U.S. ammunition plant reaching its limit

[RamboLiberal]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001834393_ammo11.html

The U.S. military's only plant making small-arms ammunition is running at near capacity, 4 million rounds a day, and the United States still is forced to look overseas and to the recreational industry for ammunition for troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and those training to deploy there soon.

Gen. Paul Kern, commander of the Army Materiel Command, said Friday that giving those units priority ensured they had enough small-arms ammunition. "Everyone else will have to pay the price" and wait for it, he said.

The increased demand for ammunition for combat shooting and intensified training has made deep inroads in the nation's war reserves of ammunition, Kern said.

The sole plant making small-arms ammunition, the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant in Independence, Mo., is running three eight-hour shifts a day, six days a week. The plant provides 5.56 mm rifle, 7.62 mm and .50 caliber machine gun as well as 9 mm pistol cartridges for all branches of the military.

Ha - Colonel David Hackworth wrote about this.

http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=Hacks%20Target%20Homepage.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=47&rnd=831.3757313763001

“Bang, bang. You're dead.”

Neighborhood kids playing soldier in an empty lot with wooden rifles?

Nope! Regular United States warriors, during Exercise Crocodile ‘03 at Shoalwater Bay, Australia, “fighting” an Aussie reserve unit.

<snip>

“On several occasions when we opened fire we received perhaps half a dozen shots in return before the riflemen started yelling, ‘Bang, bang’ back at us, while the SAW – Squad Automatic Weapon – gunners shouted, ‘Bullets, bullets, bullets’,” Parmiter continued.

“It was incredible – the best-equipped military in the world was reduced to yelling at us instead of firing.”

<snip>

I posted a “help wanted” ad on my Hackworth.com web page, and within 24 hours had received more than 500 messages from serving Army troops in the United States preparing for deployment to hot battlefields like Iraq or Afghanistan, as well as from warriors all over the world, confirming that our soldiers don’t have sufficient stocks of live or blank training ammo to prepare adequately for combat.

[papau]

1. bang bang your dead? And our brave Chickhawk Perle & Wolfowitz carry

on - sending our kids out -

and the media says nothing.

[Wickerman]

2. Out of Ammo? Hell, time to attack Syria! eom

[RamboLiberal]

3. Wait till the Freepers can't get ammo for their little games

United States still is forced to look overseas and to the recreational industry

Wonder if the flag wavers will be pissed?

BTW, aren't we glad this idiot bunch didn't fight WWII? This bunch can't even fight a tin horn dictator without shorting our troops of every damn thing. Vests, armored humvees, spare parts, rifles, hot meals & showers, toilets, barracks, and now ammo!

[ConcernedCanuk]

4. 4 million rounds a day not enough for the BFEE's WarMachine !!

.
.
. aww too bad

Maybe they should try something different than trying to run the world with bullets ?

Or just STOP trying to run the whole fecking world ?

I hear they got enuf stuff to "fix" at home first maybe ?

Ya know, that silly sh_t like HealthCare, Education, Pensions, food/shelter for the homeless - etc. - etc.

I know, I know - I DID say it was silly sh_t.

FEED THAT WARMACHINE

Keep King George happy

(sigh)

[Sinistrous]

11. That IS a pile of ammunition

but with 500,000 plus folks carrying rifles or sidearms, it is only about 8 rounds per each. Looks like the old "Tooth to Tail" computations have developed a few cavities.

[GregW]

5. I reload my own - do they want me to chip in?

They could put me down for a couple hundred .45 ACP in a 200 gr JSWC - not too effecting at killing people, but makes a real purdy clean hole in targets.

If they wait for me to change the toolhead on my press I could probably crank out some 9 MM for their Beretta 92's.

Let's see ... I can make a round for about 4c ... applying the "Halliburton modifier" I should be able to charge ... oh, about $2/round dontcha think?

[slackmaster]

6. Ammoman has lots of Lake City ammo cheap

See http://www.ammoman.com - Click on "223" in the top bar. Plenty of alternative sources from other countries e.g. Israel and South Africa.

[0007]

7. Check these stats out!

May be a little out date.

[GRClarkesq]

8. I got a case of Lake City XM193 in the basement

if they dont mind shooting 55gr.

[RamboLiberal]

10. Hey maybe the Freepers would like to donate their

stashes as well!

I personally could throw in a couple of 9mm Winchester White Boxes.

Oh and there's lots of ammo here https://www.cheaperthandirt.com they even throw in a free ammo can!

[revcarol]

9. We can always buy our ammo

from China. Helps their prison industry.

[slackmaster]

13. Only my Mini-14 tolerates Chinese 5.56 mm ammo

The AR-15s don't like it.

[GRClarkesq]

12. Dont buy that Russian stuff

gives your AR indegestion.

[BrotherBuzz]

14. No brass or ammo drill sergeant

I'm seriously stupid here. I thought the military reloaded their own ammo, at least for stateside training...

[RamboLiberal]

15. If Rummy's military did they'd outsource it to Halliburton

who'd pay some third world laborers to do it for $3 a day while Halliburton charged $3 a round.

[RamboLiberal]

16. Hackworth said plant workers said 3 shifts is BS

From Scarbourgh Friday night.

HACKWORTH: Well, I talked to General Webber (ph) at the Pentagon and a Colonel Carlson (ph) at the Pentagon and a number of other people as part of my investigation.

General Webber, just back from Iraq, where he was with the 3rd Mech Division, who did such a brilliant job out there, assured me that everything was cool, but they did have a problem. Our of 325 munitions line items with 25. And one of those was blank ammo. One was grenades and 23 other items. I asked for a list and was denied because of security precautions.

But bottom line, I was also told that the Lake City plant in Missouri was doing a good job. They had shifted to three shifts. They were going 24 hours a day. But I went to Lake City and talked to some of the fine workers there. And they say, Hack, they‘re B.S.ing you. We‘re only working two shifts. We could do three shifts, but the third shift is a maintenance shift.

So what needs to be done is—back to your initial question, Joe, we need to kick butt, take names, and Congress really needs to look into this thing, like, now.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3939584/

[DS1]

17. We did the same thing in bootcamp in '91

HOOORAH!!!

/bang

[AwareOne]

18. Hackworth is a high school drop out idiot

who got a battlefield commission in Korea. He was then dragged kicking and screaming back to school by the army and forced to educate himself so he could keep his commission. His book, ABOUT FACE turns in to one big crying, whining, self serving rant about how unfair the world is to poor old Hackworth. Be very careful about this guys advise.