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 Smacks wrote:

 daedalus wrote:
Honestly, I think recouping the money by selling it back to the public would be good for government image.

Didn't the public already buy the ammunition in the first place with their tax money? Now they're supposed to buy it again? That doesn't sound like a pyramid scheme...

What is most disgusting about this is that they'll sell some poor woman's house over $6, and then waste $1.2 billion and just be like: "Oops!". And that's money that they know about... I was reading an article recently that the pentagon has something like 2.3 trillion dollars that's just unaccounted for. That's like $8000 for every man woman and child in the country. Imagine how much of that money belonged to people posting in this topic alone? It's staggering.

Fine, sure, dole the ammunition out gratis in some kind of militaristic bread lines for all I care. Just let me have my Stinger Missile.

 Platuan4th wrote:

 KingCracker wrote:
I can't find .22lr bullets to save myself

Seriously? May explain why my father shipped me 1200 of the things last year.

Except for one exception, I haven't seen any .22 ammo in a store for over a year now.

 Hordini wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:

 KingCracker wrote:
I can't find .22lr bullets to save myself

Seriously? May explain why my father shipped me 1200 of the things last year.

Except for one exception, I haven't seen any .22 ammo in a store for over a year now.

The 550 round box of Federal .22LR copper jacketed HV I got from WalMart a couple of years ago for under $20 sells for over $75 (when in stock) on some online ammo retailer. Fricking disgusting.

Thats just as much a result of Sandy Hook as it is the war...

The reason there is no ammo and the ammo that you can get is expensive is because people are buying all the ammo even if it is expensive.

No grand conspiracy here.

I wasn't laying blame on anyone or anything, just stating facts.

Hoarders are buying it at silly quantities and prices and driving the price structure and availability all to hell.

I did finally get some decently priced 9mm so I can not be stingy when letting people shoot the Glocks.

the report wrote:The report illustrates the obsolete nature of the Pentagon's inventory systems for ammunition. A request for ammunition from the Marine Corps, for example, is e-mailed to the Army. The e-mail is printed out and manually retyped into the Army system because the services cannot share data directly.

I am astonished that the US armed forces use computers that do not support the "cut and paste" edit function. It was introduced in 1984.

 CptJake wrote:
I wasn't laying blame on anyone or anything, just stating facts.

Hoarders are buying it at silly quantities and prices and driving the price structure and availability all to hell.

I did finally get some decently priced 9mm so I can not be stingy when letting people shoot the Glocks.

I picked up a couple 100 count boxes of range ammo online last week for around $30. Picked up a 100 box at the range earlier this week for around $35. Almost picked up a box of 250 at the local Walmart who had them for $65.

Not trying to hoard though. Going to visit my dad for memorial day and he is a firearms instructor, so he is going to set up some range fun for us so I want enough to have some fun.

 CptJake wrote:
For fun, look up some of the 'destroy in place' going on as we us-ass Afghanistan.

The MRAP's in particular are shameful. Half a million dollars for the fething things and we're literally cutting them up to sell as scrap metal.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

the report wrote:The report illustrates the obsolete nature of the Pentagon's inventory systems for ammunition. A request for ammunition from the Marine Corps, for example, is e-mailed to the Army. The e-mail is printed out and manually retyped into the Army system because the services cannot share data directly.

I am astonished that the US armed forces use computers that do not support the "cut and paste" edit function. It was introduced in 1984.

Like most of the US government* I just assume the US military as an organization is still trying to wrap their head around computers.

*Except for the NSA It's kind of weird when you look at it. On a technological level the government can push some intense stuff, but on a basic conceptual level or an administrative stand point, they often seem computer illiterate.

 Ouze wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
For fun, look up some of the 'destroy in place' going on as we us-ass Afghanistan.

The MRAP's in particular are shameful. Half a million dollars for the fething things and we're literally cutting them up to sell as scrap metal.

Again, to be fair, we bought them specifically for that war. A lot of them are beat to hell (pretty much all the ones being scrapped). There is no room for them on the unit TOEs/MTOEs (we're keeping enough for the units that get them,for the training base, and several stored forward unit sets). They are very expensive to maintain. They have very limited use. To repair them and ship them to store them at tax payer expense is throwing good money after bad.

And this is not the first time we've done this. What do you think happened to the thousands of tanks and trucks and other stuff we made for WW2? I know on Guam for example, it was cheaper to throw all the Shermans into a big pile and let them rust than it was to fix them and transport them off the island. We literally pushed planes off of carriers into the ocean to get rid of them.

