reading about something like 5 vickers machine guns firing for 12 days solid as an assault prep.

[James]

I was trying to find reference to the use of water cooled machine guns for indirect fire in WW1. I recall reading about something like 5 vickers machine guns firing for 12 days solid as an assault prep.

Yah, French did that with Hotchkiss guns at Verdun as well.

[Aerosoul]

I read in Haney's book Inside Delta Force that Beckwith or Shumate, one of the two, chewed the boys out when he discovered they only fired a million rounds one month, or something like that. I'd have to look it up again to see the exact figure, but it was pretty amazing.

[digrar]

During the battle of Long Tan, 11 platoon, Delta Company, 6RAR had one and a half tones of high explosive a minute, being delivered to their front and flanks by Australian, New Zealander and American Artillery. This was kept up for nearly two hours in a tropical monsoon with the gunners being subjected to lightning strikes on the gun line and noxious cordite fumes that would not dissipate.

[James]

I read in Haney's book Inside Delta Force that Beckwith or Shumate, one of the two, chewed the boys out when he discovered they only fired a million rounds one month, or something like that. I'd have to look it up again to see the exact figure, but it was pretty amazing.

I remember that - and that was just for training! woot


During the battle of Long Tan, 11 platoon, Delta Company, 6RAR had one and a half tones of high explosive a minute, being delivered to their front and flanks by Australian, New Zealander and American Artillery. This was kept up for nearly two hours in a tropical monsoon with the gunners being subjected to lightning strikes on the gun line and noxious cordite fumes that would not dissipate.

WOW. That is insane. 360,000 pounds of HE!

We need a new smile - shocked and running away.

[Fintin]

I read in Haney's book Inside Delta Force that Beckwith or Shumate, one of the two, chewed the boys out when he discovered they only fired a million rounds one month, or something like that. I'd have to look it up again to see the exact figure, but it was pretty amazing.

I remember that - and that was just for training! woot

that makes sense to me...if you need the best shooters...they need to shoot alot...i would rather have one million rounds fired for practice then 10 million in anger because they cant shoot

[James]

Yah, better yet, 1 million rounds in training, and about 30 or so in a real situation. :D

I read this book again recently - they did some AWESOME training. I am pretty good myself, but I have to buy my own ammo when I am at home, so no 1 million rounds a month for me!

[Marmot1]

Lake City Arsenal (now Lake City Army Ammunition Plant) is in Independence, Missouri.

Possible BS, have not checked source.

After one of the battles (*****sburg) of Civil War the discarded 37,574 rifles were collected and sent to Washington to be inspected and reissued. Approx. 24,000 of them were still loaded.
- 25 % of them (6,000 rifles) had 1 round in the barrel
- 75 % (18,000 rifles) had 2 to 10 rounds in the barre


how the heck you can load 10 rounds in single shot rifle....???!!!???

[b33f]

Lake City Arsenal (now Lake City Army Ammunition Plant) is in Independence, Missouri.

Possible BS, have not checked source.

After one of the battles (*****sburg) of Civil War the discarded 37,574 rifles were collected and sent to Washington to be inspected and reissued. Approx. 24,000 of them were still loaded.
- 25 % of them (6,000 rifles) had 1 round in the barrel
- 75 % (18,000 rifles) had 2 to 10 rounds in the barre


how the heck you can load 10 rounds in single shot rifle....???!!!???

Those were muzzle-loading rifles... you simply keep stuffing :)

[Frost]

Lake City Arsenal (now Lake City Army Ammunition Plant) is in Independence, Missouri.

Possible BS, have not checked source.

After one of the battles (*****sburg) of Civil War the discarded 37,574 rifles were collected and sent to Washington to be inspected and reissued. Approx. 24,000 of them were still loaded.
- 25 % of them (6,000 rifles) had 1 round in the barrel
- 75 % (18,000 rifles) had 2 to 10 rounds in the barre


how the heck you can load 10 rounds in single shot rifle....???!!!???

Those were muzzle-loading rifles... you simply keep stuffing :)

That's how they invented the buckshot round :lol:
Were shotgun-like rifles which had a tube magazine under the barrel (like so often seen in western-movies) already invented at that time?

[b33f]

Lake City Arsenal (now Lake City Army Ammunition Plant) is in Independence, Missouri.

Possible BS, have not checked source.

After one of the battles (*****sburg) of Civil War the discarded 37,574 rifles were collected and sent to Washington to be inspected and reissued. Approx. 24,000 of them were still loaded.
- 25 % of them (6,000 rifles) had 1 round in the barrel
- 75 % (18,000 rifles) had 2 to 10 rounds in the barre


how the heck you can load 10 rounds in single shot rifle....???!!!???

Those were muzzle-loading rifles... you simply keep stuffing :)

That's how they invented the buckshot round :lol:

rofl




Were shotgun-like rifles which had a tube magazine under the barrel (like so often seen in western-movies) already invented at that time?

No

[Marmot1]

Lake City Arsenal (now Lake City Army Ammunition Plant) is in Independence, Missouri.

Possible BS, have not checked source.

