Troops use 250,000 bullets for every insurgent killed

This article is not very thought out and did not include all the factors and variables when finding out how many rounds were expended per Insurgent death in Iraq.

The story states:

A government report says that US forces are now using 1.8 billion rounds of small-arms ammunition a year. The total has more than doubled in five years, largely as a result of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as changes in military doctrine.

Obviosuly, Half of the 1.8 Billion is actually being used in Iraq, Since it used to be half that but the past 5 years it doubled (that's about when GWOT started). So let's say 900,000,000 rounds is actually being used in Iraq/A-stan per year.

The rest is for Training....many units go through thousands of rounds a month. so Imagine what the rest of the military is doing for training....that's where the other half of the 1.8b goes to, training...not insurgents or Iraq/A-stan. Also, troops fire more rounds in training these days than 5 years ago, so it's probably more than half for training.

Anyways, good article. Really makes ya wonder and see things differently when numbers are given

Originally posted by SportyMB
This article ... did not include all the factors and variables when finding out how many rounds were expended per Insurgent death in Iraq.

Absolutely. This was not a scientific study or anything. Regardless of the perceived political intent, this is a simple report of numbers vs. insurgents killed. A number that shocked me, frankly. (and that doesn't even cover the insurgents that got away!)

All the defensive posture taken in this thread (not you, Sporty) is simply wasted as I was not accusing our soldiers of being inaccurate or anything like that. I was simply surprised by the numbers and found it interesting that we went to Israel and paid a pretty penny for more ammunition in this war on terror.

If I wanted to attack the accuracy of the soldiers, I would have put this in Slug-Fest.

[edit on 26-9-2005 by Benevolent Heretic]

Regardless of the perceived political intent, this is a simple report of numbers vs. insurgents killed. A number that shocked me, frankly

Ofcourse the authors of the news story used raw data for thier article, because that makes the numbers more outstanding..help thier case more. Also, other factors will help thier case....like consider that many of the insurgents died due to bombs and not bullets...which means even more rounds per insurgent death.

Simple numbers are ALWAYS used in the extreme to help someone's case or make someone look not so good. Like emails that talk about how big companies spend millions on ink pens and how many sheets paper are wasted everyday due to typos.

I would like to see an OIF/OEF almanac....like a breakdown of everything from bullets to deaths to number of friggen boot laces.

sporty

BTW: Im a little shocked at the numebr too, but I can sort of see where it all goes...Oh hell, ill wait for the almanac


[edit on 26/9/2005 by SportyMB]

Originally posted by ufia
Also we should keep in mind that not every single bullets fired are intended to kill. The article make it sound like soldiers have bad accuracy. Just to name one example, you know some times when a HMMWV roll over an IED, they start spraying around to counter a potential embush and keep insurgents head down while US soldiers get the hell out.

Yup suppresing fire, keeps their head down. Also there have been a few high level Ops like faluja (SP) things like that use up a lot of ammo.

That's really sad that this is happening.

It's really wasting our tax dollars. That's got to be at least spending abround 100k just to kill one person. What a shame.

Originally posted by SFRemmy
That's really sad that this is happening.

It's really wasting our tax dollars. That's got to be at least spending abround 100k just to kill one person. What a shame.

I dissagree. How much tax dollars is your family worth? How many of the terrorists that have been killed or injured that would or could have harmed your family under other circumstances? If the report said used 1 million per kill, id be just fine with it.

I think its worth many times what its actually costing.

QUOTE : "It's really wasting our tax dollars. That's got to be at least spending abround 100k just to kill one person. What a shame."

i dont mean to sound snide , but by your " logic " can we save millions on such things as pilot training , medical schools etc

as i wrote earlier " train hard , fight easy " it isnt rocket science

on a lighter note , to put ammo useage in context , anyone got a link to the story of the australian SAS using almost all thier nations budgeted training ammo for an entire year , in just 2 months ? it was about 1999 / 2001 IIRC

Originally posted by skippytjc

Originally posted by SFRemmy
That's really sad that this is happening.

