Vietnam total bullet accountability

[Ravenhull]

I've heard this story a few times, usually as part of the 'Vietnam was lost because the generals were idiots' arguments. The story is that at one point during the war, there was a directive from the top requiring that soldiers returning from combat operations had to account for every round fired (i.e. 1 shot at 0700 at possible VC, to rounds at 0715 at confirmed VC...).

Anybody have anything more substantial to this?

[Jay Tea]

I doubt that ammunition logistics called for that level of accountability. Though if you have the time to read this, you might uncover something, it's an in-depth look at the ammunition situation in the Vietnam war.

Wow. You guys spent 10 billion dollars on ammo between 1966 and 1970 :O

[Ravenhull]

Originally Posted by Jay Tea

I doubt that ammunition logistics called for that level of accountability. Though if you have the time to read this, you might uncover something, it's an in-depth look at the ammunition situation in the Vietnam war.

Wow. You guys spent 10 billion dollars on ammo between 1966 and 1970 :O

Well, it seems to be a reoccuring problem in that military planners seem to underestimate the ammount of 'expendables' used in combat. Look at the crash building program that took place after the first Gulf War when we depleted much of our conventional bomb/missile ordinance, far beyond original projections.

[CannonFodder]

We had to account for every round fired in this war. Couldn't tell ya' about Vietnam.

[Grumpy]

Originally Posted by Jay Tea

Wow. You guys spent 10 billion dollars on ammo between 1966 and 1970 :O

For scale, that's half of NASA's budget during those years. When we were racing to the Moon.

[Mycroft]

Originally Posted by Ravenhull

Look at the crash building program that took place after the first Gulf War.

Just after Desert Storm I visited a UK ammunition depot, and several storehouses were filled with propellant charges for 155mm guns, but no shells. The problem was that we were only permitted to use self-propelled armoured guns (which use a smaller charge than towed unprotected guns). We had to borrow the charges (and some of the guns) from the US, and by the end of the war we had run out of shells, but still had all the charges.

[PointySextant]

My Korean war vet neighbor fought in Vietnam as well, and based on what he told me, this could be partially true, but is definitely not completely true.

My neighbor claimed to have personally met several men who were part of unit that operated without direct orders from what would be their normal superior officers, and drew supplies from the quartermasters by procedures that were by and definition. The subtext of the conversation was that they were black on black or some such, but the larger point he was trying to make was that it was fairly normal on all of the bases he was stationed at for thousands of rounds of small arms ammunition to simply go missing as far as the larger military was concerned, and that this was considered completely acceptable.

Another problem with this is that fire control was never effectively enforced in the Vietnam war. It was perfectly acceptable for the marine machine gun emplacements under my neighbors command to unload their entire hopper of ammo into the under brush after a single shot at one point on the perimeter, and he was never expected to account for any of it. He personally over saw the firing of probably hundreds of thousands of rounds as a Marine Captain and he was only expected to account for them when civilians were hit in a specific number of ways.

If such an order was given, I never heard one word about it after many conversations with a Marine Captain who served with the troops for several tours of duty, as well as a training assignment and advisory assignment in country before and after his direct involvement.

[CYBORG]

These rates had been derived from historical data generated from World War II and the Korean conflict and modified by subsequent studies and war gaming exercises. The alarming scale at which most of these consumption rates were being exceeded in Vietnam, due to the unique environmental conditions and operational concepts, resulted in a dramatic drawdown of reserve ammunition stocks. (CYBORG - I don't know who wrote this report, but I would question some of the statements. It sounds more like it was written by a political or academic critic of war rather than a military source)

(from previous comment) "Another problem with this is that fire control was never effectively enforced in the Vietnam war."

The difference between WW II and the Vietnam was the exponential increase in automatic weapons.

Green troops and less than highly trained elite units tend to fire indiscriminately and wildly. You can go through a huge amount of ammo in a very short time if their is no effort to control fire response when warranted.
In most combat situations, the bulk of soldiers never kill the enemy with visually sighted - targeted fire.
Most casualties are the result of mortar, artillery and air support.

It was necessary to try to maintain some kind of control that some units were requested to account for their consumption as a way to curtail wasted and non effective return fire.
Nowhere though did I ever hear of single round accountability.

[Icorps1970]

When people are shooting at you from the tall grass or a clump of bamboo you tend to shoot back till they stop. Does not mean you can see them or that you stop because you fired 40 rounds and fire was "ineffective". Someplaces you could not see a man standing 10-15 feet away. Fire suppression means a volume of fire. Since at least the time of the Garand this has been used.
Same thing in a night attack. How much you shoot depends on the ammo available and how long incoming continues. If you only have what you are packing on your back its different than if in a mech unit or on a base with lots of ammo.
When the shooting is underway nobody gives a good g**da*n about counting ammo cans and we never did. The idea is to keep the other guys from killing YOU. If you have to shoot a lot of ammo to do this its well spent. If you are dead you don't give a hoot how much ammo was used.
Stateside bean counters worried about costs killed a lot of men in the 1870s indian wars, WW-II and VN that I know of. The M-16 propellant fiasco in the most recent known instance. They were told it would happen but changed it anyway.
When on most FSBs we were SECURITY. If we needed ammo we went down at night and picked up what we needed. Same for anything else left outdoors that we needed. We used to "steal" cases of C's just to eat the fruit and cake.
I have seen men on FSBs drop 1 pound bars of c-4 in burn barrels just to keep the fire going when it was cold and rainy.

I believe in VN more men, Americans, were WIA/KIA by small arms, as a percentage not total, than in WW-II or Korea. The gooks did not have massed artillery as in WW-II.
I suspect that a lot of NVA were killed with SA fire and more by artillery, airstrikes etc. Napalm was particularly effective at making people stop shooting at me.
Did I "waste" ammo in VN? Sure did, lots of it. I was in places where shooting m-79 at night and throwing frags over the wire periodically was SOP. It kept people at a distance. Denying them the use of an area or making it difficult might save your life or that of someone you know.
Yes, small perimeters tended to open up 360 for little apparent reason in "bad" areas. On rainy windy nights a trip flare got a lot less attention. They tend to go off on their own in the wind. The next night after a ground attack people are often jumpy and trigger happy. I would rather waste 50-200 rounds or more over a night with the 60 than take RPGs because I didn't and the enemy thinks my area is "weak" and a place to attack. Yeah we had lots of ammo.
I don't begrudge the trigger puller his ammo. I would rather see him come home on his feet having "wasted" lots of ammo than to have him come home in a box because he fired a few too few rounds on day. You learn things and I learned that "wasting" ammo was often a good thing.


Dan
1/61st inf. 70-71.