Average number of shots fired in war.

[ben hunchak]

WW 2 small arms ammo used by combined Italian and French armies.....Zero!!

 

[Gibbs505]

WW 2 small arms ammo used by combined Italian and French armies.....Zero!!

Actually some elements of both armies fought very well. It was the scarfice of the French First army around Lille that helped to save the BEF.
The Italians also fought well under Rommell.

 

[RobSmith]

In the case of Vietnam the numbers may not be all that far off if all they used was "confirmed" kills AKA "body count". There were an awful lot of actions that resulted in thousands of rounds being fired and not a single enemy body recovered.

 

[tootall]

Are you sure yo read that right...?
I read the same stats, but they were framed as the number of rounds fired per enemy soldier killed....

That is... as time has gone on more and more ammo is spent on killing fewer and fewer

The first post, by Gibbs, is how many rounds each soldier fired.

My post was how many rounds fired per kill.

I don't have the source to refer to, I just remember reading it somewhere.

I expect the huge number is due to all the FA fire sent "over that way somewhere". Spray and pray, as its called.

 

[Rick]

I wonder if it is lack of marksmanship; or possibly the smaller .223 as compared to .30caliber?

I remember reading an article by Col Jeff Cooper where he stated that the military no longer spends adequate time to train soldiers in the art of marksmanship.
His theory was that the present day armies put a lot of lead into the air in hopes that some poor SOB will stumble into it.

At 275000 round per kill it looks like Col Cooper was correct.

Sadly, Cooper and the rest of the "spray and pray" sneer crowd know remarkably little of which they speak. Most have never actually taken part in a section attack, or defended a fixed position. I would invite them to think back on their experiences (assuming they actually did this) of working in the pits on the range with fire ripping up the berm over their heads - and then imagine themselves popping up into that to cooly and carefully squeeze off a few well aimed shots.

"Winning the firefight" (aka "spray and pray" to the unknowing) did not start in Vietnam, or the 70's, or the 80's. It was learned the hard way in WWI and WWII. Section battle drills for the modern soldier are not all that different than they were for our fathers and grandfathers - the only difference is both sides can put a lot more rounds downrange faster. Supress the enemy by either killing them or forcing them to take cover to avoid the near certainty of being hit; either way, once you have fire superiority then you close with and destroy them. It works - our fathers and grandfathers proved the concept in dozens of nameless little battles all over the world.

The idea of a marine (or whatever) marksman calmly picking off the enemy from a distance is all very glamorous. However, if you check out the war footage from Tarawa, Iwo Jima, etc., you will see a lot of Marines using "spray and pray". Either they suffered from not having Cooper there to show them how, or they had learned a few lessons themselves on the hard road through the Pacific on how to win those nasty little firefights. And whether you look at Americans, Rhodesians, Brits, Canadians, etc... it's all been pretty much the same. If it didn't work, everyone wouldn't do it that way.

There's a few other issues as well. First, if you're facing similarly equipped conventional forces (as was often the case up until now), while you're busy trying to calmly demonstrate superior battlefield marksmanship, they're going to be busily calling mortars and whatever else they have available down on your calm ass. Troops need to close the distance as fast as possible, to the point where support weapons cannot be used against them. There is also the small problem of the enemy having the nasty habit of setting up defence in depth with overwatch - another reason for not pissing around in the middle ground instead of getting in close and into their lines as fast as possible.

Finally, there are assorted related problems. Like the fact your heart rate is about 200 bpm, which isn't too conducive to Camp Perry accuracy. And you're gasping for breath after your third or fourth bound. Like the fact that you are probably going through a movement cycle every 10 - 15 seconds, so really solid firing positions are mostly a fantasy. Like the fact a battlefield does not resemble Camp Perry or Volkes Range - there's all this smoke, and dust, and dirt, and crap flying around to obscure your vision, not to mention a helmet half over your eyes. Like the fact there tends to be bush and grass and stuff in front of you and between your objective - feel free to stand up for a better view of your target if you wish. Like the fact the enemy tends to have a nasty habit of concealing their positions and masking their weapons signatures as best possible so you don't have much of a target in the first place - just like we do. Etc, etc...

Yeah, most soldiers probably aren't getting the opportunity to practice with their weapons as much as they should. But there are good and solid reasons why infantry fights the way they do, and it has nothing to do with "spray and pray", no matter what He Of The Royal We postulated.

 

[The Queens Medalist 8687]

Gibbs facts are correct, from what I was taught in the infantry.
The Allies won WWII by burying the Axis with our Logistics. And we do it now.
US and Brit infantry section make heavy enemy contact. Several hundred rds. exchanged.
Armoured or Artillery support fire is called in. Perhaps a few thousands rds.
Infantry advance, still some more enemy fire.Armoured, Artillery or perhaps air support fire brought to enemy position. 20,000 rds plus.
Infantry advance. 1 lone hold out returning fire.
US/Brit Infantry section now platoon with armoured, artillery, air support adding insurance. Again 20,000 plus rds.
Infantry advance and find a few enemy bodies.
A Victory at just under 50,000rds. Yesterday simular scene but no body count at 50,000 rds. Average 100,000 rds for a few kills, better than average!
This is how we defeat the enemy in combat. Wehrmacht during Blitzkreig,to Allies after D Day to US/Brits today.
This is how it's done!

