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| US forced to import bullets from Israel as troops use 250,000 for every rebel killed |
| 2007-07-20 |
| 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. "The Department of Defense's increased requirements for small- and medium-calibre ammunitions have largely been driven by increased weapons training requirements, dictated by the army's transformation to a more self-sustaining and lethal force - which was accelerated after the attacks of 11 September, 2001 - and by the deployment of forces to conduct recent US military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq," said the report by the General Accounting Office (GAO). Estimating how many bullets US forces have expended for every insurgent killed is not a simple or precisely scientific matter. The former head of US forces in Iraq, General Tommy Franks, famously claimed that his forces "don't do body counts". But senior officers have recently claimed "great successes" in Iraq, based on counting the bodies of insurgents killed. Maj-Gen Rick Lynch, the top US military spokesman in Iraq, said 1,534 insurgents had been seized or killed in a recent operation in the west of Baghdad. Other estimates from military officials suggest that at least 20,000 insurgents have been killed in President George Bush's "war on terror". 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. "If they don't do body counts, how can I? But using these figures it works out at around 300,000 bullets per insurgent. Let's round that down to 250,000 so that we are underestimating." Pointing out that officials say many of these bullets have been used for training purposes, he said: "What are you training for? To kill insurgents." The GAO report notes that the three government-owned, contractor-operated plants that produce small- and medium-calibre ammunition were built in 1941. Though millions of dollars have been spent on upgrading the facilities, they remain unable to meet current munitions needs in their current state. "The government-owned plant producing small-calibre ammunition cannot meet the increased requirements, even with modernisation efforts," said the report. "Also, commercial producers within the national technology and industrial base have not had the capacity to meet these requirements. As a result, the Department of Defense had to rely at least in part on foreign commercial producers to meet its small-calibre ammunition needs." A report in Manufacturing & Technology News said that the Pentagon eventually found two producers capable of meeting its requirements. One of these was the US firm Olin-Winchester. The other was Israel Military Industries, an Israeli ammunition manufacturer linked to the Israeli government, which produces the bulk of weapons and ordnance for the Israeli Defence Force. The Pentagon reportedly bought 313 million rounds of 5.56mm, 7.62mm and 50-calibre ammunition last year and paid $10m (about £5.5m) more than it would have cost for it to produce the ammunition at its own facilities. |
| Posted by:Delphi |
| #38 Whee! That's just 1000 bullets per active duty member, or 500 bullets per man if you include the reserves. Even better, before 9/11 we were using 900 million bullets and not killing anybody. |
| Posted by: Slinesing Angomolet1065 2007-07-20 21:19 |
| #37 I like the idea of equipping several Brigades of Liberals and transhipping them off to battle. and We'll give them as few rounds as they, the experts, think they'll need. |
| Posted by: RD 2007-07-20 20:55 |
| #36 I'm finding it harder to find quality 5.56 for my AR15. Cheap stuff is available but I don't want to fire any of that through my rifle. As for everything else I have, it's black powder and the price of that has skyrocketed as well. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2007-07-20 18:31 |
| #35 week before last, I had found a completely empty shelf where the cast lead plinking bullets for my 45 ACP used to be. Cast your own, I do. Old lead wheelweights are almost the same alloy as Lyman, and free for the asking(Most times) A good two slug mold will cost about 30 bucks, or you can get fancy and get a six slugs at a time mold, I size all mine, and lube with beeswax and parrafin 50-50 mix. Except for initial equipment cost it's effectively free (Time is all you spend) I store them in old clean glass mayo jars, by caliber and weight, a quart is a hell of a lot of bullets |
| Posted by: Harcourt Crarong3675 2007-07-20 16:49 |
| #34 As the military has soaked up more and more of the domestic commercial capacity, those of us that reload and shoot as a hobby have had a harder and harder time getting ammunition and components. Federal primers are practically not to be had. The other brands are also in short supply. Commercial powder stocks are definitely down, and week before last, I had found a completely empty shelf where the cast lead plinking bullets for my 45 ACP used to be. I say that if the military needs it, they can have it. |
| Posted by: denton 2007-07-20 16:16 |
| #33 Ms. Kelly is in favour of occupying Iraq just like the Israelis occupy Palestine? Just how different is that compared to the current situation? Perhaps Ms Kelly should ask herself why the Israelis have ammunition plants. |
| Posted by: Skunky Glins5285 2007-07-20 15:48 |
| #32 This is old news w/r to Israeli ammunition. We were using Israeli manufactured .45 ammo (and .22) in the mid-80's. Note: The .45 fired so hot that we were breaking frames though it didn't help that the 1911's were rack guns over 50 years old. (we suspected it was designed for use in sub-guns). I suspect as well that rifle calibers were purcased as well. |
| Posted by: Throger Thains8048 2007-07-20 15:13 |
| #31 I may be wrong, but I seem to recall that the french army imports most of its 5,56 ammo from IMI as well. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2007-07-20 14:12 |
