During my guard unit's annual training, I examined some 5.56 ammo, both blank and live.  The oldest blank round was from 02, and we actually got issued some IMI blanks this year.  All the live ammo was from 03 and 04, Lake City, most was from 04.  Hopefully this problem is getting fixed.

If you are getting to use ammo then things must be getting better.  This spring my wifes unit was unaqble to qual because there was a hold on ammunition for the state.  Since you are getting any live ammo at all . . .

Sorry buddy, that doesn't say much at all.  Ammo gets stored and doesn't get used in the order in which it is produced.  If you said you found ammo from the 90's or 80's, I'd say you're onto something.  But using 2 year old ammo is not indicitive of a shortage.

Our last qual if you got sharpshooter or better on your first 40 practise rounds that was it. You got pulled off the line. Combination of lack of time and ammo. I got hosed out of an expert rating this year because I got an 37 right out of the gate and I couldn't bring myself to throw the rest on purpose to get another try. Oh well.

Quoted: During my guard unit's annual training, I examined some 5.56 ammo, both blank and live.  The oldest blank round was from 02, and we actually got issued some IMI blanks this year.  All the live ammo was from 03 and 04, Lake City, most was from 04.  Hopefully this problem is getting fixed.

shameful just shameful


CIC  is slacking on the job

I don't think President Bush works at Lake City.
I believe it has been Democrat Presidents who have cut back on production of supplies and weapon systems.
My understanding is they are working all day and night to try to keep up with demand, and I am certain we are still making just a little extra.

To try to blame this on President Bush shows that you do not know what you are talking about.

When the military says they are short on ammo, it means they had to grab some out their hundreds of millions of stored rounds, instead of maintaining the status quo andpurchasing new ammo at the rate it is fired.

The military is not likely to run out of anything. All current equipment is bought two million or more units ata time, in case there is a large war and no time to produce more boots and rifles for the draftees.

www.ammoman.com

Besides, if they really are short on ammunition, I'm sure that some kind ARFCOMmers could donate some of their stash. We could probably altogether supply the army for another year or so, although not all of it is milspec, I suppose.

I'd be more than happy to donate my hundred rounds of 9mm (we don't much yet believe in large quantities of ammunition... too expensive to buy)

Quoted: Quoted: During my guard unit's annual training, I examined some 5.56 ammo, both blank and live.  The oldest blank round was from 02, and we actually got issued some IMI blanks this year.  All the live ammo was from 03 and 04, Lake City, most was from 04.  Hopefully this problem is getting fixed. shameful just shameful CIC  is slacking on the job

Damn, cyanide! I just pulled a bunch of goat head weeds out of my frontage. Bush is really slacking on the job! Give it a rest. You are starting to sound intentionally contrary to everything Bush is or isn't doing, just like John Kerry of late. Honest critique is fine but you are sounding down right French. Planerench out.

Quoted: CIC  is slacking on the job

Got facts to back up your allegation?  I counter with Clinton's military reductions lead to this problem.  'W' inherited a military weakened by 8 years of neglect and disdain by demoncrap and an economy that was in shambles by the Wall Street version of the Dutch 'tulip bulb investment' frenzy.

wganz
¶

Quoted: Our last qual if you got sharpshooter or better on your first 40 practise rounds that was it. You got pulled off the line. Combination of lack of time and ammo. I got hosed out of an expert rating this year because I got an 37 right out of the gate and I couldn't bring myself to throw the rest on purpose to get another try. Oh well.

That sounds more like a unit budget issue than a service wide ammo shortage. Out unit just qual'd and there was plenty of ammo left over. In fact they had too much, and had a mad minute to fix the overage. Our unit had plenty of ammo for as many that wanted to qual. No one was restricted due to lack of rounds ata ll.

LC01 lots FWIW

Quoted: Our last qual if you got sharpshooter or better on your first 40 practise rounds that was it. You got pulled off the line. Combination of lack of time and ammo. I got hosed out of an expert rating this year because I got an 37 right out of the gate and I couldn't bring myself to throw the rest on purpose to get another try. Oh well.

