How much ammunition was used in the Vietnam war?

Answer 1

Discounting artillery (Navy 16", 8", 6", 5", mortars, 40mm/Army & Marines 106mm, 90mm, 57mm recoilless rifles, 40mm Dusters & 40mm grenade launchers (M79 & M203), mortars, 175mm, 8", 155mm, and 105mm).

Discounting 20mm jet & airplane cannons.

Discounting allied & enemy forces.

ESTIMATED 5 BILLION BULLETS FIRED IN Vietnam: .30 caliber carbine, .30 caliber (30-06) M1 Garand, .30 caliber Browning machine gun, .50 caliber Browning machine gun (B52 tail gunners fired quad fifties downing two NVAF MiG21s in 1972), M60 machine guns (.308 caliber/7.62mm NATO), .223 caliber (5.56mm NATO), .45 caliber (M3 Grease guns & Thompson submachineguns), .38 revolver (carried by many US airmen in Vietnam).

Note: US Armored Cavalry/Mechanized Infantry/Tank Battalions carried and expended about 1/2 million rounds per battalion every 30 to 60 days. Which would be about 6 million rounds expended or destroyed per year per battalion; there were 23 such battalions in South Vietnam. Straight grunt battalions (Straight leg units/regular infantry) carried far less ammunition; each M16 bandoleer consisted of 7 twenty round magazines & the average grunt packed 5 to 7 such bandoleers But they were almost always loaded with only 18 rounds instead of 20 to prevent jamming, therefore each bandoleer contained roughly 126 M16 rounds (7 bandoleers consisted of about 882 rounds, so 10 men carried about 8,820 cartridges). Helicopter door gunners added to the formula.

Answer 2

Until additional information becomes available, some examples follow: Four F-100 Super Sabre jet fighter bomber squadrons, consisting of about 88 jets, from the Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico, and New York Air National Guard deployed for ONE year in Vietnam. During that ONE year those 88 jets (14 Supre Sabres were destroyed and 8 men killed) fired more than 4 million 20mm cannon shells. The USAF had over 500 Super Sabres in country. Add the remaining 400 Super Sabre 20mm expenditures; from 1961 until 1971. Plus the ammo expenditures from the F-101 Voodoo, F-102 Delta Dart, F-104 Starfighter, F-105 thunderchief, A-1 Skyraider, A-4 Skyhawk, A-7 Corsair II, F-8 Crusader, F-4 Phantom, two tail gunners on B-52s shot down two MiG-21s with .50 caliber gunfire. The standard US Army M113 ACAV carried nearly 10,000 rounds of M60 ammunition and .50 caliber ammo. 100 rds per fifty can, and 200 rounds per M60 mg box. There were usually about 16 tracks (M113s) per company. That's 150,000 rds per company. This doesn't count the M16 ammo (.223). There were three companies per battalion. Rounded off, easily, half a million machine gun rounds per battalion. Those rounds were either expended or rotated out every 30 to 60 to 90 days, due to weather ruining the rounds or fired. Rotated out, destroyed (blown in place). There were over 20 Armored Cavalry and Mechanized Battalions in Vietnam, plus the US Marines. .50 caliber, 223 (5.56mm), 308 (7.62mm), and 20mm from the late 1950s to 1973 will most likely be in the BILLIONS. However, it must be noted, that the vast majority of ammunition in a war zone is BLOWN UP when no longer serviceable, or in the case of Vietnam, was OFTEN blown up by enemy "Sappers." Sappers were commandos that worked their way (thru the wire) into firebases and large bases and blew up ammo and fuel supplies with satchel charges. One more example: During WWII approximately 86 million rounds of .50 caliber ammo was expended. However, one must keep in mind that this ammunition (unless flown) was shipped on merchant ships across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans; many were sunk by submarines. So a portion of those .50 rounds were NOT fired, just lost. But they count as expenditures for WWII.

Answer 3

Sources vary; some state 3,000; some say 30,000 bullets. The real answer might be, "in some battles it took about 3,000 rounds to kill an enemy; and in some battles...maybe it did take 30,000 bullets to kill one." Naturally, no one's probably taking into account the mini-gun that could fire 6,000 bullets a minute. Mini-guns firing 7.62mm NATO rounds (.308 caliber) were used in Vietnam as often as people put gas in their cars in America!

Consequently, with a mini-gun, with 5 minutes of firing...that's 30,000 bullets right there!

Answer 4

The US expended 71,000 tons of munitions per month in Vietnam.

The Australian destroyers fired 102,546 5" shells during the war.

The battleship USS New Jersey fired nearly 5,700 16" shells in Vietnam and nearly 15,000 5" shells.

US Artillerymen fired on average 10,000 cannon shells a day.