Ammunition

“ The concussion of gunfire alone will shatter it into a thousand jagged little fragments with disastrous results as far as the bare feet of the guns' crews are concerned.
Fire-hoses, sending their jets of water from their unions, lay along the deck like healthy serpents, ready to trip the unwary. "Present use" ammunition was stacked in the rear of the guns, ready to feed their rapacious maws when the order to open fire with the secondary armament was received. Above the chatter of men's voices came the rattle of the ammunition cages and the steady purr of the engines far below the waterline. ”

“ To show how men will rise to the height of dare-devil coolness, I must tell of the men who were supplying our guns with ammunition. Six horses on a limber, with three drivers, and two carriers on the limbers, would trot steadily to the bomb-proof shelter where the ammunition was kept, load up, and still at the steady trot return to the guns. All the time heavy shrapnel was bursting overhead, and the awful crack of this shell is enough to break the strongest nerve. ”

“ The ammunition can be removed from the dead and wounded only in defense, or in attack when the forward movement has come to a standstill. In an advance, it cannot be done without retarding the movement and without affording individual men an excuse to remain behind.
6. The bringing up of ammunition by individual men, left to their own devises, is not to be recommended, as it facilitates “shirking”; moreover, if one of the men is disabled, the ammunition he carries will never reach the firing line. ”

“ Officers and men should endeavor to replenish ammunition at every opportunity, without awaiting specific orders to that effect, and, in general, see that not only the prescribed number of rounds, but, on the contrary, as much ammunition as possible is on hand in the organization.
When the force is to stand on the defensive, especially if the position to be occupied has been prepared for defense, ammunition should be deposited all along the firing line. ”

“ The best means of preventing shortage of ammunition is to husband it at long ranges. Ammunition wagons are not to be emptied and their contents distributed before an action begins; on the contrary, the ammunition is to be issued during the fight, one wagon after another being emptied. Ammunition may be sent forward from the reserve to the firing line, the men who carry it remaining with that line. On the other hand—and this seems to be the method most frequently employed—men from the firing line may be sent to the rear for ammunition. ”

“ In many of the works a second line of rifle fire was obtained from a covered way leading outside, so that when all [224] the resources of a redoubt and trenches were at work an unremitting fire of three and in some cases four successive tiers was obtained. The supply of ammunition was practically unlimited; and it is not difficult to recognize that, under such conditions, an assaulting force could not but be terribly scourged both by infantry and artillery. ”

“ The artillery ammunition column which we are just now passing is an impressive sight. The noise of these vehicles, dull and heavy, is quite different from that of the empty wagons on our left, but then they are loaded to the top with heavy ammunition, shells for 21-cm. mortars at Septsarges and neighbouring villages. Every ammunition wagon—consisting of limber and wagon body—with its team of six horses requires the services of six men. Three of them—drivers—ride on the off-side horses, two are seated on the limber, and one facing the rear on the wagon body. ”

“ As the amount of ammunition to be held in readiness for the opening of the battle averaged 500 rounds per gun, it became necessary to handle a total of about 300,000 rounds of shells and a similar number of cartridges of all calibres, from 31⁄2 to 12 inches, not to mention fuses and primers, or the immense bulk and weight of infantry and machine-gun ammunition, bombs, flares, rockets, and the like, for the supply of all of which the artillery was equally responsible. ”

“ Suddenly we wanted 50,000 big guns, and 500,000 machine guns and 10,000,000 rifles with unlimited ammunition, more ammunition than men could dream of, with all sorts of new kinds of ammunition, bombs, handgrenades, aerial torpedoes, or flying pigs, flying pineapples, egg-bombs, hairbrush-bombs, Mills bombs, trench mortar bombs, such as men had never used. ”

“ Our ammunition was expended, but he ordered all the loose powder, grape, and ball cartridge to be collected, and having stuffed three guns (all we had left fit for service) to the muzzle with them, we watched the enemy until within about two hundred yards of the battery, when they were fired into the very middle of their column, and laid the half of them prostrate on the earth; the rest wheeled to the right about and left us to embark at leisure.
A number of the men, who had been killed, were lying on the ramparts. Some of them of the same regiment to which I belonged. ”

“ As every piece has sufficient ammunition for keeping up its fire twenty-four hours, should all the artillery be brought into action at the beginning of the engagement, or should half of it be kept in reserve? ”

“ In attack, it will, as a rule, only be possible to replenish ammunition until troops get within about 1,000 paces (750 m.) of the enemy. From this point on, however, it will be extremely difficult to supply ammunition. Every lull in the fight must be taken advantage of to replenish ammunition. The firing line receives a fresh supply of ammunition through reinforcements or through small detachments under non-commissioned officers sent forward from the reserves. These detachments, after distributing the ammunition they have brought up, remain with the firing line. ”

“ A mass of rifles, kit, bandoliers, accoutrements litters the ground, save where it has already been collected and sorted into heaps. Unexploded bombs lie everywhere, clips of ammunition, bayonets. All has to be collected and sent back—another phase of clearing the battlefield. ”

“ Inductive reasoning leads me to believe that they consider it unsportsmanlike to shoot at a standing animal at all, or at one running nearer than 250 yards. Furthermore, it is etiquette to continue firing until the last cloud of dust has died down on the distant horizon. Only thus can I conceive of getting rid of that amount of ammunition. In eight months of steady shooting, for example-shooting for trophies, as well as to feed a safari of fluctuating numbers, counting jackals, marabout and such small trash-I got away with 395 rounds of small bore ammunition and about 100 of large. ”