This has been a long standing complaint of mine; I don't know of any unit that quals to the by-the-book standard. I understand that ammo and time is a constraint, but soldiers routinely get screwed out of that practice qual course before the qual thats supposed to count......we don't spend anywhere near as much time on the range as we should, but they begrudge us that extra 40 rounds every year.

Damn I used to hate firing blanks in the pig.They did'nt bring those bolts for a reason!Cuts into the goof -off time!What I hated most was when they would use my pig for guard,what I got back was usually a rusty pig,not fun when everyone else is done cleaning!As for ammo,we also had too much,so much so in fact that senior NCOs knew I had an AR,I got lots of that good ol' LC!

Quoted: Sorry buddy, that doesn't say much at all.  Ammo gets stored and doesn't get used in the order in which it is produced.  If you said you found ammo from the 90's or 80's, I'd say you're onto something.  But using 2 year old ammo is not indicitive of a shortage.

If the AMMO is being issued the way its supposed to, the oldest lots should be issued and used first.

Quoted: When the military says they are short on ammo, it means they had to grab some out their hundreds of millions of stored rounds, instead of maintaining the status quo andpurchasing new ammo at the rate it is fired. The military is not likely to run out of anything. All current equipment is bought two million or more units ata time, in case there is a large war and no time to produce more boots and rifles for the draftees.

Wrong

Quoted: Quoted: Our last qual if you got sharpshooter or better on your first 40 practise rounds that was it. You got pulled off the line. Combination of lack of time and ammo. I got hosed out of an expert rating this year because I got an 37 right out of the gate and I couldn't bring myself to throw the rest on purpose to get another try. Oh well. That sounds more like a unit budget issue than a service wide ammo shortage. Out unit just qual'd and there was plenty of ammo left over. In fact they had too much, and had a mad minute to fix the overage. Our unit had plenty of ammo for as many that wanted to qual. No one was restricted due to lack of rounds ata ll. LC01 lots FWIW

Unit funds are not involved in ammo procurement.  Ammo is centrally managed and procured by the single manager at Rock Island Arsenal.

Quoted: Quoted: When the military says they are short on ammo, it means they had to grab some out their hundreds of millions of stored rounds, instead of maintaining the status quo andpurchasing new ammo at the rate it is fired. The military is not likely to run out of anything. All current equipment is bought two million or more units ata time, in case there is a large war and no time to produce more boots and rifles for the draftees. Wrong

How so?

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: When the military says they are short on ammo, it means they had to grab some out their hundreds of millions of stored rounds, instead of maintaining the status quo andpurchasing new ammo at the rate it is fired. The military is not likely to run out of anything. All current equipment is bought two million or more units ata time, in case there is a large war and no time to produce more boots and rifles for the draftees. Wrong How so?

The military procurement system, while encouraging economic order quantity (EOQ) principals, does not randomly purchase millions of everything it buys.  Every item in the inventory has an item manager that manages the item from cradle to grave.  They do this with a very cumbersome 5-year planning, budget, and allocation cycle that ensures stock levels are maintained at or near proper levels.  Anomolies like OEF and OIF come along that put a strain on this process, admitedly, but that is why they have WRM levels based on the worst case scenario of every OPLAN they have.  Do they buy millions of rounds of ammo at a shot?  Yes.  Do they buy millions of hammers at a time. No.  A good item manager should only have to make, at most, a few purchases a year.  

I can confirm that there is a shortage on ammo and blanks as well as pyro.

Quoted: Quoted: Our last qual if you got sharpshooter or better on your first 40 practise rounds that was it. You got pulled off the line. Combination of lack of time and ammo. I got hosed out of an expert rating this year because I got an 37 right out of the gate and I couldn't bring myself to throw the rest on purpose to get another try. Oh well. This has been a long standing complaint of mine; I don't know of any unit that quals to the by-the-book standard. I understand that ammo and time is a constraint, but soldiers routinely get screwed out of that practice qual course before the qual thats supposed to count......we don't spend anywhere near as much time on the range as we should, but they begrudge us that extra 40 rounds every year.

We don't............ thats always been a sore spot with me as well.

