Fuel and ammunition stocks

[RN7]

Does anyone have any information about how much fuel a large mechanised division would use, or what its stocks of ordinance and ammunition would be?

I believe a US Army armoured/mechanised division uses 23,000 litres of fuel a day, but I have no idea what is or any other countries ammo stocks are.

[Webstral]

Wouldn't you know, my rabbit ruined my copy of How to Make War, which lists this sort of information.

[Medic]

I hope the rabbit stew tasted good though...

[kato13]

Originally Posted by Webstral

Wouldn't you know, my rabbit ruined my copy of How to Make War, which lists this sort of information.

I keep my copy by my bedside, but have been looking for a digital version as I don't feel like typing it up.

Maybe ill scan it.

[RN7]

Well all jokes aside would you care to share out some of that information as I'm asking for a legitimate reason. I'm in an on going debate with a couple of Chinese communist on another forum who are under the impression that the PLA is one the march and the West is in terminal decline and some of my sources were eaten by my dogs.

[kato13]

It is pretty self explanatory but let me know if you have any questions

Numbers are tons (US I believe) except for the Lbs rating which is pounds per day per man.

[kato13]

Looking at these numbers I am reminded that we thought the US and Russian numbers might have been flipped. Mine is from the third edition, can anyone confirm these numbers from another edition?

[raketenjagdpanzer]

When I was a kid I thought Dunnegan's book(s) were a damn good read but in retrospect I wonder what his source(s) are beyond pure speculation. A lot of it is too much the wargame type tables (which, given his background, makes a degree of sense).

[StainlessSteelCynic]

The numbers look kinda right to me although to be completely transparent, I am working from memory here and I haven't read the small number of books I had for quite a few years (they've been packed away for about half a decade now!)

As I understand it, Soviet vehicles were a little more fuel hungry than comparable Western vehicles but their delivery systems were also not particularly efficient. The general notion being that they planned for a hard & fast push as deep into the frontline as possible and if the unit got bogged down, the next unit would take over the push and the stalled unit would take that opportunity to repair & recover. They would continually leapfrog combat ready units over bogged down units until they achieved breakthrough.

In regards to food, the Soviets always supplied less food per individual compared to the West, the Soviets expected some localized foraging to supplement their needs but they also supplied just the basics and none of the variety that the West supplied.

In regards to spares, again, with the mentality of leapfrogging a combat ready unit over a booged down unit, technical services from the rear could be brought up to repair & recover the immobile unit because (theoretically) the stuck unit would now be back from the frontline due to the combat ready unit having pushed forward.

As for ammunition, despite what the Soviets wanted the rest of the world to believe, they knew that their tank gunnery was not as effective as Western systems and they knew they would have less hits on target and thus needed to supply more ready ammo to compensate. Their general problem was they typically had smaller vehicles and didn't have the capacity for as large ammo reserves as comparable Western vehicles but the mentality of pushing through bogged down units (and the idea of those units being somewhat disposable) with fresh units to continually push back Western forces also meant to a degree, that a unit would not need large ammo reserves - it wouldn't be around to fight for as long as a Western unit!

[Askold]

Soviets would do the leapfrog manouver to avoid supply lines at the front. The division at the rip of the spear would eat their own supplies and when out of supplies or having suffered too much casualties another division would take their place and the first one could be resupplied after the front line has been pushed farther away.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by RN7

I'm in an on going debate with a couple of Chinese communist on another forum who are under the impression that the PLA is one the march and the West is in terminal decline and some of my sources were eaten by my dogs.

Capitalist-imperialist running dogs?

[Schone23666]

Originally Posted by Targan

Capitalist-imperialist running dogs?

Western FOOLS! Yankee Imperialist SWINE! Capitalist VERMIN! Dog-Breath Counter-Revolutionary TRAITORS! Running-Dog LACKEYS!

[RN7]

Originally Posted by Schone23666

Western FOOLS! Yankee Imperialist SWINE! Capitalist VERMIN! Dog-Breath Counter-Revolutionary TRAITORS! Running-Dog LACKEYS!

That's the tone!

[swaghauler]

After the 4/92 FA (self propelled, Reserve) was disbanded in 1992; I was placed into the 475 Quartermaster for about 6 months prior to volunteering for RESTORE HOPE with the 10th Mountain. I was there just long enough to get certified as a 77FOXTROT (petroleum specialist) and an 88MIKE (heavy wheeled vehicle driver). In 77F we studied the Forward Fuel Supply Point; A series of portable pumps connected by reinforced rubber hoses (like the kind tanker trucks use), and special 10K to 100k gallon bags that could be moved with an advancing division's rear echelon support units. While studying how to set up the FFSP; I was told that a single armored division would require 100,000 gallons of aviation gas and 100,000 gallons of JP8 (in lieu of diesel fuel) PER DAY in combat. The numbers above seem too low for an armored division's fuel consumption (with the M1 series anyway).