| #30 The real money quote in this is the bullets to kill ratio; this is exactly what is needed to expedite the kill vs. detain theory. fewer detainees but more kills will drive the bullets/killed ratio down and make all the peaceniks happy ( or perhaps less sad, don't matter to me) |
| Posted by: USN, Ret. 2007-07-20 13:59 |
| #29 Doc - like judging the state of health care by charting annual bandage use lol! |
| Posted by: AT 2007-07-20 12:36 |
| #28 hey I like the thoughts of dipping the bullets in pigfat. Let that info get leaked out to them heh. Reading this article made me smile with remembering how I used to help my dad refill his cartridges. |
| Posted by: Jan from work 2007-07-20 12:24 |
| #27 "Israeli bullets, you say? Surely there's a Geneva convention about that." Those would be the Depleted Uranium White Phosphorus small arms ammunition. A super duper really really very very very bad crime against humanity. But they will be kosher. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2007-07-20 12:07 |
| #26 Dense Inert Metal Infrared Incendiary High Explosive Armor Piercing Anti Personnel Heat Seeking Depleted Uranium White Phosphorus Napalm Hollow Point Laser Guided Flame Throwing Nuclear Cluster Bomb Munition Do you have a Metal Storm option? Or a beehive variant? Perhaps one in an anti-radiation missile package? |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2007-07-20 12:03 |
| #25 This is about like judging the state of health care by charting annual bandage use. |
| Posted by: Doc Holliday 2007-07-20 11:59 |
| #24 As a result, there are few ways to expand military ammo production within the US. I blame China. BFD make more bullets kill more bad guys. Am I missing some point here? Actually, yes. We need to be using a lot fewer bullets in this conflict. Obtaining more enemy fatalities with a lot fewer bullets is going to be key in winning the fight against Islam. The ratio stated is—in part—a direct result of fighting this war on a one-bullet-at-a-time basis. That needs to change. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-07-20 11:59 |
| #23 If OSHA had their way, we'd have to import all our rounds. |
| Posted by: Herman Jeque5609 2007-07-20 11:54 |
| #22 Isreali bullet? Unfortunately, that means they probably aren't dipped in pigfat. |
| Posted by: Goober Whineger5035 2007-07-20 11:52 |
| #21 I think they need new ammo that describes the critics. So lest see... Has to be dense, better inertia characteristics, and has to be inert - we dont want reactive crap banging around in ammo pouches. Probably needs to be a penetrator shaped round, to defeat body armor. And to be effective it can't be the "assassin" subsonic rounds, this stuff needs to be supersonic for range. Plus it should be configured for impact after penetration, something like a closed hollow round (like the old Russian AK rounds) so we do not over-penetrate and endanger baby ducks in the area, and of course you want tracers to see where the round went, so you use less of it and nevermind that tracers work in both directions. So now we have environmentally friendly, highly effective ammo, which will be used a lot less. And its designed by the Peace-nics specifications. Thats what the critics are on about, right? So, lets name it after them. Here is the nomenclature for Peace-nic Ammo, mk1 5.56mm: Dense Inert Penetrating Supersonic High Impact Tracers Ok. So any time we see these criticisms, we can simply say "D.I.P.S.H.I.T." report incoming, and be entirely accurate. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2007-07-20 11:33 |
| #20 This is a combined figure for the Army, AF, Navy, Marines, Coasties, etc. We go through tons of that even in peacetime. And as militaries learn every time they become combat seasoned, follow the lessons we kept in the 19080's that paid off handsomely in 1991: You fight like you train, so train like you fight. The more you sweat in training the less you bleed in combat. Train to fight to win (That was the 2ACR motto for a while). The people who wrote this article are dumbasses; to paraphrase Patton: "The bilious bastards who came up with that stuff know as much about battle as they do about fornicating". |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2007-07-20 11:22 |
| #19 oops - I made that one point twice. Must have been a Israeli mind ray that caused me to do that. Must have been a Israeli mind ray that caused me to do that. |
| Posted by: AT 2007-07-20 10:48 |
| #18 lol! love the way he got in all those scare quotes, hushed tones of a Jewish conspiracy, and the image of a Rambo soldier in Iraq, shooting 250,000 bullets for every rebel killed. Not bad, considering he only had only one real statistic to work with to create all of that - "a government report that says US forces use 1.8 billion rounds of small-arms ammunition per year." Of course, he doesn't have figures for bodies, or bullets used in training. And of course, it's not that we are "HAVING" to support supplies from Israel, (as he managed to get into the first line of the article: extra points) we are just looking at using them as one of two contractors. It is not the we don't have the capacity to make the bullets without HAVING to turn to our (shhhhh) Israeli masters to help us, , it is just that our three Govn't owned plants don't have the capacity and one of the two companies which may get the contract is in Israel. Bravo! Bravo! Independent reporter. Well done. Only one statistic and you managed all this. This little true believer for The Cause(TM) deserves a promotion. |
| Posted by: AT 2007-07-20 10:45 |
| #17 A note to Lions(TM): Zionist bullets can cause genital shrinkage even when not killing you outright---why do you think Palestinians prefer gun-sex? |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2007-07-20 10:29 |
