57 Bullets a second...

[mikelewis]

For every second of last year, we expended 57 bullets.

That's 3,420 Bullets a Minute

205,200 an hour

4,924,800 a day

147,744,000 a month

1,772,928,000 Bullets a year

We've expended so many rounds, we have to borrow some from Israel just to keep up with demand. This is enough ammunition to kill every single person in the following countries and still have enough to fight off any civil discontent here in America:

India
Pakistan
Afghanistan
Iraq
Iran
Saudi Arabia
Israel
Egypt
Jordan
Syria
Lebanon
Qatar
Turkey
Tajikistan
Uzbekistan
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Uzbekistan
Venezuela

This 1.8 billion rounds is only 1 year of "fighting". So either we're really lousy shots or we're killing a lot more people than any estimate we can conjure out of thin air. Of course, there is a possibility that many of these rounds have found themselves sold on the black market but we must not speak of such things. The article below states that this is due to an increase of training but 1.8 billion? Come on! Anyway, just thought I'd share the numbers on where our money is being spent.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article314944.ece
"US forces have fired so many bullets in Iraq and Afghanistan - an estimated 250,000 for every insurgent killed - that American ammunition-makers cannot keep up with demand. As a result the US is having to import supplies from Israel.

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.

John Pike, director of the Washington military research group GlobalSecurity.org, said that, based on the GAO's figures, US forces had expended around six billion bullets between 2002 and 2005. "How many evil-doers have we sent to their maker using bullets rather than bombs? I don't know," he said."

[shockingelk]

1. Does this include tracer rounds,

joy shots, training?

[mikelewis]

2. Yes but I guarantee you, they're not blowing off the majority of these...

rounds in training. Training consists of tactics and maneuvering, discipline and development. You don't spend weeks on end just shooting off rounds. In training, you only get to shoot live rounds when you are qualifying or practicing. We have 1,390,765 people in our military, that's 1,294 bullet a piece. Trust me, every soldier isn't firing 1300 rounds a year. 1.8 billion is a lot of rounds.

[shockingelk]

3. Math:

Say a soldier gets into 5 firefights each a month, 200 bullets per firefight. That's 12,000 rounds/year.

1,772,928,000 bullets a year splays out to 147,744 military personnel who get into firefights, which sounds about right (and I came up with my assumptions before the ~150K soldiers).

I mean, it's a war, and people shoot bullets at each other.

[mikelewis]

4. True- but keep in mind...

The majority of our troops are not combat troops. The majority of our troops shoot paper clips. Even in Iraq, the majority of troops do not engage the enemy on a daily basis. The most rounds I've ever fired off was 600 rounds and that was because we had to get rid of them to make room for the next years inventory. Our brigade shot off 11,000 rounds at the end of each year to keep the level of ammo up. This is a huge amount of live ammunition.

[shockingelk]

5. Yes

The bottom line is we should be shooting 0 rounds/year in Iraq.

That there are so many being fired reminds us that we're waging a hot war, which I would guess is the original point.

Being that we're supplying the IP as well as our own forces, there's a lot of bullets being used ... 150K spending 1000 rounds/month, 75K spending 2000 rounds per month ... it's all obscene. Which I suppose is the original point.

It would be interesting to find out how many gallons of fuel we're using, how many mg of morphine or whatever is used these days ....

[slampoet]

6. But 200 bullets is reloading 20 times if you are firing an M16

Double or triple that if youre a sniper.

annother thought.

every stray bullet can travel miles.

[Toots]

8. An M-16 mag holds twenty rounds but grunts usually only put 18 rounds

to keep jams down to a minimum.

[Toots]

7. Obviously you have never been

Does Rear Echelon mean anything to you?

[formercia]

9. Scare 'em to death.

Keep their heads down until the M1 can move up and flatten the hooch.

[Toots]

10. That is pretty much the strategy in a nutshell

In my time it was artillery or gunships since the terrain was not conducive to tanks or other track vehicles.