I am in a better position to try and change  that now at least when I get back to the unit.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: When the military says they are short on ammo, it means they had to grab some out their hundreds of millions of stored rounds, instead of maintaining the status quo andpurchasing new ammo at the rate it is fired. The military is not likely to run out of anything. All current equipment is bought two million or more units ata time, in case there is a large war and no time to produce more boots and rifles for the draftees. Wrong How so? The military procurement system, while encouraging economic order quantity (EOQ) principals, does not randomly purchase millions of everything it buys.  Every item in the inventory has an item manager that manages the item from cradle to grave.  They do this with a very cumbersome 5-year planning, budget, and allocation cycle that ensures stock levels are maintained at or near proper levels.  Anomolies like OEF and OIF come along that put a strain on this process, admitedly, but that is why they have WRM levels based on the worst case scenario of every OPLAN they have.  Do they buy millions of rounds of ammo at a shot?  Yes.  Do they buy millions of hammers at a time. No.  A good item manager should only have to make, at most, a few purchases a year.

OK, I didnt mean EVERYTHING, but important things, yes, they are bought in bulk, and stored in bulk, just in case. The military still has LOTS of ammo stored. They burn it when it gets too old, cause they cant surplus it. They are just having to go into their stores and now have less ammo than they like to have sitting in storage.

Hell, the Marine Corps and Navy have their stores on ships, sitting around the world in ports, just waiting for war.

Quoted: www.ammoman.com

Clinton closed three of the four small arms ammo plants.

We already had ammo shortages in the late 1990s.

GunLvr

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: When the military says they are short on ammo, it means they had to grab some out their hundreds of millions of stored rounds, instead of maintaining the status quo andpurchasing new ammo at the rate it is fired. The military is not likely to run out of anything. All current equipment is bought two million or more units ata time, in case there is a large war and no time to produce more boots and rifles for the draftees. Wrong How so? The military procurement system, while encouraging economic order quantity (EOQ) principals, does not randomly purchase millions of everything it buys.  Every item in the inventory has an item manager that manages the item from cradle to grave.  They do this with a very cumbersome 5-year planning, budget, and allocation cycle that ensures stock levels are maintained at or near proper levels.  Anomolies like OEF and OIF come along that put a strain on this process, admitedly, but that is why they have WRM levels based on the worst case scenario of every OPLAN they have.  Do they buy millions of rounds of ammo at a shot?  Yes.  Do they buy millions of hammers at a time. No.  A good item manager should only have to make, at most, a few purchases a year.   OK, I didnt mean EVERYTHING, but important things, yes, they are bought in bulk, and stored in bulk, just in case. The military still has LOTS of ammo stored. They burn it when it gets too old, cause they cant surplus it. They are just having to go into their stores and now have less ammo than they like to have sitting in storage. Hell, the Marine Corps and Navy have their stores on ships, sitting around the world in ports, just waiting for war.

The Air Force also have prepo ships located around the world that have nothing but bombs and bullets on them.  Typically, the military does not "burn" small arms ammunition because it is "old".  The only burning they do is on condition code H or P assets that have been determined to be hazordous or dangerous.  Old ammo, as long as it functions properly, is still good.  Again, if the ammo supply people are doing their jobs properly the oldest lots are issued first.  

Old small arms ammo doesn't usually get burned, it typically gets sold but must be pulled down to componets by the buyer. Thats how Talon and thise guys ahev the "remanufactured" surplus ammo. They buy it, pull it apart, then put it back together.

Quoted: Old small arms ammo doesn't usually get burned, it typically gets sold but must be pulled down to componets by the buyer. Thats how Talon and thise guys ahev the "remanufactured" surplus ammo. They buy it, pull it apart, then put it back together.

Hmm, my bad again. I had heard they were burning old ammo. Too bad it cant be surplused anymore.

I have heard that some '42 stamped .50 is being issued in Iraq.

Well this is totally anecdotal and I have NO idea if the Army (Ot the US Armed Forces in general) really ARE suffering from a shortage but check this out.


