Winds of Change.NET: U.S. Army Low on Ammo

January 13, 2004

U.S. Army Low on Ammo

by Joe Katzman at January 13, 2004 6:56 AM

Trent Telenko emails these days to draw attention to a growing issue for the U.S. Army - a shortage of small arms ammunition. Fortunately, some help is on the way:

"Tallman assured me that small-arms-training ammunition is now the No. 1 single line item for procurement dollars for the 2004 budget. �The Army will spend just over $1 billion, ahead of Stryker, upgrades for Apache, Abrams, CH-47, MLRS, procurement of communications systems and procurement of medium and heavy tactical vehicles,� he said."

Unfortunately, this is a self-inclicted wound - and the Army's remedies may not be the smartest. As Trent explains:

"The Army shut down most of its ammunition production facilities after the Cold War and spent clost to a decade not buying ammunition. Now the piper must be paid becasue we hace continuous operations eating up small arms ammunition as fast as we have production capability to make it."

Efficiency is not the be-all and end-all for military procurement. Diversity of production and overall capacity may matter far more. Right now, there is one major plant producing military small arms ammo in the USA, and it's running at full capacity. All it takes is one major fire, and then what?

This situation may be efficient, but it's not smart.

Then there's the Army's apparent refusal to use old-fashioned lead munitions, easily available on the civilian market and often sold by the Army itself as surplus if SFTT's readers are to be believed. This strikes me as both dumb and ineffecient.

Supplemental contracts to Olin Winchester Co. and Israeli Military Industries for each to produce 70 million rifle rounds per month beginning in June will help with the situation on the ground, though Kim du Toit has some reservations as a result of his own experiences. Still, as this article notes:

"The general said it would probably take until 2005 to get small-arms ammunition production to a level at which there will be enough to cover all the increased training needs and begin rebuilding the war reserves."

"Gee, we'd really like to have done something about this crisis that arose elsewhere in 2004, but we didn't have the bullets." Not good enough. Not when there's a real war on... and this should have been forseen. Back to Trent:

"If the Army was really serious about ammunition for training troops here in the states, it would get an EPA waiver and use commercial off the shelf steel jacketed lead 5.56 and 7.62 ammunition for the duration. This thing of suffering trainig shortages in wartime because of the requirement for "green" tungsten bullet mil-spec ammunition is flat insane."

If someone out there has a perspective we haven't considered here, by all means speak up via the Comments section and let us know. Right now, however, I'm with Trent.

UPDATE: See the comments section for one response. Is this the consensus from firearms experts? If so, this whole thing starts to make more sense.

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Tracked: January 13, 2004 6:25 PM

U.S. Army Low on Ammo from Cato the Youngest

Excerpt: A fire, in an ammunition plant full of gunpowder? <sarcasm>Surely such a thing could never happen.</sarcasm>

Comments

#1 from flinch at 3:24 pm on Jan 13, 2004

Buying commercial 5.56 and 7.62mm for training use is a bad idea, since their point of impact will differ greatly from the military issue loads.

Commercial 5.56mm can hit 3-4 inches higher than point of aim, and that may well get people killed in a combat environment.

#2 from Cato the Youngest at 5:54 pm on Jan 13, 2004

If the bullet weight and design are different, point of impact will be different. However, basic marksmanship can be taught with any decent ammunition, and troops can be transitioned to the "real" ammo prior to going into combat. That would ease the strain on "military" ammunition stocks without compromising training significantly.

Riyadh delenda est!

#3 from Rob Lyman at 6:46 pm on Jan 13, 2004

Two points on ammo:

1)It isn't clear to me why the guns used for training couldn't be adjusted so that commercial ammo will strike the point of aim for a given distance. That would be an extra expense, but it might be easier than building new factories.

2)How much small-arms combat shooting (as compared to light crew-served weapons, shoulder fired missles, etc) takes place at distances greater than 100 yards? It seems to me that most of what our guys are doing these days is house-to-house and urban fighting, which should not require more than 50 yards or so. But somebody correct me if I'm wrong.

3) How big a deal is 3-4" from point of aim, and at what distance is that figure quoted? I sight my .270 in 3 inches above point of aim at 100 yards, which puts me well within the kill zone for a deer for any distance to about 200 or so yards, with no hold-over. 40-grain 5.56 should shoot faster and flatter, so I could tune a gun firing it to be in the kill zone over an even greater distance; varmint hunters routinely hit small targets like chucks and coyotes at 300 yards with AR-15s. A much greater variable is the shooter's ability to put his shots on target under stress. And THAT ability is developed through lots of traning.

More training with worse ammo beats less training with match-grade loads.

#4 from M. at 7:06 pm on Jan 13, 2004

In the early 60's,the Pentagon sold thousands steel bomb casings to Geramny as scrap for a few cents each.
And then had to buy them back for several dollars each as Vietnam heated up in '65.
This is nothing new for us.

#5 from John Briggs at 12:06 am on Jan 14, 2004

Rob Lyman asked:

"How much small-arms combat shooting (as compared to light crew-served weapons, shoulder fired missles, etc) takes place at distances greater than 100 yards?"

From a Marine Corp after-action equipment analysis I read at:

http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=186638&page=1

"Enemy Engagements ~ Almost all interviewed stated all firefight engagements conducted with small arms (5.56mm guns) occurred in the twenty to thirty (20-30) meter range. Shots over 100m were rare. The maximum range was less than 300m."

Even sniper shots were at pretty short ranges:

"Of those interviewed, most sniper shots were taken at distances well under 300m, only one greater than 300m (608m during the day). After talking to the leadership from various sniper platoons and individuals, there was not enough confidence in the optical gear (Simrad or AN/PVS-10) to take a night shot under the given conditions at ranges over 300m. Most Marines agreed they would �push� a max range of 200m only."

#6 from flinch at 4:07 am on Jan 14, 2004

In the case I cited above, I was using:

Preban Bushmaster XM15E2S, 11.5" bbl (civilian clone of the XM177E2) at 50 yards.

I was using various 55 grain FMJs, and the rifle was set up to shoot point of aim with M193 spec ball. PMP shot about 2" above PoA, but American Eagle was the worst of the lot, grouping about 4" above PoA.

IIRC, using the Improved Battlesight Zero with 55 grain ammo, you should be able to hit a man-sized target to about 250 yards.

Certainly, issuing civilian-spec loads for training would free up supplies for combat zones, but most people (military or otherwise) don't put enough emphasis on properly zeroing their rifles.

In any event, the military is going to do it the hard way, so our observations are mainly moot.

#7 from Jimmy Wu at 3:22 pm on Jan 14, 2004

Regarding zeroing your rifle after training w/ civilian ammo,

According to after action comments from 187th Inf. Reg. for Afghanistan (as published in p58, Jan. 2003 issue of Soldier of Fortune [yes I know]), they never got a chance to rezero their weapons in-country.

Jimmy

#8 from bc at 12:36 am on Feb 21, 2007

Steel cases require a coating to keep them from rusting this does not mix well with an m16. If your not concerned with accuracy use captured ak's and ammo.