50,000 rounds per kill in Vietnam war?

[Dave76]

Dear Sirs,

I have frequently heard and read about the so-called kill-ratio in the Vietnam war. Many times I have come across this omnious number of 50,000 expended rounds per enemy soldier killed.
For example:

we had 50,000 .223 rounds expended per "kill" in Vietnam

or this:

In Would War II, the United States and its allies expended 25,000 rounds of ammunition to kill a single enemy soldier. In the Korean War, the ammunition expenditure had increased four-fold to 100,000 rounds per soldier; in the Vietnam War, that figure had doubled to 200,000 rounds of ammunition for the death of a single enemy soldier.

My question now is:
Is there any kind of official study concerning these numbers or where do they originate?
Thanks.

[Kurt V]

Who knows, anything is possible. Probably more rounds expended than in WWII because more automatic weapons. My WAG is that at least half of the rounds were actually lost ammo. Those damn ammo crates, boxes, magazines, etc. just never seem to stay where you put them.

[mara]

We'd have to see how they compiled their statistics- is it an average of how many rounds were shipped to the theater, or how many were actually fired?

Hell, sometimes it seems like it takes that many rounds just to get Joe qualified at the 300m range ;)

[airbornelawyer]

These latter two points show why the statistic, even if accurate, is misleading.

How many rounds were expended in training? Distributed to ARVNs? Lost? Captured?

The contexts in which the 200,000 number are thrown out seem to mostly be how wasteful soldiers are. As I recall, it came up in a documentary on the adoption of the M-16 (maybe an episode of Mail Call, I can't remember).

BTW, the difference between the "50,000" and the "200,000" numbers per kill could be the result of a number of factors. First, we don't actually know how many we killed in Vietnam or the prior conflicts; we only have rough estimates. Second, someone might have tried to adjust the figures to account for some variable for lost, stolen or captured ammunition, but even that would be a guess. And third, the "50,000" number refers to .223, while the "200,000" number is not specific (though .223 wasn't used in WW2 or Korea in any significant amount). If you add in ammo expended by helicopter gunships and door-gunners and by fixed wing aircraft, you get an awful lot of lead expended often for little effect other than suppression.

All in all, without any context, the statistic seems to serve no purpose except to make misleading rhetorical points.

[B 2/75]

After looking at that minigun video that's currently posted, I'll bet we're up to a million per head :D

God loves cyclic rate of fire... that's why he invented it.

[Para]

Consider that the statement is a "kill ratio" and therefore would not include wounded enemy combatants in those numbers. It would be reasonable to assume that for every kill there would be 3 or so wounded.

[Silverbullet]

I think it started with S.L.A. Marshall's "A Soldiers Load and the Mobility of a Nation" book.

Claimed it was based on detailed study. Most was discredited as the yrs went by

[Dave76]

Just done some research on S.L.A. Marshall:

One of the big reasons the Army started writing requirements for a full auto capable replacement for the M1 was the battlefield studies done by SLA Marshall. Marshall's work has been somewhat tarnished since revelations of his faking some of his WW1 combat record have come to light, but much of what he did was based on interviews with comabt arms soldiers as soon after an engagement as he could get there. His reports revealed that a very low percentage of Infantrymen fired their rifles in a firefight. However soldiers armed with BARs, M3 Greaseguns, M1 Thompsons and Browning M1919 Machineguns almost always fired their weapons in an engagement. Much of this was published commercially in his book "Men Against Fire". He even "validated" this premise when he went to Vietnam during the 60's and repeated some of those studies. He reported that the full auto capability of the M16 had almost all soldiers participating in the fire fight.

Does that mean that thanks to his studies the Army introduced the M16 with full auto capability so that more soldiers would participate in a fire fight?
I have often heard that the widespread introduction of full automatic weapons was one of the reasons of increased ammunition expenditure.