When you build up for a conflict, you build WAY more than you need for the peace time army, and frankly it is just not cost effective to repair and transport a lot of what ends up being excess. Afghanistan exacerbates the issue due to the lack of transport infrastructure. It is VERY expensive to get things like MRAPs into and back out of theater.

Now, this is probably not the topic, but you can have an interesting discussion on whether MRAPs and the M-ATV were worth buying at all int h quantities we did, or if changes in doctrine and tactics could have sufficed. We, as Rich Americans like to throw 'stuff' and money at problems, when honestly that is not always the best solution, and never the only solution.

The MRAP's in particular are shameful. Half a million dollars for the fething things and we're literally cutting them up to sell as scrap metal.

Battle Destroyed and those to far Battle Damage are scrapped at Bagram, Afghanistan. Strykers are scrapped at Kuwait. MRAPS/MATV/are being flown out with no new ones coming in to replace those lost. Up Armor are convoyed out. 401st have enough on hand to replace rate of current loss. Karachi, Pakistan and Kandahar/Bagram AB/FoB are not the only route to ship equipment out. Manas is another marshalling area of gear moving out of country.

 Jihadin wrote:

The MRAP's in particular are shameful. Half a million dollars for the fething things and we're literally cutting them up to sell as scrap metal.

Battle Destroyed and those to far Battle Damage are scrapped at Bagram, Afghanistan. Strykers are scrapped at Kuwait. MRAPS/MATV/are being flown out with no new ones coming in to replace those lost. Up Armor are convoyed out. 401st have enough on hand to replace rate of current loss. Karachi, Pakistan and Kandahar/Bagram AB/FoB are not the only route to ship equipment out. Manas is another marshalling area of gear moving out of country.

Somethings go out via the Northern Distribution Network as well. Cheaper than flying it, but a lot slower, and there are security issues with things like MRAPs which mean they cannot go that route.

Those goes out the same way they come in. About $80+k a leg. Along with the MATV. Same aircraft's the Strykers use to fly in and out of. On those flights we have what's called "SuperCargo" as in Supervised Cargo. Two "Joe's" are along for the flight

 streamdragon wrote:
Bleeding edge tech that doesn't work, on a project that is both over budget and past due. Scrap it.

The A-10 is old tech, sure, but as recent actions throughout the middle east have shown, it's reliable and does what actually needs to be done. IIRC (someone in the service can correct me here), it's also the only current close support platform we have going. The F-35 can't do that job, even with it's fancy tech. Have we even been using fighter jets in either of those conflicts? Honest question, I don't know.

None of this is correct.

Something other than A-10s have handled 80% of the CAS work in OEF/OIF. We cannot use A-10s except in absolutely sanitized air, because it flat-out lacks the survivability to be a Day One attack aircraft. It'll get lit up by anything built after 1950. Its strength was its durability, but a mission kill is a mission kill, whether the plane goes down or whether it doesn't go down but has to abandon its job and return to base. It's absolutely great at an extraordinarily narrow mission - close air support in completely safe air. That's it. Trouble is, we have other things that are also great at close air support in completely safe air.

Further, the F-35's a remarkable platform. You have a lot of civilians harping on it, and a lot of actual pilots singing its praises. I'd take it over a Super Hornet any day of the week, and I have a lot of personal investment in the Super Hornet. It wouldn't be winning so many foreign contracts to become the sole tactical fighter in our allies' arsenal if it was a POS.

I could (and have) lecture forever on the F-35 here, but I won't. Suffice to say, knowing what I know, I'm an absolute believer, despite the nitpicks I have with it. I know why it's revolutionary.

I've worked in a few private and public institutions, and I've never seen one that handled assets particularly well. I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen organisations having enough control over assets that they identified spare assets sitting in storage and used them in place of buying new assets.

There's no real system issue this has to be the case, except that people who work in assets are really damn annoying and no-one wants to go to them and ask questions. They'll just tell you to put a sticker on something or fill out a form.

I'm not saying the US military is worth defending on this, because from what I know about them they're basically never worth defending on matters of efficiency, but on this matter honestly I think you could pick any reasonably sized organisation and they'd look as bad.

Any word on if Nancy Sebellius was overseeing the ammunition tracking database?

 Jihadin wrote:
Range time....lots and lots of range time..

I miss range time.

Misc NCO "Well, you've all qual'd, and we have these extra 1400 rounds, who wants 'em?"

Lazy pantywaists in Bromsy's unit " But then we'd have to spend more time cleaning our weapons!"

