US forced to import bullets as troops use 250,000 for every Iraqi killed

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article314944.ece

US forced to import bullets from Israel as troops use 250,000 for every rebel killed

By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
Published: 25 Septembber 2005

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.

Article Length: 593 words (approx.)

This makes me want to listen to black sabbath.

kill ratio is higher.

wonder what that means...

Same process that I understand happened in Vietnam. Early in the war the stress is on "conserve ammo; fire accurately; whites-of-their-eyes" stuff. As the insurgency grows, the doctrine changes to make sure people are putting out a sufficient volume of fire, accurate or not, to stop an approaching attacker.

wonder why we have to buy from Israel, though. They should give them to us for free.

I think the shit would hit the fan even more than it is now if it gets widely known that Iraqis are being killed by Americans firing bullets made in Israel.

I can't imagine using a quarter of a million bullets to bring down one person.

Not that I find the article "unbelievable," but unbelievable that we have devolved to this...

they are counting all of the and dividing it by number of known kills. You can have a couple of straffing runs by a couple of Apache gunships against a position manned by a handful of insurgents. That is quite a few thousand rounds right there. The you have the Infantry, who fire a few hundred rounds when they first engaged the enemy and later called for air support. Then you have the infantry come in and mop up firing a few hundred rounds again. In the end you may have one dead and three wounded insurgents with several thousand rounds expended.

Then there is the softening up of targets which takes thousands of rounds fired and maybe one or two insurgents are killed with the rest captured or wounded.

You have units that are rotated out to the rear that still shoot for training. You have support units that do not engage anyone but fire at targets in training. All those rounds go into the total of rounds used against the total body count.

If you take all of the rounds fired in training, rounds fired at euipment that had no one in it, rounds fired at suspicious stuff on the side of the road and counted only the rounds fired in hostilities, the ratio would be much lower.

These are Iraqis (citizens of Iraq) being slaughtered.

in troops paths or pointing AK-47s and RPGs at them are "insurgents." I guess I culd call them "Brave Iraqi Freedom Fighters" but I can't. The bile that rises up in my throat when I even think about trying won't let me.

their country. What did you expect - garlands of flowers. Oh yes Rummy expected that.

who the insurgents were and I told you. I will always side with American troops against whoever shoots at them. Illegal war or not.

was one of them. I side with principle and morality

about their SS troops.

The only way to support the troops who are fighting an illegal war is to get them the hell out of there.

Get them out of there, not turn on them.

that a contract had been agreed upon between the United States and IMI (Israel) to provide ammo for the US forces but upon further thought, the contract was not fulfilled.

It was decided that using Israeli provided ammo to fight muslims was a bad idea so ammo was procured from another source. As a result of this policy change, IMI ammo is available in the US now. :)

people later. Or at least cause some birth defects.

Fuckin' trigger happy troops, jeez.

heavy machine guns and 30mm cannons against armored targets. They have not been using much of it lately.

M-16s and SAWs have never used depleted uranium rounds and that is the great majority of the ammo being used.

After all, reloading only involves pointing the weapon off-screen and pulling the trigger, right?:banghead: I believe that many of themreally do think of it as a video game.?:banghead:

edited for incomplete sentence

I say we just nuke 'em and be done with it.

Oops: almost forgot- :sarcasm:

(In case someone here doesn't realize it, yes, I was being facetious.)

didn't we hear some sort of warning about something like this, like, maybe,

THE STEEL INDUSTRY - OUTSOURCING MAKING THE STEEL FOR THE MISSILES WE WOULD BE USING IN WAR?

So now it's bullets . . . somebody get these soldiers some target practice . . .

IIRC, in Vietnam it was more like 1,000,000. Bullets are cheap. So are brown people.

Maybe we could have the troops pay for their own bullets. That would cut costs, eh?

:sarcasm:

Damn.