[kato13]

The numbers are listed are tons per day.

The fuel usage of
1210 tons =
2,420,000 lbs of fuel divided by
6.84 lbs per gallon for jp-8
gives us 361,194 gallons

Jet fuel is slightly lighter so I think the numbers work out.

[Webstral]

These staggering numbers help us to understand some of the long pauses in action in the v1 chronology. I believe the US kept the West Germans in the fight in November 1995 by feeding them stocks and possibly even transporting said stocks to the East German border. Some legal fiction regarding leasing and special contracting work for NATO soldiers might have sufficed to keep the Soviets from attacking columns of non-West German trucks moving fuel and NATO standard ammunition forward. (On the other hand, it seems highly unlikely to prevent the occasional interdiction strike against a convoy of fuel trucks on the West German side of the border, followed by an "Oops! Hey, we really thought those were West German trucks.")

I believe that the entrance of Anglo-American-Canadian forces into the fighting in Germany resulted in a prompt ejection of Pact forces from West Germany. This would be just as well because the Western Allies would be drawing on very depleted reserves of fuel, ammo, and spare parts. Transatlantic convoys would have prevented them from completely running out, but even without Soviet interference the system would have been hard pressed to keep up with consumption. Throughout October and certainly in November the West Germans would have been trying to make up for their quantitative inferiority through superior fire and maneuver--both of which require a rapid consumption of stocks. I suspect that the US set aside enough for a blitzkrieg across East Germany north of Berlin with a stop line on the Oder River. With strong forces on the Oder and the prospect of a strike south anywhere along the entire northern flank of the Pact position in East Germany, the Anglo-Americans would have been in a good position to compel the Pact to withdraw. At least this would have been the thinking.

I think these same supply problems would have prompted the Soviets to pull back from most of East Germany. After 8 weeks of fighting at the highest possible tempo, the Pact logistical system would have been gasping for breath. Provided the United States announced that the aim of their new level of involvement was the ejection of communist forces from the DDR, and provided this announcement came with an assurance that NATO forces would not cross into the sovereign territory of Poland, Czechoslovakia, or any other Pact country, then the Soviets might have found it more practical to withdraw their troops from East German soil to gain some breathing space. This is not to say that they would have taken the Americans at their word. Far from it. I think the Americans entered the war fully with a bushwhacking in total violation of whatever agreement had been arranged to keep NATO forces on the sidelines in West Germany. But since staying on East German soil at all would invite ongoing operations against whatever Pact forces were present, and since support of those forces would involve additional logistical support at the expense of rebuilding, and since loss of those forces probably would be disproportionately disadvantageous to the Pact both on the battlefield and in terms of morale, withdrawal for the time being would make the most sense.

Another advantage to the Soviets of pulling out of East Germany is that a temporary cease-fire on the ground could have been put in place, pending the outcome of negotiations about the fate of East Germany. This would give the Soviets a chance to move men and materiel forward without fear of air attack. How this would play out politically while the Soviet Navy was attempting to interdict Transatlantic traffic is hard for me to say.

[swaghauler]

Originally Posted by kato13

The numbers are listed are tons per day.

The fuel usage of
1210 tons =
2,420,000 lbs of fuel divided by
6.84 lbs per gallon for jp-8
gives us 361,194 gallons

Jet fuel is slightly lighter so I think the numbers work out.

You would be right sir. When I did the initial calculations I arrived at the same answer but for some reason (which I can't recall) I thought that number was in Liters. That's why I though it was kind of low.

[ArmySGT.]

Russian Army Ammunition Depot

[Cdnwolf]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

Russian Army Ammunition Depot

[WallShadow]

And _that_'s Category I readiness, right?

[WallShadow]

Originally Posted by Schone23666

Western FOOLS! Yankee Imperialist SWINE! Capitalist VERMIN! Dog-Breath Counter-Revolutionary TRAITORS! Running-Dog LACKEYS!

I love it when you talk dirty...

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by WallShadow

And _that_'s Category I readiness, right?

That would be about the age and ammunition types...... the quality of the conscripts and officers running it would be the same.

[swaghauler]

When I was in basic we were shooting rounds from 1952, BUT I NEVER had to break out a grinder and buff the rust off of them.