| #16 What I love is the way they use the number of bullets fired vs insurgents killed to sort of ive the impression that we're just spraying bullets everywhere and occasionally hitting when the opposite is true. The bulk of those bullets are used for training so that when we get in a firefire we're not spraying bullets all over. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2007-07-20 10:26 |
| #15 BFD make more bullets kill more bad guys. Am I missing some point here? |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge 2007-07-20 10:22 |
| #14 there are few ways to expand military ammo production within the US. I should have added "quickly and with quality control". |
| Posted by: lotp 2007-07-20 10:19 |
| #13 Ammo manufacturing facilities were shut down or reduced in capacity during the late 1990s, as were aresenals and caches. As a result, there are few ways to expand military ammo production within the US. The Israelis have capacity which we are tapping. This is an old story, actually. BTW, this doesn't just affect rifle rounds. Those of us who shoot as a hobby have occasionally found ourselves unable to buy much of quality in the 9mm caliber, which is the NATO standard for sidearms. Ironically, one of the commonly sold brands of relatively inexpensive handgun ammo is Wolf, made in Russia. Some better stuff is available from the Czechs and Mr. Lotp and I use that brand for a lot of our target practice in several calibers. |
| Posted by: lotp 2007-07-20 10:19 |
| #12 Perhaps I could interest them in my Dense Inert Metal Infrared Incendiary High Explosive Armor Piercing Anti Personnel Heat Seeking Depleted Uranium White Phosphorus Napalm Hollow Point Laser Guided Flame Throwing Nuclear Cluster Bomb Munition? Bet that'll get me kicked offa Ms. Kelly's Kwaanza card list... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2007-07-20 10:17 |
| #11 They have increased training for all military branches, so I believe this a fair assessment of total ammunition usage. It is not fair to say, "Oh you only kill one for every X amount of rounds used" when looking at the total used for combat and training. Typical liberal slamming of the military and the capabilities of it. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2007-07-20 10:16 |
| #10 "Israeli bullets, you say? Surely there's a Geneva convention about that." Those would be the Depleted Uranium White Phosphorus small arms ammunition. A super duper really really very very very bad crime against humanity. |
| Posted by: danking_70 2007-07-20 10:11 |
| #9 Smarter artillery 'moose. |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2007-07-20 10:10 |
| #8 Smarter artillery 'moose. |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2007-07-20 10:10 |
| #7 Ms. Kelly and her ilk believe that all security comes from a security blanket. 'Mommy, I'm scared.' 'Here, honey, here's your banky, now go to sleep.' |
| Posted by: wxjames 2007-07-20 10:04 |
| #6 Actually, this is pretty amazing news. In Vietnam, it was estimated that 2,000,000 rounds were expended for every enemy killed or *wounded* by a bullet. Assuming a similar ratio of enemy 1 KIA for every 3 WIA, this would mean that we have slashed the number of bullets effectively used by 50%. While some of that can be attributed both to it being desert and urban combat, instead of rural jungle, it is still a whopping improvement in shooting accuracy. The biggest problem remains in not having more up to date bullet manufacturing capability. The irony is that in peacetime, such factories work at perhaps only 10% of capacity. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-07-20 09:59 |
| #5 Kathy Kelly, a spokeswoman for the peace group Voices in the Wilderness, said Mr Bush believed security for the American people could come only from the use of force. Truer security would be achieved if the US developed fairer relations with other countries and was not involved in the occupation of Iraq. The President, said Ms Kelly, should learn from Israel's experience of "occupying the Palestinians" rather than buying its ammunition. Good they added this, seeing how it has absolutely nothing to do with the story. Peace through superior firepower, lady. Why don't you stay out in the wilderness... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2007-07-20 09:27 |
| #4 Yes, before the current war, realistic combat training was confined largely to the combat elements of the Army. After the little fiasco with the supply column in the initial phase of the Iraq group campaign, it was suddenly discovered [as usual, the hard way], that combat support and combat service support people need as much 'combat' training to survive as well. That meant that budgetary resources and training time on the range and realistic [use of live ammo] had to be expanded to a larger share of the force [check the tooth to tail ratio of combat vs "non-combat"]. Shocked, shocked to find out that expanded training means expanded consumption of ammo. [insert snark about the usual clueless MSM]. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2007-07-20 09:25 |
| #3 Israeli bullets, you say? Surely there's a Geneva convention about that. |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2007-07-20 09:22 |
| #2 The point of the article? The article is misleading. Small arms ammunition requirements would be expected to increase since we have had the Afghanistan war going on shortly after 911 and the Iraqi war going on since 2003. This requirement includes increased training requirements. The government and military needs to make certain the military has what it needs. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2007-07-20 09:16 |
| #1 My BS meter is pegging on this one. Anybody got a better estimate? |
| Posted by: Glolurong Jones1696 2007-07-20 09:08 |