Ammo stockpiles

[Raellus]

My impression is that there's not as much ammo out there as we'd like to believe.

I wish I'd posted it when I first encountered it, but a few years ago, I read an article about how the U.S. military was having a hard time keeping 5.56mm and 7.62mm ammo in stock- it was right after "The Surge", I believe. The military was having to purchase ammo off-the-shelf on the civilian market to make up for shortfalls. Recent articles have claimed that the U.S. is currently running very low on air-dropped munitions. Supply simply hasn't kept up with demand.

Also, after the Sandy Hook elementary school mass shooting, it was really difficult for civilians to find .223 or 5.56mm ammo as there was a panic run on many calibers of small arms ammo ("Oh no! Obama's coming for our guns now!"). I pretty much gave up on hobby shooting at that time. In fact, in one of the saddest phenomena in my country, this sort of thing happens after nearly every mass shooting, and firearms sales skyrocket.

So, from this anecdotal evidence, I think ammo would quickly become scarce in a major national crisis (World War, Zombacalype, etc.). Yeah, there'd be pockets of supply, but they'd be few and far between. I always laugh when folks go full auto on TWD, especially in later seasons. Wishful thinking, at best.

[Apache6]

I'm not saying there will not be shortages caused by uneven distribution.

I am saying that there are enough small arms rounds in the US military inventory to deal with a "zombie outbreak" or lots of other contingencies. There are significant stockpiles of small arms rounds, and other munitions.

The following link has a lot of information. Short synopsis, the pre 9/11 annual requirement for 5.56 rounds was 682 million rounds. That was increased to 1.35 billion rounds. The Lake City Army Ammunition Plant is capable at full production rate of making 1.2 billion rounds a year.

http://www.alu.army.mil/alog/issues/...arms_ammo.html

The lack of ammunition during the surge was for a specific type of "New" round for the 5.56.

The above does not even begin to account for the rounds held by private individuals, police departments, and retailers/wholesalers (Walmart, Cabelas, Bass Pro-Shop...) or for ammunition either made by civilian companies or imported.Shortages of civilian ammo has largely been caused by politically fueled fears. Again, that is VERY likely to occur during a real panic, so I'm not saying that their will not be shortages. .22 Long Rifle ammunition has become both expensive and hard to get, but it's being produced at higher then normal levels. US commercial plants are capable of manufacturing up to 4.2 billion rounds of .22 LR each year, and they are now.

[.45cultist]

Originally Posted by Apache6

I'm not saying there will not be shortages caused by uneven distribution.

I am saying that there are enough small arms rounds in the US military inventory to deal with a "zombie outbreak" or lots of other contingencies. There are significant stockpiles of small arms rounds, and other munitions.

The following link has a lot of information. Short synopsis, the pre 9/11 annual requirement for 5.56 rounds was 682 million rounds. That was increased to 1.35 billion rounds. The Lake City Army Ammunition Plant is capable at full production rate of making 1.2 billion rounds a year.

http://www.alu.army.mil/alog/issues/...arms_ammo.html

The lack of ammunition during the surge was for a specific type of "New" round for the 5.56.

The above does not even begin to account for the rounds held by private individuals, police departments, and retailers/wholesalers (Walmart, Cabelas, Bass Pro-Shop...) or for ammunition either made by civilian companies or imported.Shortages of civilian ammo has largely been caused by politically fueled fears. Again, that is VERY likely to occur during a real panic, so I'm not saying that their will not be shortages. .22 Long Rifle ammunition has become both expensive and hard to get, but it's being produced at higher then normal levels. US commercial plants are capable of manufacturing up to 4.2 billion rounds of .22 LR each year, and they are now.

They operate at about 1/3 or so capacity. It would take the T2K timeline to bring it to full strength- just in time for the bombs.

[dragoon500ly]

A lot also depends on if the unit maintains a partial load on its heavy vehicles, roe example, in the 1980s, tank units in Germany, forward of Ansbach, would maintain a load of 40 rounds of main gun ammo, usually 25 APDS and 15 HEAT. When an alert was sounded, the plan (snicker) was to move out to our ready positions, where the ASP would bring the semis with the rest of the ammo load to us. Since we had M60A3s, our WP and HEP were stored on the trailers, following the switch to M1s, everything was switched to APDS/HEAT only. Since.we were armored cavalry, we also had a selection of land mines, cratering charges and demolition gear, as well as TOWs, Dragons and LAWs.

For the units stationed west of Ansbach, they depended on the ASPs for all of their ammunition. Although I have heard that this policy was changed whenever tensions increased.

Pretty much the only units that I am aware of that had small arms ammo readily available were the units equipped with Pershing, the forward SAM batteries.

Going stateside...trust soldiers with live ammo? Only on the firing ranges! The ASPs were protected by armed civilian security.

As the tee shirt says, "They don't trust us with ammo, but they want us to be able to run really fast..."

[Apache6]

I use T2K Version 1 timeline, so I think that the Russian - Chinese war would provide the lead time needed to ramp up the ammo production.

I know that US government contracts often include a contingency capabilty requirement. They are 'contracted' for a certain amount of production capability, even though the actual orders might be for less. Theoretically they already have the materials and workers to ramp up production.

USMC and Navy ASPs are ran by service members, the security forces are supplied with live ammo.

[Draq]

Don't forget, the us was also operating in the middle east and africa. So production would be considered 'war time' I think.

[aspqrz]

Thanks for all the replies, I have a much better handle on how things would play out in a ZA style scenario now!

Phil

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Apache6

I use T2K Version 1 timeline, so I think that the Russian - Chinese war would provide the lead time needed to ramp up the ammo production.

Last I heard the Chinese didn't use Nato calibre ammo, therefore most of the ammo production during this period (beyond normal peacetime production) would be useless for the US and allies.