“ These guns are all made of steel.
Ordnance, Ammunition for. For convenience in loading and safety in transportation, cannon ammunition is prepared in a peculiar manner and with great care. The ammunition so prepared is classified into field and mountain, siege and sea-coast ammunition.
Ammunition for Field Service is composed of solid shot, shells, spherical case-shot, and canister-shot (see headings) . In mountain service solid shot are omitted. A stand of ammunition is composed of the projectile, sabot, straps, cartridge-bag, cylinder, and cap. ”

“ Special ammunition, depending upon its construction, is designed for target indication and correction of fire, igniting fuel and highly inflammable objects, and for destroying lightly armored targets. ”

“ There was abundance of ammunition near by lying on the ground in boxes, but at that stage of the war it was not all of our commanders of regiments, brigades, or even divisions, who had been educated up to the point of seeing that their men were constantly supplied with ammunition during an engagement. ”

“ For this purpose the artillery has at its disposal two types of projectile, common (or rather, high explosive) shell and shrapnel, and two fuzes, “time” and “percussion” (see Ammunition) . The actual process of coming into action may be described in a few words. The gun is, at or near its position in action, “unlimbered” and the gun limber and team sent back under cover. Ammunition for the gun is first taken from the wagon that accompanies it, as it is very desirable to keep the limbers full as long as possible, in case of emergencies such as that of a temporary separation from the wagon. ”

“ While standing there talking and surveying out into enemy territory, we turned around and to our surprise we were looking directly into the muzzle of a 105 gun, camouflaged in the edge of the bushes.
The 90MM ammunition is a high power shell and is used principally against enemy aircrafts. The 105MM is a standard shell and is used in surface combact. ”

“ The transportation of a single heavy gun was often considered equal to a victory gained; if, happily, the difficulties of the passage had not so far separated it from its necessary concomitant, the ammunition, as to render it no more than an useless tube of unwieldy iron. ”

“ Sixty rounds of ammunition per man will be taken in wagons, and as much grain as the transportation on hand will carry, after taking the specified amount of other supplies. The densely wooded country in which the army has to operate making the use of much artillery impracticable, the amount taken with the army will be reduced to six or eight guns to each division, at the option of the army commanders. ”

“ The economy of ammunition will be great, as the cartridge can be drawn every evening after the day's work, instead of being fired off as with the muzzle-loader, in order that the rifle may be cleaned. ”

“ The filled shells for the gun I threw into the water, and as much ammunition as possible was distributed amongst the soldiers, each man carrying from sixteen to eighteen dozen rounds; but all the percussion gun ammunition I was obliged to destroy, in case it should fall into the hands of the enemy; the lead in the cartridges was removed, and some of the very severely wounded having just died, I placed it in the open graves, over which we laid the bodies of our poor comrades, as guardians of our precious metal. ”

“ Next were stacked boxes of machine-gun ammunition, hundreds and hundreds of them, occasionally interspersed with stray boxes of rockets, signal flares, Very lights and huge piles of rifles, of machine-guns and of empty brass shells of various sizes. The value of an average German city lay spread along that road all worthless to the former owners -all constructed for the purpose of killing their fellow men! ”

“ Prevents wasting of ammunition. Prevents use of 30 rounds in right pocket section of belts except on order of an officer. Distributes ammunition of dead and wounded and ammunition brought up from the rear. Prevents decreasing the rate of fire while ammunition is being distributed. Looks to the rear only at his platoon leader's whistle "Attention." Pays no attention to any other except suspend firing. Takes his position in rear of his squad when it is firing and remains there, where he can control its fire, and only crawls into line and adds his rifle when all control is lost. ”

“ Schieszlehre für die Infanterie, 2nd Edition.
A high rate of fire need by no means be synonymous with waste of ammunition. Ammunition would unquestionably be wasted if fire were delivered for hours at the same high rate. It is very probable, however, that in the battles of the future the fire will be moderate for some time, or, better still, cease entirely, only to break forth like a thunderstorm over the enemy when opportunity offers or necessity demands. ”

“ Such a method would also be likely to lead to much waste of the enemy's ammunition. We have all read again and again of terribly expensive assaults made on particular positions bristling with machine guns, such as the Hohenzollern Redoubt, and how our men were mown down directly they left their trenches. Not doubting that such attacks could be rendered far less costly, I wrote about a year ago to a friend in the War Office, suggesting that chemists should be invited to consider the best form of smoke-producing bomb or shell. ”

“ The tremendous range of the modern rifle, single arm, or rapid-fire gun, and the development of more powerful explosives for ammunition have wrought this change. The bullet will travel a longer distance at a horizontal position than in the old days when ordinary black powder and a smooth-bore gun were used, and so at hundreds of yards distance the soldiers can aim direct to kill, without making elevation allowances. ”

“ In writing a record of artillery work it is inevitable that the performances of the batteries which do the actual fighting should come in for more frequent mention than the less showy, but equally indispensable and arduous, services of the D.A.C. Let me take this opportunity, therefore, of recording that the 62nd D.A.C. never failed me. As the war went on the daily expenditure of ammunition grew greater and greater, and at times the demands made on the column seemed almost impossible of fulfilment. Yet I can recall no instance when the amount of ammunition required was not punctually to hand. ”

“ In this action the sharp shooters expended the full complement of sixty rounds of ammunition per man, thus verifying the assertion of their ancient enemy in the ordnance department that "the breech loaders would use up ammunition at an alarming rate;" ”

“ The quantity of small arms ammunition in the hands of the troops in the field is about eighty to ninety rounds to the man. The most obstinate and protracted battles, such as Chancellorsville and Gettysburg exhibit an expenditure of about twenty-five rounds per man for the former battle and about thirty rounds per man for the latter. The quantity of small arms ammunition on hand at the several arsenals and depots shows an aggregate of 5,376,034 small arm cartridges on the 12th November. ”