Bromsy " Gimme them rounds and get out of my way, big sarge; there are a few range posts that are about to get cut down in their prime"

 CptJake wrote:
Again, to be fair, we bought them specifically for that war. A lot of them are beat to hell (pretty much all the ones being scrapped). There is no room for them on the unit TOEs/MTOEs (we're keeping enough for the units that get them,for the training base, and several stored forward unit sets). They are very expensive to maintain. They have very limited use. To repair them and ship them to store them at tax payer expense is throwing good money after bad.

And this is not the first time we've done this. What do you think happened to the thousands of tanks and trucks and other stuff we made for WW2? I know on Guam for example, it was cheaper to throw all the Shermans into a big pile and let them rust than it was to fix them and transport them off the island. We literally pushed planes off of carriers into the ocean to get rid of them.

When you build up for a conflict, you build WAY more than you need for the peace time army, and frankly it is just not cost effective to repair and transport a lot of what ends up being excess. Afghanistan exacerbates the issue due to the lack of transport infrastructure. It is VERY expensive to get things like MRAPs into and back out of theater.

Now, this is probably not the topic, but you can have an interesting discussion on whether MRAPs and the M-ATV were worth buying at all int h quantities we did, or if changes in doctrine and tactics could have sufficed. We, as Rich Americans like to throw 'stuff' and money at problems, when honestly that is not always the best solution, and never the only solution.

(emphasis mine). Good insights. Still, it kind of galls to see it, but logic is logic.

Does anything else sound as cool as an A-10?

US not involve with the MRAP/MATV's family. Romania has acquire (paid for) BDE size MRAP/MATV force. Polish Battle Group them selves are quite hefty into them. Israel landed quite a few Frag 7's cheap.

Frag 5's are staying being they are well worn beyond warranty

There are quite a few land routes out of Afghanistan to remove damn near everything and not have a scenario like Iraq.

Edit

Does anything else sound as cool as an A-10?

I called for CAS twice involving them.
I had one with a F-15
Numerous Apaches
Artillery and mortar support

A-10 is much loved due it can linger a long time and have a wide range of mix ordinance
The pilot can pretty much eye ball the situation and breif exchange with ground Fister can lay it down

 d-usa wrote:
Does anything else sound as cool as an A-10?

The Hornet howl.

This is hardly new, as others have pointed out this is basically SOP for a whole host of logical (and sometimes illogical) reasons. Typically we try to divest of whatever assets we can to our partners or to the civilian market if possible, sometimes that isn't an option and we destroy the goods(see also: F-14). For stuff in a combat zone, we usually sell off what equipment is 'safe' to sell off, and destroy the rest, I think the Abrams tanks we sent to Iraq for example were sold to Saudi Arabia after the drawdown. I've also heard stories about what happens to a lot of the equipment we dump... The father of a friend told me a story about what happened as his unit was leaving 'nam, they were ordered to basically drive the entire motor pool of trucks, jeeps, armored vehicles and several larger artillery pieces into a field, as well as spare ammunition and fuel (which they liberally dumped over EVERYTHING) and lit it off with a zippo... not to destroy it, but to mark it for a flight of aircraft to dump some ordnance on.

 Seaward wrote:


Further, the F-35's a remarkable platform. You have a lot of civilians harping on it, and a lot of actual pilots singing its praises. I'd take it over a Super Hornet any day of the week, and I have a lot of personal investment in the Super Hornet. It wouldn't be winning so many foreign contracts to become the sole tactical fighter in our allies' arsenal if it was a POS.

History says otherwise... between a string of soviet/russian designed failures that proliferated around the world for political reasons, as well as aircraft like the the F-104 which probably killed more of its own pilots/destroyed more of themselves via accidents than they did enemy combatants/aircraft, its clear that a design need not be an actual quality product to be purchased. The USAF thought the F-104 such a poor design that they only bought 300 of them, yet almost 2,600 of them were actually produced/sold to foreign partners, some of whom lost 30% (Germany) to 50% (Canada) of their fleets to accidents. Politics, sadly, plays a bigger role in military acquisitions than you give it credit for.

 Seaward wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Does anything else sound as cool as an A-10?

The Hornet howl.

*goes to YouTube*

Yes...yes indeed. This is pleasurable to my ears.

chaos0xomega wrote:
History says otherwise... between a string of soviet/russian designed failures that proliferated around the world for political reasons, as well as aircraft like the the F-104 which probably killed more of its own pilots/destroyed more of themselves via accidents than they did enemy combatants/aircraft, its clear that a design need not be an actual quality product to be purchased. The USAF thought the F-104 such a poor design that they only bought 300 of them, yet almost 2,600 of them were actually produced/sold to foreign partners, some of whom lost 30% (Germany) to 50% (Canada) of their fleets to accidents. Politics, sadly, plays a bigger role in military acquisitions than you give it credit for.

