Troops use 250,000 bullets for every insurgent killed

Originally posted by ShadowXIX
I have to agree those numbers seem alittle inflated factoring in Training rounds. They use to count number of bullets per enemy killed in Vietnam and those number crunching egg heads didnt even count training rounds.In Vietnam, the average number of rounds used by a soldier was 2200 bullets per kill. The average of rounds used by a sniper was only 1.3 rounds per kill

X amount of bullets doesn't always have to equalY amount of kills war is just not that simple.

Heres a picture of Uday's and Qusay's house after the fire fight in which they were killed.





As many as 100 American troops, later aided by Apache helicopters and an A-10 "Warthog" gunship, surrounded and fired on the house for three hours.

In the end we killed 4 people


[edit on 27-9-2005 by ShadowXIX]

So you are telling me the US army is highly innefficient!?

You are probably right!

So the US Army uses a Quarter of a Million rounds to kill a Single Insurgent. Makes me wonder if the other 249.990 bullets also hit AnyBody that was Accidently in the Victinity of the Conflict?

Originally posted by Souljah
So the US Army uses a Quarter of a Million rounds to kill a Single Insurgent. Makes me wonder if the other 249.990 bullets also hit AnyBody that was Accidently in the Victinity of the Conflict?

I wouldn't doubt someone innocent was hit. My cousin in iraq was telliing me they were flanking some hut and some guy in his squad shot another soldier on the opposite side. Eh...whatever

So the US Army uses a Quarter of a Million rounds to kill a Single Insurgent. the

No they are not, you obviously ignored 3 pages worth of information that would show you that sum is inaccurate, but then again I can't say I'm surprised.


[edit on 7-10-2005 by WestPoint23]

Originally posted by Senser

So you are telling me the US army is highly innefficient!?

You are probably right!

highly innefficient? Seeing that they produced one of the most lopsided military victories in history with the Gulf War I doubt it.

As for Saddam's sons house , If thats what it takes to kill 4 people and not lose a single US life in the process its well worth it.

Its hard for people that have never fired a weapon to understand concepts like supression fire and just how real world firefights go down.

Originally posted by ShadowXIX

Originally posted by Senser

So you are telling me the US army is highly innefficient!?

You are probably right!

highly innefficient? Seeing that they produced one of the most lopsided military victories in history with the Gulf War I doubt it.

As for Saddam's sons house , If thats what it takes to kill 4 people and not lose a single US life in the process its well worth it.

Its hard for people that have never fired a weapon to understand concepts like supression fire and just how real world firefights go down.

Yeah whatever, why dont use a atombomb to kill a 100 or a 1000 insurgents, hey it would do the job!
Come on man, 250.000 bullets for 1 dead enemy is unheard of, either they need to give the US troops some proper shooting lessons or they might as well use neutron bomb.

I wonder what people voluntarily enlist at the US army??
The standard has been reduced so every retard without any hope of a civil ambition can apply.

I so hope the americans are gonna try to invade Iran

Ironics still excists in this hellhole after all
...

Name That Fallacy

The source article presents a logical fallacy for readers to consume.

How it tastes will depend on the prejudices of each reader. Some will find it palatable, some will not.

The fallacy is that the total consumption of ammunition by all U.S. armed forces can somehow be correlated to the number of insurgents killed in Iraq.

It is an absurd assumption. There is no meaningful relationship between these numbers.

Another example of this particular kind of fallacy can be expressed as follows.

Here in Nevada, just under one thousand nuclear explosions have occurred. Meanwhile, no one has ever been reported to have been killed by one.

Conclusion: Nuclear weapons cannot kill people.

The purpose of this article is apparently not to inform readers, but to get them to think a certain way based on an absurd claim supported by misdirection and irrational juxtapositions of facts.

I'm not willing to pay £1 for the whole article, but if someone who did is willing to explain how they make the leap from total U.S. armed forces ammunition consumption to insinuations regarding marksmanship in Iraq, I would be interested in seeing how that was pulled off.

If the article does in fact do this, then the sample given is misleading. Either way, it doesn't look good.

Seems to me to infer that U.S. troops are lousy shots based on the theory this article is apparently promoting would be a pinnacle achievement in the field of deliberate ignorance.

Why not instead investigate the marksmanship of U.S. forces in Iraq instead of playing silly and misleading games with unrelated numbers?

