Ammo distribution, and Tactics in BATTLE?

[DYNOMIKE]

Never in the Military, so these Q's may very simply answered by those that have?
I have often wondered about the logistics of Ammo distribution in battle situations.
Only a couple weeks ago did I learn why at least one country (S/A in ths example) uses the particular size ammo container they do.
Again this example of the case and battle pak size is a 'Load out" for a 9 man Squad. I find this intersting stuff.
What is our (US) most oft used container. How is the ammo distributed during battle versus leaving for a mission?
IE: I would guess that each man carries x# of Mags,and possibly some rounds for an SAW? But in the middle of the POOP, how are you re-supplied? Are there large ammo caches in personnel carriers or what?
Which brings me to another Question.
Are rifle magazines considered "throw away" like empty rounds?
And I ask this because I often see rounds in a packaging that is close to there given weapons mag capacity. Like 5.56 on 10 Rd Strippers, and in Bando's.Or 20 rd. boxes of .308 for the FAL, or M-14 for example since they both have 20rd box mags. So you load up a bunch of mags when you leave a safe area, how the hell do you have time to reload those mags in a situation?
Now FAL mags again as an example always seem to have been "USED" hence the finish left on them. You know like they wre actually used, loaded, unloaded many times, and not just discarded.
Are you expected or is it a good practice to police your empty mags, or are they just left there?
Thanx for the info..

Oh yea, why are the mags not loaded ala M1 Garand Enblocs?

[gman552]

A partial answer to your "policing the magazines" question:

As I understand it, it is considered bad form to leave your empty magazines lying around, for several reasons:

- It's usually easier to find extra ammo than extra magazines, and without magazines, you end up with a single-shot rifle.

- The VC during the Vietnam war would use discarded magazines as booby traps.

The accepted practice is to stuff empty mags down the front of your jacket, into empty pockets, or into "dump pouches" attached to your web gear.

I have heard that putting empty mags into your magazine pouches increases the risk of confusing them with full mags, with potentially fatal results (putting an empty mag in the gun and hearing "click" )

I believe the mags are not preloaded from the factory because of concerns about long-term storage (ammo getting dirty and mag springs weakening.)

This is all from my experience from having attended several carbine classes, including the Thunder Ranch "Urban Rifle" course. I was in the military, but in the Air Force, where my formal weapons training consisted of shooting the .38 M15 revolver and 9 mm M9 Beretta pistol (each one time only )

[EOD]

If my wife finds the 3,000 rnds of Auusi I have stashed, there's going to be a battle right here

[1gewehr]

Answers to your questions vary depending upon the country and the specific conditions.

Typically, a person's load-out is 7-12 magazines. This can be 140-360 rounds depending upon the weapon. Extra ammo (not loaded magazines) is carried on vehicles. This is usually at least another complete load-out for the unit attached to that vehicle.

Even more ammo is usually carried in unit support vehicles. If you KNOW that you are headed for an in-progress fight, you generally carry as much as you have room for.

It is rare to fire a complete load without having an opportunity to reload magazines. Expended magazines are valuable, as nobody likes having a single-shot rifle in combat. As stated before, they are stuffed in a shirt front or special bag.

Ammo is generally packed for a minimum of waste. A 35 round box of 5.56mm would be a bad idea for US troops. Each box would have five rounds wasted. Nobody really wants to have loose rounds rattling around in their pockets or pouches. They can be painful to fall upon when taking cover.

Ten round strippers allow you to quickly load magazines, but not be excessively bulky or wasteful. For 7.62NATO, five round strippers are the norm due to the greater size and bulk of the cartridge.
1gewehr

[gunseller]

There was a trial using preloaded mags in the early 70's. It was given up on because of the weight not spring problems. We just put empties in our tshirts. If you are headed for a hot area you carry all the ammo you can. Depending on where you are extra ammo may come in by vehicles or choppers. Usually if it is that hot air support will be called in. If that does not happen there will be people with extra ammo they are not going to use.
Gunseller

[Glucker]

When I was in the army, as a scout in the mid 80s, I was stationed in Germany. The plan ( and the drill, when alerts were called ) was that we'd all grab our weapons from the arms-room ( taking plenty of time to sign them out, of course ), haul ass to the motorpool, load up our APCs and tanks, and then drive to a different location for ammo and ord. That location was a few kilometers away.