So the Army never did a study on its own and the 50,000 number is from one of Marshall's books? But how did he got that number? Did he just divide the total amount of expended ammunition (is there official data on the total of expended ammo?) by the number of assumed dead enemy soldiers?

What about the training and tactics of G.I.'s?
Maybe the search and destroy tactic in Vietnam together with the use of the helicopter (LZ preparation, door gunners, indiscriminate firing, fighting an often hiding and elusive enemy) contributed to a heightened ammunition expenditure?

[airbornelawyer]

So the Army never did a study on its own and the 50,000 number is from one of Marshall's books? But how did he got that number? Did he just divide the total amount of expended ammunition (is there official data on the total of expended ammo?) by the number of assumed dead enemy soldiers?The Army has extensively studied this issue. See, e.g, SHAPE Technical Center, Rates of Expenditure of Ammunition in Relation to Posture (1972). Here are two examples of the level of detail, drawn from a 2002 study prepared for the US Army's Center for Army Analysis by the Dupuy Institute:

Average daily ammunition expenditures for the 2nd Infantry Division, 24 August—20 September 1944 (28-day period):

Cal. 30 Carbine - 1,441.07
Cal. 30 Ball, 5 clip (BAR) - 1,553.57
Cal. 30 Ball, 8 clip (M1 rifle) - 22,050.29
Cal. 30 Ball, MG - 16,491.07
Cal. 45 Ball (M1911, M1 & M3 SMGs) - 3,578.57
Cal. 50 MG - 12,620.71

Rocket, AT HE (bazooka rounds) - 41.68
Grenade, Hand, frag. - 423.29
Adapter, Grenade Proj. - 77.93
Grenade, Rifle, Smoke, W.P. - 16.29
Grenade, Offensive (concussion) - 16.04
Grenade, smoke & colored-smoke - 37.61
Grenade, Rifle, Antitank - 89.57

60mm mortar shells - 826.71
81mm mortar shells - 1,367.04
57mm antitank rounds - 65.07
105mm howitzer, M3 - 408.25
105mm howitzer, M2 - 1,896.84
155mm howitzer, M1 - 471.82

Average daily ammunition expenditures for the 90th Infantry Division, 1—31 July 1944 (31-day period):

Cal. 30 Carbine - 7,251.52
Cal. 30 Ball, 5 clip (BAR) - 9,855.23
Cal. 30 Ball, 8 clip (M1 rifle) - 27,885.90
Cal. 30 Ball, MG - 30,382.90
Cal. 45 Ball (M1911, M1 & M3 SMGs) - 2,611.39
Cal. 50 MG - 2,627.39

Rocket, AT HE (bazooka rounds) - 42.71
Grenade, Hand, frag. - 512.06
Adapter, Grenade Proj. - 17.19
Grenade, Rifle, Smoke, W.P. - 74.52

60mm mortar shells - 511.77
81mm mortar shells - 2,209.55
57mm antitank rounds - 65.48
105mm howitzer rounds, M3 - 450.77
105mm howitzer rounds, M2 - 2,577.81
155mm howitzer rounds, M1 - 346.81

[Silverbullet]

So the Army never did a study on its own

Of course they did. Extensively.

I was just providing a ref for when the number of rounds per kill (which I feel there is no real way to prove) became an issue.

Marshall was very influencial and when he talked about something, others started parroting his words.

[airbornelawyer]

Of course, if you're really interested...

Go to the library at the US Army Center for Military History in Carlisle Barracks, PA. Here is a helpful bibliography:

http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usamhi/bibliographies/ReferenceBibliographies/logistics/ammo.doc (MSWord format)

Most of these sources are not available on-line, and most libraries (even military ones) won't have them either.

[ET1/ss nuke]

I wasn't a grunt, but this seems like common sense.

Not every bullet fired is even intended to kill. When a competent enemy is in a defensive position, hitting him is hard, but suppressing fire is effective in keeping his head down until somebody gets close enough to take him out. Only one round is needed for the kill, but many are needed to get to that point. Adding the novelty of fully automatic weapons in the hands of barely trained grunts increases ammunition wastage. Besides, part of the US mission in Vietnam was to train the ARVN, which requires rifle range practice but hopefully doesn't kill anyone.