It's really wasting our tax dollars. That's got to be at least spending abround 100k just to kill one person. What a shame.

I think its worth many times what its actually costing.

I'm no saying we shouldn't be spending so much on bullets. What I meant was that the soldiers are trained marksmen. Even for shootouts and whatnot, it really shouldn't take 250k rounds just to kill someone. Even to keep another group of soldiers covered. Besides....we're already large enough in debt as it is.

It's like paintball, the pro's use at least a case of paint (every player on the team using 1 case of about 2000 rounds) usually. Just to bunker someone and take out 5 or 6 people depending on what you're playing. That's not very professional of them don'tyou think?

I dunno....I'm just really tired today and off...so forgive my idiocy.

[edit on 26/9/05 by SFRemmy]

The number may seem huge but when one breaks it down and looks at it from a different perspective one gets a different picture. For instance, using SportyMB's assesment that 900 million rounds are being used in OIF/OEF each year, that works out to be around 16 bullets per soldier fired each day. Now that number seems reasonable, infact I would have expected the number of rounds fired per soldier to be a lot higher.

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]

I recall a figure of 2,000 per casulaty in WWII and 20,000 in Vietnam but can't find the reference. Obviously the advent of suppressive fire and full auto puts usage through the roof. Mainly it sounds like a case for smart ammo: if a single $5,000 smart bullet guranteed a kill it would make economic sense.

However, I thought the point of the story was that the US was buying ammo from IMI? Which seems like a rather bad move PR-wise, unless you're actually trying to persuade the Islamists that it's a US-Israeli conspiracy.

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
Or maybe they're just really, really bad shots!

Logic would dictate that if what you are asserting is correct, then the insurgent militias and foreign fighters are using far, far more than the US troops are expending....





seekerof

Originally posted by SFRemmy
That's really sad that this is happening.

It's really wasting our tax dollars. That's got to be at least spending abround 100k just to kill one person. What a shame.

LOL....*Snort* Nice....BTW You suck at trolling! Now GBTW!

Originally posted by Imperium Americana

Originally posted by SFRemmy
That's really sad that this is happening.

It's really wasting our tax dollars. That's got to be at least spending abround 100k just to kill one person. What a shame.

LOL....*Snort* Nice....BTW You suck at trolling! Now GBTW!

I don't try to troll...I just have a broad range of interests. You don't have to be so mean (for lack of being able to use a better word) about it. My opinion is different than yours...hoorah. Get over it and move on.

The "shortage" story is from 2004.

While IMI in Israel was contracted to supply about 70 million rounds of 5.56 (made of US supplied materials), they never began operations. The US pulled about 200 million rounds from British stocks to buffer the shortage, making the IMI contracts needless.

The shortage came about, when Lake City Arsenal needed to update and upgrade machinery and computers. The lull between upgrades created a "bubble" in the munitions train. Troops in-country were never short ammunition at any time. The US Army supplies ALL services with all ammunition types, regardless of what it is.


Lake City now has 5 machines running small arms ammo (from just 1 machine running prior to 2001).

Well in Vietnam the ratio was about 1 million bullets to every enemy combatant killed.
Also the US is looking to Taiwan to source its small arms ammo. Taiwanese ammo factories are running below their normal production level, so they've offered to bump their factories to full production and sell the ammo to the US for cost.

Originally posted by ignorant_ape
on a lighter note , to put ammo useage in context , anyone got a link to the story of the australian SAS using almost all thier nations budgeted training ammo for an entire year , in just 2 months ? it was about 1999 / 2001 IIRC

I'm not sure about that, but around that time Australia was running short on ammo for even training purposes. That of course has been rectified. We only have one ammo factory in the whole country as well.

This is purely anecdotal, but I had read an article than claimed during "high-time" fighting in Vietnam during 1966, US troops expended ONE TRILLION rounds of M16 ammo by themselves in ONE MONTH. I will look for that article and see if I can find it again. If that's true, then this "shocking" 1.8 billion over a year is relatively nothing, don't you think?

I allways knew american soldiers suck but 250.000 per insurgent dead??
Are they all on lsd or what??