Maj.Hans Posted October 24, 2017 Share Posted October 24, 2017 (edited) Working on an East vs. West scenario, and it's come up today that East German infantry may have carried drastically less ammunition for their AKs than I'm thinking. So the question is, how much ammo was your average East German rifleman supposed to carry? At first I had thought it would have been similar to the US standard (7x30 = 210 rounds) but now I'm hearing it may have only been 4 magazines of 30, plus a few stripper clips that you would probably NOT be wanting to play with in the middle of a firefight. Meaning that in firefights between an East German and US unit, the NVA troops would be running out of ammo pretty darn quick instead of a long exchange the way it happens when I max out the ammo for both sides... Edited October 26, 2017 by Maj.Hans 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grenny Posted October 24, 2017 Share Posted October 24, 2017 150 rounds in magazin, another 150 in packages. Info comming from a former NVA man i'm working with... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maj.Hans Posted October 24, 2017 Author Share Posted October 24, 2017 13 hours ago, Grenny said: 150 rounds in magazin, another 150 in packages. Info comming from a former NVA man i'm working with... OK that makes some sense, to carry a set of loaded magazines and enough ammo to refill them. So they don't have quite as many "ready" rounds as I would expect, but the total ammo load is still decent. (As a historical note, in 1943-45 a German soldier with an MP43/44/StG-44 would have carried 210 round loaded and ready to fire, plus more in boxes. But perhaps the extra ready ammo was a product of fighting against instead of with the Red Horde?) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ssnake Posted October 25, 2017 Members Share Posted October 25, 2017 The fighting was just as intense e.g. in the Ardennes (where the StG-44 would have found most of its use, actually), fighting the Allies. I thinkk it simply reflected the operational reality at the time. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maj.Hans Posted October 26, 2017 Author Share Posted October 26, 2017 6 hours ago, Ssnake said: The fighting was just as intense e.g. in the Ardennes (where the StG-44 would have found most of its use, actually), fighting the Allies. I thinkk it simply reflected the operational reality at the time. Could have been. Might have been a carry over from the MP38/MP40 where someone decided 7 magazines was the magic number for whatever reason. Curiously, there seems to have been, more often than not, some kind of standard on paper, and then what the grunts actually carried, and a HUGE difference between the two. For example the "basic load" for your average rifleman in Vietnam was supposed to be 9 20 round magazines for his M16 and 4 frag grenades...But I've seen photos of guys with three or even four magazine pouches jammed on their belt, or a bandolier of 7 extra loaded magazines slung over his shoulders, etc. If you ask the question "how much ammo did a Russian WW2 soldier carry", you need to first ask the question, "Did he get a rifle, or did he follow the man with the rifle and wait for him to get shot?"... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ssnake Posted October 26, 2017 Members Share Posted October 26, 2017 I suppose the basic logic is that if an army issues carrying pouches for 2 x 3 magazines plus one for the rifle, everybody will adhere to that standard and not hoard more ammo and more magazines, because soldiers always do as told. Always. According to army logic, I was not supposed to bring slips and T-shirts on draft day because the army would issue everything. Like, three slips that were supposed to last for two weeks. Fooking brilliant. I think I stopped believing that the Army knew what it was doing that same day. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maj.Hans Posted October 26, 2017 Author Share Posted October 26, 2017 12 minutes ago, Ssnake said: I suppose the basic logic is that if an army issues carrying pouches for 2 x 3 magazines plus one for the rifle, everybody will adhere to that standard and not hoard more ammo and more magazines, because soldiers always do as told. Always. According to army logic, I was not supposed to bring slips and T-shirts on draft day because the army would issue everything. Like, three slips that were supposed to last for two weeks. Fooking brilliant. I think I stopped believing that the Army knew what it was doing that same day. Slips? I assume you mean something else, because, that's ladies underwear where I live! I always thought that the idea was to make sure that everyone had enough to get the job done, so to speak. If they bring extra ammo to the fight, that's a bonus for you. But if you say at some point "I want them to be able to hold out for at least 3 days without resupply", and you know that they will fire an average of 30 rounds per day with a bolt action rifle, then everybody with a bolt action rifle had better be carrying at least 90 rounds... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grenny Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 1 hour ago, Ssnake said: I suppose the basic logic is that if an army issues carrying pouches for 2 x 3 magazines plus one for the rifle, everybody will adhere to that standard and not hoard more ammo and more magazines, because soldiers always do as told. Always. According to army logic, I was not supposed to bring slips and T-shirts on draft day because the army would issue everything. Like, three slips that were supposed to last for two weeks. Fooking brilliant. I think I stopped believing that the Army knew what it was doing that same day. "After 3 weeks of sucessful combat-training, we finaly have some time to change underwear. So: Murphy changes with Smith, Thomas with...." 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maj.Hans Posted October 26, 2017 Author Share Posted October 26, 2017 5 minutes ago, Grenny said: "After 3 weeks of sucessful combat-training, we finaly have some time to change underwear. So: Murphy changes with Smith, Thomas with...." 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grenny Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 4 hours ago, Maj.Hans said: Hey, there's a reason why people say army life is tough :-D 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Major duck Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 jep we had some awesome sleeping backs they could handle temps all the way down to +15 c in denmark and where completely airtight so not only where you drenched with sweat and soaking wet but you where also freezing your behind off. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ssnake Posted October 26, 2017 Members Share Posted October 26, 2017 All the way down to +15°C. Brilliant! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maj.Hans Posted October 26, 2017 Author Share Posted October 26, 2017 5 hours ago, Grenny said: Hey, there's a reason why people say army life is tough :-D HAH! Well I guess Infantry life is not only hard but gross as well. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maj.Hans Posted October 26, 2017 Author Share Posted October 26, 2017 5 hours ago, Major duck said: jep we had some awesome sleeping backs they could handle temps all the way down to +15 c in denmark and where completely airtight so not only where you drenched with sweat and soaking wet but you where also freezing your behind off. Sounds like one hell of a dutch oven... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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