I can think of some reasons, and none of them have anything to do with denying ignorance. :shk:




[edit on 10/8/2005 by Majic]

In 1982 when the Great British armed forces retook the Falkland Islands and shood away from those nasty little Argies, the average round expenditure per kill, was roughly 80 to 1.

The Paras and Marines on the way down to the Ascention Islands, used to line up on the sides and sterns of their transport and blaze away at rubbish bags, in order to hone their marksmanship.

The Marksmanship Principles work like this:

1. Position and hold must be firm enough to support the rifle;

2. The rifle must point naturally at the target without physical strain;

3. Sight alignment (aiming) must be correct;

4. The shot must be released and followed through, without disturbing the position.

These principles are those which the British Armed Forces adhere to when teaching raw recruits how to use a weapon. They have stood the test of time and have served our forces well.

All this is fine on a peacetime range back in basic training. In war, during a firefight, the marksmanship principles go out of the window.

Having watched hundreds of clips showing both US and British forces in contact, I have come to the following conclusions:

1. Go back to the good old 7.62mm round. It simply stops what it hits;

2. If you have to have a fully automatic assault rifle with all the latest 'Gucci' add-ons, make sure you buy the one with the 3 round burst facility;

3. As Ignorant Ape says, "Train Hard and Fight Easy!" - that is ensure your men are the best trained as your defence budget can allow. By that I mean let's get away from the "Oh my God somebody's shooting at me, respond with 30 rounds full auto" syndrome.

4. Instill fire control at all levels, especially at section and fireteam levels. Get the JNCO's to get a grip of their men.

5. If you have a contact, fire and maneouvre until you can get a grenade on to the tgt. Note: It only takes one round to keep the buggar's head down and prevent him/her from slotting you.

That is how we Brits do it, and it works for us. Firing overe the top of a wall by holding your M16 over the wall just wastes rounds. It will not hit anything. Act like a moron and you'll soon be out of rounds.

It all comes down to fire disciplin.

As to the actual price expenditure per kill - so what? Those number crunchers who sit at the Pentagon or on Capital Hill - far from even the strayest of richochettes - have nothing better to do than to justify their jobs which probably wastes more money than your front line troopies will ever do.

And as to having to import ammo from Israel - good #! At least you'll be getting some decent ammo, not like the crap we import from India!

I cant remember where i seen it, but im sure i saw figures for the vietnam war of average US soldierusing 100 or what ever rounds per kill.

the australians averaged 33 or something

but after a little google i saw it was about 50 000 rounds per kill with the
M 16

but i dont really know

when talking about the people your fighting in iraq i dont think they are terrorists. and im sure killing them doesnt make a difference to the ones that go to the us and blow # up

wow some people are very ignorant of how modern inf combat plays out, training eats up a lot of ammo in a year as well. I would like to find out how many rounds were fired by the insurgents in iraq per kill? Or how many rounds were fired per kill in the Iran/Iraq war or the afghanistan civil war or Russian Invasion or Paki/indian wars or ww1!

IF you want a high kill amout per shot look no futher than the wonderful tactics of neopolian wars or american civil war! What a bargian saving for your taxes only 2-3 shots per kill and sometimes you get the 2 for 1 sale!

I am sure the people loosing control over the amount rounds per kill never served in the military, ever wondered home many rounds were fired per kill in korea?

20,000 per kill is a small cost to pay when trying to keep the enemies head down and dead and your buddies alive.

www.big-boys.com...

watch them unload and scratch the landscape. i stopped counting at 114. thats how much ammo wasted.

Originally posted by Majic
Another example of this particular kind of fallacy can be expressed as follows.

Here in Nevada, just under one thousand nuclear explosions have occurred. Meanwhile, no one has ever been reported to have been killed by one.

Conclusion: Nuclear weapons cannot kill people.

I think we can be pretty certain that none of those nuclear weapons were intended to kill anyone. In fact, if people had died from them, there would be a problem.

Whereas in the case of the bullets used in this war, the specific purpose (of the military, anyway) is to kill insurgents. Not test the bullets.

But I do agree with you to a point.

When I read this article, the concept that the soldiers must be really bad marksmen, never occured to me except as a joke. My thought was that, even considering the bullets used in training, that number is huge. There's a tremendous amount of waste. I was just shocked at the large number. I didn't think of it as a statement of their abilities (God, I hope they're better than that!) but as an indication of waste.

