M-96 ammunition production rate

From LAMA p 447 US hardcover:
***start excerpt***
"Cartridge production's actually running ahead of projections. At the moment, we're turning out roughly two hundred cartridges per hour, and we'll be upping that to around a thousand in the next couple of five days. There's no point producing them faster than that just yet because the cartridge filling machinery developed a glitch we hadn't expected an we're still putting the fix for it into place. By next spring, we'll be able to produce and fill two thousand per hour, or just under one-point-six million a month. We won't be able to increase much beyond that-assuming we have to- until we can produce the primer compounds in sufficient quantity."
***end excerpt****

At first glance, the ammunition production rates mentioned seem like stupendous numbers. But if you stop and think in terms of how much ammo large armies need to fight a war, then the figures don't seem to be sufficient.

Consider the highest rate mentioned of 1.6 million rounds per month. If you have a 100,000 man army, then an entire month's production would only be enough to give each man 16 rounds. That isn't enough to fight even one single fair sized battle. And if you figure on a total military force of 400,000 men, than an entire month's production will give each man a grand total of 4 rounds.

Furthermore, the 1.6 million round figure is projected for next spring. Current ammo production is much lower. According to the text, in order to make 1.6 million rounds a month, they need to fill 2000 cartridges an hour. The *current* rate of production at the time of the excerpt is only 200 an hour. This works out to only 160,000 rounds a month. Which pretty much kills any chance of building up a surplus supply of ammo before the M-96 actually enters combat.

Henry Brown wrote:From LAMA p 447 US hardcover:
***start excerpt***
"Cartridge production's actually running ahead of projections. At the moment, we're turning out roughly two hundred cartridges per hour, and we'll be upping that to around a thousand in the next couple of five days. There's no point producing them faster than that just yet because the cartridge filling machinery developed a glitch we hadn't expected an we're still putting the fix for it into place. By next spring, we'll be able to produce and fill two thousand per hour, or just under one-point-six million a month. We won't be able to increase much beyond that-assuming we have to- until we can produce the primer compounds in sufficient quantity."
***end excerpt****

At first glance, the ammunition production rates mentioned seem like stupendous numbers. But if you stop and think in terms of how much ammo large armies need to fight a war, then the figures don't seem to be sufficient.

Consider the highest rate mentioned of 1.6 million rounds per month. If you have a 100,000 man army, then an entire month's production would only be enough to give each man 16 rounds. That isn't enough to fight even one single fair sized battle. And if you figure on a total military force of 400,000 men, than an entire month's production will give each man a grand total of 4 rounds.

Furthermore, the 1.6 million round figure is projected for next spring. Current ammo production is much lower. According to the text, in order to make 1.6 million rounds a month, they need to fill 2000 cartridges an hour. The *current* rate of production at the time of the excerpt is only 200 an hour. This works out to only 160,000 rounds a month. Which pretty much kills any chance of building up a surplus supply of ammo before the M-96 actually enters combat.

This was actually covered in a previous topic, and the conclusion was that the amounts were totally inadequate, working out to about 5 rounds/rifle/day.

fallsfromtrees wrote:This was actually covered in a previous topic, and the conclusion was that the amounts were totally inadequate, working out to about 5 rounds/rifle/day.

I didn't see the previous topic. So sorry if I'm beating a dead horse. But by my figures they don't even get 5 rounds/rifle/day. More like 5 rounds/rifle/month.

Henry Brown wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:This was actually covered in a previous topic, and the conclusion was that the amounts were totally inadequate, working out to about 5 rounds/rifle/day.

I didn't see the previous topic. So sorry if I'm beating a dead horse. But by my figures they don't even get 5 rounds/rifle/day. More like 5 rounds/rifle/month.

Depends how many M-96's you put into service.

But RFC can count and reads the forum so I think we will see other ammunition plants elsewhere come on-line also or only limited numbers of troops being moved off Mandrayns.

Randomiser wrote:Depends how many M-96's you put into service.

But RFC can count and reads the forum so I think we will see other ammunition plants elsewhere come on-line also or only limited numbers of troops being moved off Mandrayns.

True. But they are talking about manufacturing well over 100,000 M-96s a year. Not much point making them if you aren't going to use them. And the older model Mahndrayns are being converted to the trap-door design. Once these upgrades are complete, they will also need cartridges.

Henry Brown wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:This was actually covered in a previous topic, and the conclusion was that the amounts were totally inadequate, working out to about 5 rounds/rifle/day.

I didn't see the previous topic. So sorry if I'm beating a dead horse. But by my figures they don't even get 5 rounds/rifle/day. More like 5 rounds/rifle/month.

The basic arithemtic was worked out at 80,000 M96 and 1.6milllion/month, or 20 rounds/rifle/month, and 4 days of combat every month - I'm not convinced that 4 days is enough combat, but that was the consensus. Still you have a point - they are going to need production of something like 160 million/month, or even more 1.6 billion/month in order to support the troops in the field.

Well, something like that was, actually, imminent. The Charisians are doing industrialisation on the totally off-the-scale, unprecedent in human history rate.

Definitely, this rate and scale should produce at least SOME mistakes, simply because ALL possible industry is overstrained and the tools production have its limits!

It's like the USSR, that was able to produce more than 5000 new. modern tanks in 1940-early 1941, but because of overstrained industry, suddenly became unable to provide the already existed tank force (more than 15000 of older tanks) with spare parts and much needed repair. Too many of soviet industrial capabilites were redirectd toward the production of new weapons.

Randomiser wrote:
Depends how many M-96's you put into service.

But RFC can count and reads the forum so I think we will see other ammunition plants elsewhere come on-line also or only limited numbers of troops being moved off Mandrayns.

infantry squad of 12 men and a corporal. Operationally i'd guess this breaks down to 2-3 fireteams with pfc leader. Would it make sense to put 1 M96 in each fire team and have that man connected to fire team leader by some sort of leash (just kidding )?

Dilandu wrote:Well, something like that was, actually, imminent. The Charisians are doing industrialisation on the totally off-the-scale, unprecedent in human history rate.

Definitely, this rate and scale should produce at least SOME mistakes, simply because ALL possible industry is overstrained and the tools production have its limits!

It's like the USSR, that was able to produce more than 5000 new. modern tanks in 1940-early 1942, but because of overstrained industry, suddenly became unable to provide the already existed tank force (more than 15000 of older tanks) with spare parts and much needed repair. Too many of soviet industrial capabilites were redirectd toward the production of new weapons.

This is a good point. Jerry Pournelle has a quote:

Perfect is the enemy of good enough

I also wonder if OWL has a copy of AC Clarke's story Superiority. It has a number of lessons that Charis should be aware of.

This is going to be an awkward memo.

To Duke Eastshare:

New recruits needed to conduct target practice as part of their training. Due to this, we were forced to divert your army's monthly ration of cartridges. As a result, we ask that you refrain from combat operations till next month.

Sincerely,

Cayleb Ahrmahk