The Air Force didn't buy more than 300 F-104s because it was a dogfighter, plain and simple. If it wasn't a strike fighter or an interceptor, they weren't interested.

The Italians were still running Starfighters until the late 90s, at least, if memory serves. The notion that it was bad at what it did is false.

But if an example from the '50s is your rebuttal, so be it. From my experience with naval aviation, if you gave me a choice between a Rhino and an F-35 for any situation you care to name, I'd choose the F-35.

 d-usa wrote:
The reason there is no ammo and the ammo that you can get is expensive is because people are buying all the ammo even if it is expensive.

No grand conspiracy here.

^^^^THIS^^^^

Also doesnt hurt that the current administration is vehemently anti which boosts firearms sales considerably. There are more active firearm owners now than there were say 15 years ago. Also add to the numbers the fact that over 25% of new gun owners are now women. Im ecstatic that minorities are now discovering that for too long our Second Amendment rights were being trampled: they are now also getting into firearms in increasing numbers thanks to inroads made in D.C. and Chicago.

Most ammunition manufacturers dont want to ramp up production capability to meet current demand because they are still waiting to see if the current trend is long-term sustainable. Some have taken the plunge and invested in machinery, personnel etc because after nearly five years, demand doesnt seem to be slowing down.

Currently, manufacturers are only meeting 5-8% of current demand, especially for .22LR.

 Platuan4th wrote:

 KingCracker wrote:
I can't find .22lr bullets to save myself

Seriously? May explain why my father shipped me 1200 of the things last year.

Yes seriously. I can go and buy 100 rounds at a time at the local gun store but they charge slightly over double, so 10 bucks for 100 rounds. Doesn't sound terrible until you figure if I get lucky and find a 500 round pack at Walmart for example its only $20. If you find it online you're looking at couple hundred bucks.


Total BS


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 d-usa wrote:
The reason there is no ammo and the ammo that you can get is expensive is because people are buying all the ammo even if it is expensive.

No grand conspiracy here.

See I don't believe that for a second. Yes there have been panic buyers sure, but what about the rest of the missing ammo? 2 years ago you could go into any store that sells ammo and buy what ever you wanted in many different styles and makes. Now? According to Ammo manufacturers they are not only pumping out at the same rate, many are supposedly raising their protection rate as well, and still there are calibers you simply cannot find.

So you want to buy into that excuse of "people are just hoarding millions of rounds of ammo because GOVERNMENT! " go ahead,idon't, not for a second.

Time for a DakkaDakka Dakka Exchange Program!

Hell yea! I'm sick of shooting 20 rounds of 22 and saying well...... gotta save some for next time

 KingCracker wrote:

See I don't believe that for a second. Yes there have been panic buyers sure, but what about the rest of the missing ammo? 2 years ago you could go into any store that sells ammo and buy what ever you wanted in many different styles and makes. Now? According to Ammo manufacturers they are not only pumping out at the same rate, many are supposedly raising their protection rate as well, and still there are calibers you simply cannot find.

So you want to buy into that excuse of "people are just hoarding millions of rounds of ammo because GOVERNMENT! " go ahead,idon't, not for a second.

But that's really what is happening.

Every time my local WalMart gets a shipment of ammo they stock their cabinets, in less than 4 hours it is all gone. Not because they didn't get enough, but because people are buying every single box. For the next few days you will have people seeing empty shelves and thinking "oh my God, they are not making any more ammo, damn Obama" and as soon as they find some ammo THEY will buy every single box until the shelves are empty, then the next person sees an empty shelf and panics because all the ammo is gone so they will buy every box they can.

I really wish I was making this crap up, but I have seen it in person. I work night shift, so if I need to get anything from Academy or Bass Pro I'll end up going right as they open. Every time I go there are already 3-5 people waiting at the door for them to open. As soon as the store opens they head to the ammo counter and pick up what they can. Every day. Every store.

Where do you think all this ammo is going?



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 KingCracker wrote:
Hell yea! I'm sick of shooting 20 rounds of 22 and saying well...... gotta save some for next time

I usually wait until I can get 100 rounds of 9mm before I go shooting, anything less is just a waste of time.

I don't really have any problems finding range ammo though, it's the hollow-points that are a little harder to get.