After one of the battles (*****sburg) of Civil War the discarded 37,574 rifles were collected and sent to Washington to be inspected and reissued. Approx. 24,000 of them were still loaded.
- 25 % of them (6,000 rifles) had 1 round in the barrel
- 75 % (18,000 rifles) had 2 to 10 rounds in the barre


how the heck you can load 10 rounds in single shot rifle....???!!!???

Those were muzzle-loading rifles... you simply keep stuffing :)

they were flintlocks AFAIK so in order to fire next bullet you had to empty barelll... if you have missfire then you could not unload it so easily... not to mention that in order to shoot again you needed corkscrew like tool to remove old bullet

[wulfstan]

My grandad was in the Home Guard (think Dad's Army) during WW2, and he told me that his unit had 2 rounds of rifle ammo per person. Damn, you'd have to make those bad boys count if you wanted to stay alive!

[Werewolf01]

Lake City Arsenal (now Lake City Army Ammunition Plant) is in Independence, Missouri.

Possible BS, have not checked source.

After one of the battles (*****sburg) of Civil War the discarded 37,574 rifles were collected and sent to Washington to be inspected and reissued. Approx. 24,000 of them were still loaded.
- 25 % of them (6,000 rifles) had 1 round in the barrel
- 75 % (18,000 rifles) had 2 to 10 rounds in the barre


how the heck you can load 10 rounds in single shot rifle....???!!!???

Those were muzzle-loading rifles... you simply keep stuffing :)

they were flintlocks AFAIK so in order to fire next bullet you had to empty barelll... if you have missfire then you could not unload it so easily... not to mention that in order to shoot again you needed corkscrew like tool to remove old bullet

They were percussion, not flint. Buck and ball was a staple of American troops until the demise of the muzzleloader. From personal experience, I can tell you that it is remarakbly wicked, at least on the range. Troops were also issued exploding bullets during the ACW.

[wulfstan]

Lake City Arsenal (now Lake City Army Ammunition Plant) is in Independence, Missouri.

Possible BS, have not checked source.

After one of the battles (*****sburg) of Civil War the discarded 37,574 rifles were collected and sent to Washington to be inspected and reissued. Approx. 24,000 of them were still loaded.
- 25 % of them (6,000 rifles) had 1 round in the barrel
- 75 % (18,000 rifles) had 2 to 10 rounds in the barre


how the heck you can load 10 rounds in single shot rifle....???!!!???

Those were muzzle-loading rifles... you simply keep stuffing :)

they were flintlocks AFAIK so in order to fire next bullet you had to empty barelll... if you have missfire then you could not unload it so easily... not to mention that in order to shoot again you needed corkscrew like tool to remove old bullet

This was quoted in a British TV show called something like 'The Art of Killing' - an excellent show that detailed how the human race had developed the machinary of war, as well as the psychology of killing in warfare. In this instance, it is sited as an example of the average man's inate reluctance to kill another human being. For example, when told to fire at the enemy, so many ppl just loaded and reloaded their weapons, not wanting to kill anyone. So when they collected the weapons, loads hadb't been fired.

Before you ask, the huge death tolls are put down to a small percentage of ppl who aren't affected by killing. That and canon fire.

[Aerosoul]

My grandad was in the Home Guard (think Dad's Army) during WW2, and he told me that his unit had 2 rounds of rifle ammo per person. Damn, you'd have to make those bad boys count if you wanted to stay alive!

:cantbeli: :roll:

[oldsoak]

My grandad was in the Home Guard (think Dad's Army) during WW2, and he told me that his unit had 2 rounds of rifle ammo per person. Damn, you'd have to make those bad boys count if you wanted to stay alive!

:cantbeli: :roll:

- I can well believe it ! when the war started, we did'nt even have enough rifles - so we brought in a load of P17 Enfield rifles from the US and issued them to the home guard only to find they were 30-06 and not .303, thus causing much confusion. ( the P17 was a American version of the P14 rifle that was issued in limited quantities to UK + Commonwealth troops ) One of the old rellies in the Home guard kept his rifle at home and his mum made him stick it in the broom cupboard to keep the damn thing out of her way :lol:

[wulfstan]

My grandad was in the Home Guard (think Dad's Army) during WW2, and he told me that his unit had 2 rounds of rifle ammo per person. Damn, you'd have to make those bad boys count if you wanted to stay alive!

:cantbeli: :roll:

- I can well believe it ! when the war started, we did'nt even have enough rifles - so we brought in a load of P17 Enfield rifles from the US and issued them to the home guard only to find they were 30-06 and not .303, thus causing much confusion. ( the P17 was a American version of the P14 rifle that was issued in limited quantities to UK + Commonwealth troops ) One of the old rellies in the Home guard kept his rifle at home and his mum made him stick it in the broom cupboard to keep the damn thing out of her way :lol:

That's nothing. My grandad was in 'reserved occupation', (an occupation deemed more worthwhile to the war effort than the regular forces) cos he was an apprentice engineer, and was responsible for engineering clips and mountings for the Bren gun to be mounted on the front/back of a tandem bicycle! Imagine trying to fire a LMG while on a bicycle!