M-96 ammunition production rate

Chapter VII of The Ordnance Department: Procurement and Supply (Part of the US Army "Green Book" series on World War II) discusses the problems with procuring artillery ammunition. Part of the artillery ammunition shortage in Europe in 1944 can be traced to decisions made by procurement boards located in the United States on how much ammunition was to be procured made in late 1943. Those decision reflected the Army's experience and ammunition expenditures in North Africa and Sicily. Those were relatively mobile in the case of North Africa and short lived in the case of Sicily. Neither required the expeditures of artillery ammunition at the rates common to Italy and the frontiers region of Germany in 1944. Those mistakes in procurement planning took about eight months to repair once the wrongness of those decisions became self evident.
This is not to say that there were not problems with distribution in western Europe during the pursuit across France, but the supply types did not have enough supply stocks in the first place. If you want a more detailed look at those problems refer to the US Army Green Book on The Ordnance Department: On Beachhead and Battlefront.

USMA74 wrote:Chapter VII of The Ordnance Department: Procurement and Supply (Part of the US Army "Green Book" series on World War II) discusses the problems with procuring artillery ammunition. Part of the artillery ammunition shortage in Europe in 1944 can be traced to decisions made by procurement boards located in the United States on how much ammunition was to be procured made in late 1943. Those decision reflected the Army's experience and ammunition expenditures in North Africa and Sicily. Those were relatively mobile in the case of North Africa and short lived in the case of Sicily. Neither required the expeditures of artillery ammunition at the rates common to Italy and the frontiers region of Germany in 1944. Those mistakes in procurement planning took about eight months to repair once the wrongness of those decisions became self evident.
This is not to say that there were not problems with distribution in western Europe during the pursuit across France, but the supply types did not have enough supply stocks in the first place. If you want a more detailed look at those problems refer to the US Army Green Book on The Ordnance Department: On Beachhead and Battlefront.

Interesting. If OWL has copies of these or similar reports, presumably Howsmyn has perused them, and is aware the 1.6million cartridges per month isn't going to be anywhere near enough - what will be required is more like 1.6 billion cartridges/month.

There were several reasons for the supply shortages beyond what has been posted. First was the destruction of the US Mulberry in late June 44 requiring the entire beachhead to by supplied through one harbor. Second was the German destruction of port facilities and continued occupation of other ports. Fuel was able to be transported to France by way of the Pluto lines, but beachhead to front required extended pipelines and the Red Ball Express which by itself used masses of fuel. Lastly, while combat loading of supplies had been considerable advanced from Operation Torch, there still were many loading errors.