Crosswords2 mins ago
Answers
1 to 8 of 8
Best Answer
No best answer has yet been selected by 63336. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.
For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.
you cant really put a figure on it, it depends on the conflict and nationalities involved. for instance statisics tell us that it took 1 million rounds (bullets to you civvy types) to kill each Viet Cong soldier during the Vietnam war, however in the British Army it would be a different figure as our "fire control orders" are different, we like to conserve ammo and only use lethal force as a last resort.
Ok, I was being facetious.
Ammunition use was generally based on the number, or poundage of �shells� used rather than rounds of bullets. However, I did find something on WW1:
The expenditure of munitions on the Western Front 1914-1918
Expenditure of small arms ammunition for pistols, rifles and machine-guns (usually using rifle calibre rounds, e.g. 0.303-in.) must have reached hundreds of billions, if not trillions. A single, water-cooled, belt fed (250 rounds) machine-gun such as the British Vickers - said to be 'slow-firing' at 450 rounds per minute - would expend, theoretically, 25,000+ rounds in one hour of continuous firing. There are reliable reports of one such machine gun actually firing 12,500 rounds in a single afternoon on the Western Front. The limiting factors were over-heating and barrel-wear. This could be reduced to a certain extent in some models by the proper use of the water-cooling system; water-cooled machine-gun barrels were said to have had a 'life' of 35,000+ rounds when used 'judiciously'.
Further info here:
http://www.westernfront.co.uk/thegreatwar/articles/factsandfigures/ammunitionsupplies.htm
1 to 8 of 8