When my unit was "Re-Missioned" (Army slang for "What the hell are we gonna do with you now?") last year after Turkey refused to let the 4th ID open a northern front (We were tasked to go in with them) we were switched over from OIF to Op' "Noble Eagle" (Homeland security).  We'd already completed out TCERT's and burned-up alot of Demo' and rounds but to satisfy DOD requirements for the mission at the Chemical Weapons Depot we were assigned to we had to qualify damn-near everyone on the M-240 to DOD standards.  The TCERT '240 Qual' (That was done as per our MTOE) involved less than 400rnds/shooter (For those assigned a '240).

The DOD Qual' was something on the order of 1,000rnds/per shooter.  Pop-ups to 800mtrs, day and night iterations.

We put 12,000rnds/gun through 12 guns in about a 20 hr period to do this.  I've never SEEN so much ammo in my life (Or worked so hard at keeping a '240 up and running) and I remember the early '80's when we used to ditch ammo in Badger holes because everyone was tired of shooting!

BTW, I'll say that the '240 performed like a champ throughout and, short of setting-up some water-cooled Vickers' I'm not sure there's another GPMG that could've put up with this level of firing (All the PK' fans can jump-in here)

When we got to the depot we were hooked-up with the DOD SRT/QRF guys we were there to support and they told us that getting as much ammo as often as we wanted it wasn't a problem.  They were right.  THEY (The DOD guys) were burning through as much '855 as they wanted and they held live-fire trainings at least once a week (There wasn't a whole heck of alot else to do there) that burned-up more rounds in a day than your average NG Battalion see's in two years of qual's.  They even used us sometimes to help them burn the stuff up (If nothing else, my battalion probably has some of the best FA range shooters in the Army if for no other reason than that they got all the practice anyone could ever want.  Thousands and thousands of rounds)

When our replacement unit showed-up and it was determined that they hadn't met the DOD '240 requirement we requested all the ammo needed to qual the unit and it got to us in 8 days (10's of thousands of rounds).  I conducted the range at the Boardman bombing range. I was the NCOIC/ Dude yelling at the range safeties "What the H**L is that guy doing?!"

I'm sure this is going on all over the system.  There's so many draws on the supply chain from so many different directions that I'm not surprized that some units might feel a little "Pinched" as far as ammo goes but they were givin' it out like it was Christmas where I was at.

I should also mention that I think the DOD requirement for '240 qual' is a "Little" over-the-top as far as needing THAT many rounds to prove you can point an automatic weapon downrange and hit something with it.

TRW ownz all you speculatin bitches  BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA


air force pre-po ships are news to me. doesnt make sense when they have an organic airlift capability.

I see some financial opprutunites

I believe that soldiers should shoot as much as they want and at least 5k rounds a year.

As long as we have guys shooting up watermelon stands I dont see the supposed ammo shortage getting any better.

Quoted: TRW ownz all you speculatin bitches  BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA air force pre-po ships are news to me. doesnt make sense when they have an organic airlift capability.

Airlifting bombs is a big no-no. Too many trips. If they arent delivered in MASSIVE quaintities without tying up your AF, you are screwed.

I think we have billions of rounds stored at some site somewhere in the Nevada desert.  Can't remember the town???    

I have been to ammo accounting school (yes, such a thing exists), and used to do ammo accounting for my base. Oldest lot is issued first, if the ammo accountant is on the ball.

At my particular base, the only shortage that we've had was bomb fins. And Mk20 cluster bombs. We have had our entire stock of one particular item drop dead due to being downgraded. Excessive duds, IIRC. But, we got fresh stocks in a few weeks.

No shortages in small arms ammo. In fact, we might just have too much. Our allowance quantities since 9/11/2001 have gone up quite a bit.

Quoted: I believe it has been Democrat Presidents who have cut back on production of supplies and weapon systems.

I don't know about that but I DO know that Clinton kidnapped the Lindbergh baby !

I can't believe that every shortage on every range is due to an unwillingness to pay for the ammo. Every range I have been on in the last few years has been short or borderline on the quantity of ammo we get allocated. And some stuff just isn't readily available; we've had to link belts of ammo for SAW qual because there just wasn't any linked SAW ammo available, or barely enough 5.56 to qualify, for instance. Its too many ranges on too many posts over the past few years to be a matter of the drawing body being too cheap to buy ammo.