Number of bullets fired! Help!

[KIRKY]

Anyone give me an estimate of number of bullets ( aprox) fired in WW1? Doing a school talk tomorrow and need to know!!

Also number of shells?

Tony

[Bombadier]

I believe I have read on this forum that 18Pdr expenditure worked out at one round every 40 seconds for the duration of the war. I'll leave it to you to convert that to a number of rounds.

Nigel

[Neil Mackenzie]

Kirky.

This is a useful site for summarising the figures for the British and Commonwealth armies - and sources seem to be as good as you are going to get.

Great War Statistics

[squirrel]

According to Statistics of the Military effort of the British Empire during the Great War

On p 485 under : Approximate Expenditure of Ammunition in France during the War it states 170,385,295 rounds but for some reason this does not include in the list the 4.7 inch gun.

On p 479 for SAA there are no expenditure lists but production from 1914 to 1918, including Home and USA, was

8,637,112 thousand rounds.

[Old Tom]

This is a difficult question and probably not worth a lot of effort to try and answer. Taking the question at face value it includes British, French, German, Russian, Italian etc. It is said that farmers in the Ypres salient area are still finding some 200 tons of munitions and parts of munitons every year and that there is no sign that the rate is decreasing. I would guess 2 to 3 hundred million.

Old Tom

[Ian Riley]

According to Statistics of the Military effort of the British Empire during the Great War

On p 485 under : Approximate Expenditure of Ammunition in France during the War it states 170,385,295 rounds but for some reason this does not include in the list the 4.7 inch gun.

On p 479 for SAA there are no expenditure lists but production from 1914 to 1918, including Home and USA, was

8,637,112 thousand rounds.

I am not an artillery expert but according to Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire during the Great War, by October 1918 there were only ten 4.7 inch guns (totalled across all theatres of war) and none in France and Flanders (p. 451). Ammunition production for the 4.7 (from March 1916) was very limited in comparison to other natures and virtually ceased by May 1917, only 700 rounds being produced thereafter. Perhaps by the the 4.7 inch was out of sight and out of mind, leading to the expenditure in France, that would have taken place earlier in the war, not being included in the table on p. 485

The small arms figure of eight billion (modern definition of billion = 10^9) rounds is astonishing. Dividing 8,637,112,000 by 4 (approximate number of years of the war's duration) and then by 365, that is nearly six million rounds a day (just by the British and Dominion troops across the world) . Some is clearly accruing in reserve and much of the balance however will go in training both at home and in theatre; I sense a calculation coming on. In the 55th Division, I recall (or maybe a brigade thereof) soldiers in the front line were directed to fire a minimum of five rounds a day although whether this was to be target practice down a traverse (bit worrying if the CO comes round the corner unexpectedly) or risking one's neck firing over the parapet (I suspect the former) is not clear. Every infantry company would create a 30 yard range immediately adjacent to billets when out of line and would be expected to have it in use during all training periods. A battalion out of line would be expected to construct a longer range if one was not available.

It is also interesting that the figure for Small Arms Ammunition for 1918 (2,724,282,000) was nearly double that for 1917 (1,573,864,000). I don't know what the lead times were for production but that might indicate a replenishment of reserves depleted in 1917 or a build up of reserves for a planned battle in 1919

Ian

[KIRKY]

Thanks guys that is just the kind of figures I wanted! Amazing amounts!

tony

[18th Battalion]

I'm sure I remember reading somewhere that the total for 18pr shrapnel shells alone, was about 100 million, which means something like 30 billion shrapnel balls, so there are still plenty to be picked up in the fields!

[squirrel]

I am not an artillery expert but according to Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire during the Great War, by October 1918 there were only ten 4.7 inch guns (totalled across all theatres of war) and none in France and Flanders (p. 451). Ammunition production for the 4.7 (from March 1916) was very limited in comparison to other natures and virtually ceased by May 1917, only 700 rounds being produced thereafter. Perhaps by the the 4.7 inch was out of sight and out of mind, leading to the expenditure in France, that would have taken place earlier in the war, not being included in the table on p. 485

Ian

I have just looked again at p 485 and the 13 pdr field gun is not listed either, only the 6cwt and 9cwt which IIRC were anti aircraft versions, so it looks as if the figure is only for those guns that were still in service and not those that became obsolete, for want of a better word, during the war.

[KIRKY]

Thanks guys that was a great help, off to meet the kids now!

tony

[TonyE]

To get a grip on the usage of British SAA during the war you really need to get hold of the Ministry of Munition history Vol XI Part VI, which details the fluctuating demands of the army. At one point it was 300 million rounds per month, whilst in Spring 1917 there was so much .303 inch ammo in stock that 60% of all British ammunition production was for the Russians.

Expenditure during 1916-17 was calculated on an initial supply of 300-500 rounds per rifle and four rounds per day thereafter, whilst it was 50,000 rounds initial supply per machine gun and 10,000 rounds per month therefater. It is thus easy to see how that average of six million rounds per day is arrived at.

After the 1918 German Spring offensive and the huge losses incurred, production in early 1918 ramped up again and April to June saw the highest quarterly production of the war with 877 million rounds of .303 being produced, all from British sources as the US contracts had been cancelled by then.

Regartds

TonyE