 

[Calum]

I read somewhere that in the US civil war, when they used to say "dont fire until you see the whites of his eyes", the average shots per killed soldier was 17 rounds.

Also battlefield archaeologist have found many examples of barrels that where loaded many times in a row without being fired, and the picture shown was a barrel that was cross cut that showed 5 sets of ball and patch.

Turns out some folks in the heat, and din of battle where not trained as good as the British, and forgot to put priming cap on.

 

[Greenfields]

Well said Rick


Cheers
Brian

 

[tootall]

Rick makes some good points.
My post was not to insult current troops or methods, just to compare numbers.

Area denial is a valid reason to fire tens of thousands of rounds towards the enemy, as in WW1 trench warfare.
Or as in the "mad minute" as used in VietNam.
Also, I heard a term called Reconnaissance by Fire, where, if you suspect there is an emeny hiding, simply shoot towards the general area until you get a response.

So there are valid reasons why we fire so much ammo nowadays, but that still doesn't change the numbers.

 

[tootall]

Also battlefield archaeologist have found many examples of barrels that where loaded many times in a row without being fired, and the picture shown was a barrel that was cross cut that showed 5 sets of ball and patch.

Turns out some folks in the heat, and din of battle where not trained as good as the British, and forgot to put priming cap on.

Yes, I have heard that also. If ever you get an old original civil war era gun, you MUST test the barrel witha ramrod to see if it still has a load in it. Dont just cap it and fire. There may be multiple loads in it.

 

[Hotwheels81]

nice post Rick

i played league paintball 5 on 5 indoor 5min round's with just about every walk of life on the planet.... you always do the same thing, locate, communicate, fire to supress a position then move up or into a better firing position... in a 1 on 1 fire fight your dead, stick your head up your dead, lose track of a target and you end up diving into a bunker he has a clean line of sight on.... with my semi-auto WGP cocker and 18v rev loader i could piss away 1000-1200rnd's in 5min easily playing a support role for 2 forward's.... actual game play as a forward expect to chew up 200-600rnd's in 5min of casual play time... in a tourney the numbers double.

paintball is about the closest to real combat as i would ever want to get.... it teaches you shot's fired well aimed hit there mark as well as dumb luck and both are just as lethal....

 

[Rick]

Rick makes some good points.
My post was not to insult current troops or methods, just to compare numbers.

Well, there's no doubt the numbers are going to go up. I don't know that you ever could have "won the firefight" in the days of the muzzleloader - just not pussible to put enough weight of fire on a position to kill or force the enemy to cover and stay there. Probably not in the era of the single shot either, although with enough troops I suppose you could do it. Say... five to one odds, yeah, I suppose you could do it. Of course, wars were fought a bit differently then. Once the ability to put a sustained volume of fire down - repeating rifles with stripper clips, etc, then winning the firefight came into its' own.

Then somebody invents a semiautomatic battle rifle or sturmgewehr... and the balance of power gets tilted until the other side matches the ability to project fire superiority. Knight and bowman... And as the technology to rapidly put rounds on the objective increases on both sides, the number of rounds expended in gaining fire superiority also increases. Battles for superiority between Mausers and Lee Enfields have given way to battles between AK-47's and M-16's...

You have to be in a trench and have bullets tearing the crap out of the edges of the berm just over your head and hear them snapping overhead and thumping into the dirt to appreciate what "winning the firefight" means, perhaps. Or watch a live fire demonstration at the battle schools... Kill the enemy with a random bullet labled "to whom it may concern", or have the volume of fire drive them under cover and thus remove their ability to put out effective fire - either way, your troops can then close with and destroy them.

Area denial is a valid reason to fire tens of thousands of rounds towards the enemy, as in WW1 trench warfare.
Or as in the "mad minute" as used in VietNam.

Actually, to the best of my knowledge, the "mad minute" first appeared in WWI, in the trenches. Sort of an unpleasant "Good morning to you" from what I have read. There's an excellent book called "Over The Top" by Arthur Guy Empey, an American who joined up with the Brits at the beginning of WWI. He describes it as: "Mad Minute. Firing fifteen rounds from your rifle in sixty seconds. A man is mad to attempt it, especially with a stiff bolt." The book is actually reproduced online, in a heavily abridged form:
http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Arthur_Guy_Empey/Over_The_Top/index.html

I don't think there was much area denial in WWI by way of gunfire - that's what the trenches were there to prevent. I think you could generalize and say most gunfire was either outright killing of exposed soldiers or harrassing fire of troops behind the frint line through plunging fire or catching unwary troops exposed.

So there are valid reasons why we fire so much ammo nowadays, but that still doesn't change the numbers.

Yeah, but the numbers are due to two things: changes in technology, and modern conflicts where we fight an overmatched opponent and can win by expending ammunition instead of expending men. Nothing to do with poor marksmanship or tactics.