The suppressing fire scenario really doesn't compare badly with a better documented case of it from WW2. American bomber crewmen were notoriously profligate in their ammunition use. On average, for every German fighter shot down by US bombers, the Americans shot off more weight in ammo than the weight of the targeted fighter. The idea was that, even if no hits were scored, the suppressive effect of all that ammo would keep fighters farther away.

[Dave76]

Of course, if you're really interested...

Go to the library at the US Army Center for Military History in Carlisle Barracks, PA. Here is a helpful bibliography:

http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usamhi/bibliographies/ReferenceBibliographies/logistics/ammo.doc (MSWord format)

Most of these sources are not available on-line, and most libraries (even military ones) won't have them either.


Thanks man!

And yes I'm really interested but since I'm living in Germany it's quite difficult for me to visit this library! ;)

You provided some numbers concerning the average daily ammunition expenditure for a given division but are there numbers for a whole conflict
(WW2, Vietnam etc...)?

[airbornelawyer]

Thanks man!

And yes I'm really interested but since I'm living in Germany it's quite difficult for me to visit this library! ;)

You provided some numbers concerning the average daily ammunition expenditure for a given division but are there numbers for a whole conflict
(WW2, Vietnam etc...)?There are in the sources listed, but none of those appear to be online.

[dom333]

looked at a vietnam book i have , says aprox. 50,000 per kill , but thats an extremely rough estimate ... also says snipers avgeraged about 3 per kill ... but i don't see how 50,000 could be close to accurate being that VC rarely left the dead for US to make confirmed kills.

[NewportBarGuy]

AL has all the info.

A lot of this study was due to the policy of "spray and pray" hence why we no longer have full auto on our rifles. Though, as has been said, there is a lot of info lacking on wounded etc...

Terrain dictates a lot of how we operate, and in thick tropical jungles, hell yeah full auto would be a nice option, as inefficient as it is. You can't see shit for the most part, so it is really just laying down fire.

Though, through their infinite wisdom of Army numerology and mathematics, they have deemed us cost inefficient to have full auto, so we have burst.

As far as the numbers from Nam, it sounds about right from what I've read.
Though, AL is our resident authority on these things. I'd go with his numbers and feel very confident in their authenticity.

[tryxter]

50,000 expended rounds per enemy soldier killed.

Per enemy soldier or total rounds delivered to the theater divided by estimated enemy dead. As was said how many rounds counted were used in training, but also how many during "mad minutes", fourth of july and so on. How many were tracer magazines used for spotting targets. How many hijacked cases, traded or black marketed. How many as result of attack were lost in ammo storage explosions or burning, blown, sunk or shot down transports. How many expended on tigers, water buffalo or other animals both dangerous and tasty.

Besides using suppresive fire during fire and manuever or defense you want to hit but it's not like "one shot one kill". Night shooting without night vision isn't all that precise either.

[safetybass]

Tryxstr is pretty much right on in his evaluation. I will comment that I believe the "burst" option on M-16s would have been a positive back in the day. Trying to squeeze off a burst and conserve ammo was pretty hard. It wasn't until I had a lot of practice before I held it to 4 rounds. Once. And unless you were in a position to hold down on the weapon, those third through fifth/sixth/seventh rounds were definitely duck hunting. In semi, she would drop back right on target in less than a second. The policies of that time were confusing. Someone mentioned "spray and pray." The philosophy that if enough lead flies into the jungle or elephant grass, something will hit something. Match that up with standard issue bandoleer with six 20 round mags.

I would guess that I spent more than my salary that year in ammo and barrels. Course that wasn't too difficult. I think I made $7500 for my last year as an E-5. And we were tired of burning ammo that was expired, so we took a lot to the range. Too much, apparently.