WWII history -- .50 Cal. Browning & ammo usage
Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2017 5:49 pm
Been reading some on the Forum about ammo availability and ammo production stats again. We do need to chat about that from time-to-time, and keep informed about what's out there.
OK. I just finished reading through my March 2017 issue of AR. Really like the historical gun articles that they have at times. This issue carried the article "State of Perfection," which was about the machine gun many folk believe won WWII for America and the Allies, the .50 Cal. Browning.
In particular, the ammo production/ammo usage stats are astonishing, but not unbelievable. Here are just a few of the amounts of ammo consumed by our military fighting groups:
~~"The St. Louis plant alone delivered 6.7 billion rounds of .30 and .50 caliber during the war." (My Q -- Wonder what other plants produced?)
~~"Fall 1943, during a single mission, the Eighth Army Force bombing in German airspace might take more .50-cal. ammo than a month's worth of ammo used by the Fifth Army in Italy."
~~"April 1945, Army Air Force fighting in the Mediterranean and European theaters fired approx. 25 million rounds of cannon and machine gun ammo, majority was .50-cal."
~~"July 1945, Army airmen flying against Japanese fired more than 6 million rounds."
These snippet stats came out of this six-page article. For anybody that gets the monthly AR magazine, this was informative WWII history.
As you might have noticed with this post and others I've submitted, I like to read.
OK. I just finished reading through my March 2017 issue of AR. Really like the historical gun articles that they have at times. This issue carried the article "State of Perfection," which was about the machine gun many folk believe won WWII for America and the Allies, the .50 Cal. Browning.
In particular, the ammo production/ammo usage stats are astonishing, but not unbelievable. Here are just a few of the amounts of ammo consumed by our military fighting groups:
~~"The St. Louis plant alone delivered 6.7 billion rounds of .30 and .50 caliber during the war." (My Q -- Wonder what other plants produced?)
~~"Fall 1943, during a single mission, the Eighth Army Force bombing in German airspace might take more .50-cal. ammo than a month's worth of ammo used by the Fifth Army in Italy."
~~"April 1945, Army Air Force fighting in the Mediterranean and European theaters fired approx. 25 million rounds of cannon and machine gun ammo, majority was .50-cal."
~~"July 1945, Army airmen flying against Japanese fired more than 6 million rounds."
These snippet stats came out of this six-page article. For anybody that gets the monthly AR magazine, this was informative WWII history.
As you might have noticed with this post and others I've submitted, I like to read.
no, more like