At that location, we would (theoretically) be issued TOWs, Dragons, .50 ammo for the M2s, 7.62 ammo for the M60s, 5.56 for our M-16s, etc. Presumably it would all be in its normal wooden cases, which had to be broken into, then the ammo cans, then load your magazines, etc. As I recall the 5.56 ammo was in bandoleers of 140 rds, just enough to load seven 20 rd mags, not 30 rounders, which is what we had. How much of the above we would've been issued I have no idea.

As I recall, each of us had six mags for our M16s, just enough to fill the two pouches issued to us and attached to our webgear. We didn't have a loose 7th mag, because then we'd have to (gasp!) insert it into our weapons!, a practice frowned on by the army when I was in.

As far as what to do with emptied magazines, the topic was never, ever mentioned by the army during any of my time therein. I don't think too many, if any, of my fellow soldiers ever gave the question even a passing thought. My personal plan was to stuff them in my pants cargo pockets, if the situation ever arose, as I personally didn't carry anything else in them, when we were "in the field". Twenty miles from the Fulda gap, the army told us none of us would last long anyway, when the Warsaw Pact came forth, so I guess they figured we wouldn't be doing much mag reloading.

[Sgt_Gold]

I can't find it right now, but the Army has a regulation stating that loose small arms ammunition is not to be distributed in combat. Everything comes up in belts or on stripper clips. The bandoleers of rifle ammo are packed to match round count with magazine size. Since everyone is issued 30 round magazines, each pocket of the bandoleer has 3 10 round stripper clips. The old 20 round bandoleers had 7 pockets, the 30 round ones have four. Basic load out is 7 magazines, but this differs from reality due to either local shortages or troops loading up with as much as they can carry.

You NEVER discard magazines. If you walk into a kill zone you may have to drop the first one after it's empty, but if you survive the fire fight you can always go back and get it. The military experimented with pre loaded magazines in the early 1960's but decided they weren't fesable.

[DYNOMIKE]

THANX!
I knew I would get some good answers here.
Some I could kinda just figure out. Others, I just wasn't sure?

[steve marshall]

In Viet Nam, I remember at least one and possibly two times, receiving M-16 magazines preloaded. We never discarded empty magazines as most times they were hard to come by and everybody new all the wicked things Charlie could do with them. We also "knew" that they could fire our 81mm mortar rounds in their 82mm mortars and our 50cal in their 51cal. The sneaky bastards. Of course, that was a load of crap. But nonetheless that's what many of us "knew".

[DYNOMIKE]

My Step Dad was in Viet Nam, and I think he told me that in there squad they were required to carry there load out of ammo for themselves of course, but also carried ammo for the M-60, and In think he said one or two men carried an X-Tra barrel for it as well?

[MarkG]

I went to the airshow last month and they had some army spec ops guys there. I handled one of their M9s and an M4 carbine, and talked to one of the guys for a minute. I asked him how much ammo he usually carried and he told me that he personally carries a double basic load - 12 or 14 mags I dont remember which. They had a vest on the table with MOLLE pouches all over it, and it had pouches for a half dozen or so M9 9mm mags on the chest area, in addition to a bunch of M16 mag pouches.

[goldenspurholderx2]

I'm currently on my second tour and as cavalry scouts we get a little more lee-way. When we are doing dismounted patrols through the town we usually travel light with about 5 mags apeice including the one in our weapon. We always have armor near by for support, usually a bradley section so if we get into it we can move quick to fix the enemy while the armor does most of the heavy fighting. Also we keep our extra ammo and water on these armored tracks.