So, I'm not too sure of the intent of the article, but I do see that many people actually took offense at the implication that they read into it, which didn't occur to me in more than a joking way.

Thousands of very young men.
Plus,
A very tough situation.
Plus,
Very nice, powerful guns.
Plus,
An endless supply of ammo.

You do the math, but it looks like they have very little incentive to use restraint, and every incentive to try to stay alive. I think if I was in a situation of some guy in a house trying to kill me or my buddies, I'd dump every chunk of metal I had at that *person born of unwed parents*.

If the U.S. needs more bullets, it would be nice to see them ramp-up production in the United States and pay Americans to make the ammo instead of shopping this out to another nation. (unless you want to buy them from Canada, I'd support that.)

.My first thought when I read the opening post:

Black market.

More "accounting problems."

I tried explaining this article to an officemate, who had read it and was taken in by the (supposed) data.

I then proceeded to remind him of the time we played paintball this summer. I reminded him of how he personally purchased approximately 2000 paintballs. I then asked him to tell me how many "kills" he scored over the 3-hour session. He said "about 3-4 that I know of". Hmmm, I said.. 5000 rounds per kill. Thats pretty crappy shootin, pard.

I said, use the analogy, and this time imagine you are fighting for your life, and not some flag tied to a tree branch. Can you see how the total number of rounds expended during training and operation could be pretty high??

He got the point......

Originally posted by Pyros
Can you see how the total number of rounds expended during training and operation could be pretty high??

Yep. But I still think much of it will turn out to be an "accounting problem" - and strongly suspect that lots of US ammunition ended up on the black market.


.

Suppressive fires GOOD!

Gotta keep your enemies from shooting at you. I wonder how many 7.62 we've bought from Israel and/or Canada.

Canadian arms shipments to the US annually exceed the value of those to all other countries combined, the Canadian government does not report them. Under special military trade arrangements between the two countries no export permits are required for the cross-border exchange of military goods. Since Annual Report figures are compiled solely from shipments made against export permits issued, statistics on military exports to the US "are therefore not readily available," as noted in the Report. Even so, from records obtained from the Canadian Commercial Corporation Project Ploughshares is able to estimate Canadian military exports to the US at $933 million for 2000, an increase of about three percent or about $30 million over estimated sales for 1999.

www.ploughshares.ca...

Come buy your bullets in Canada. We won't even tell our own citizens how much you buy and we can use the greenbacks to fund our peacekeeping efforts.

Thank GOD that the DOD is buying lots of ammo. It takes a tremendous amount of ammo to train a capable soldier. I spent hours on ranges and many more in live fire exercises - fire and movement with live ammo is key to making soldiers confident in their ability and that of their squad.

From experience, I can tell you that an amazing amount of ammo is burned in combat as suppressive fire. If the enemy is firing from a position, and you can rain bullets on it, it allows you to move while the enemy is forced to take cover. This allows your squad to take positions that can effectively engage the enemy.

Bullets are a lot cheaper than American lives. And innocent Iraqi lives. I just pray that we can find a way out of this morass before it gets worse.

Unrepresentative Sample

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic

Originally posted by Majic
[snipped by Majic]
Conclusion: Nuclear weapons cannot kill people.

I think we can be pretty certain that none of those nuclear weapons were intended to kill anyone. In fact, if people had died from them, there would be a problem.

Whereas in the case of the bullets used in this war, the specific purpose (of the military, anyway) is to kill insurgents. Not test the bullets.

What makes you certain, then, that every bullet fired by the U.S. military is fired at an insurgent?

That's my point, and the crux of the fallacy.

The Question Of Intent

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
So, I'm not too sure of the intent of the article, but I do see that many people actually took offense at the implication that they read into it, which didn't occur to me in more than a joking way.

The article expressed its own intent by making the comparison it did. There is no mistaking the reason for calling out this specific ratio, especially since it is misleading.

Deliberately so. You can see the deception illustrated in the two paragraphs provided.

Noticed the deceptive juxtaposition of unrelated figures. I invite anyone to read the article's two “sample” paragraphs and explain how any reader could reasonably misunderstand what Mr. Buncombe was saying.

Look at the title of the thread. Look at your own comments in the first post.

There's your intent, spelled out as plain as it gets.

Look at how easily the propaganda takes hold -- like an old Jedi mind trick. :shk: