How much ammo?

The setting I'm working on is loosely based on Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. In 2055, the world's become a cyberpunkish warzone, and the main characters are a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits (former special ops brought together by being the only survivors of an in-group betrayal).

Since I'm trying to avoid both Bottomless Magazines and a Hyperspace Arsenal, I was just wondering how much ammo/clips they'd be carrying for their different weapons (handguns, assault rifles, shotguns, whatever). Certainly, most of 'em would rely on scavenging/catch-and-kill for some of their equipment, but since they've been "freelancing" for a few years, they probably know various black marketeers and stuff like that.

I'm just not sure how much ammo to begin with. Suggestions?

Depends entirely on the weapon, caliber, type of vest they have etc.

Lots of little factors go into it.

It'd really depend on the weapons in question. You can easily carry upwards of a thousand .22 or 9mm rounds per person, since this is what 200x 9mm rounds look like.◊ Rifle rounds tend to be much bulkier; shotgun shells and grenades heavier still. A heavy fighting load for an infantryman can be something like ten magazines of 5.56 or comparable, for 300 rounds, plus 30+1 in the rifle's magazine and chamber. The rifleman may also be carrying a 200-round box for the squad machine gunner, or extra 40mm grenades for the team's launcher. That ammunition can easily be burned through in a prolonged firefight, especially if the soldiers lack fire discipline.

Really, when ammunition's an issue, it makes sense to carry the minimum number of weapons required, and hence carry the minimum number of ammunition types. That's one reason countries tend to standardize around a few ammunition calibers. Ammo goes fast in a fight.

edited 31st Oct '14 7:24:47 PM by SabresEdge

Pistols are also secondary weapons, so they'd carry considerably fewer spare magazines and less ammunition for their pistols. They would focus on ammunition and magazines for their rifles since those are their primary firearms.

If memory serves the Russians carry their AK-74 and 10 extra 30 round mags of ammo for it. But that's only because the 5.45x39mm ammo is light. That's about 12.5 pounds of bullets. If they have an AK-103 or some other rifle in the bigger 7.62x39mm round they only carry 6 or 7 mags of ammo. And that weighs in the same.

Quoting my friend, "Echo Four Delta" of the SCP Foundation:

Pro-tip: The difference between magazines and clips.

Heya, this is the previously mentioned Echo. Thought I'd drop in real quick to help clarify some stuff Star posted there, mostly ground-rules type stuff.

Your primary weapons in a combat element are rifles and machine guns that fire intermediate cartridges, which are smaller, lighter rifle munitions like the 5.56x45mm round. Rifles and machine guns that fire rounds like these are generally referred to as assault rifles and light machine guns, and form the core of a combat element's armament.

An individual participating in an operation where heavy fighting is planned or expected generally goes in loaded to the gills with ammo, because as a previous poster mentioned, that stuff goes a lot faster than you might think. A rifleman might carry anywhere between a dozen to a dozen and a half 30-round magazines if they're going to be away from easy resupply for any amount of time. These are usually carried in pouches attached to a load-bearing vest, or webbed directly to the shooter's armor. A machine gunner carrying a weapon that fires intermediate cartridges might carry anywhere between a thousand or two thousand rounds in 100- and 200-round drums, where the ammunition is held together by disintegrating metal links. This guy's also going to be toting around a spare barrel for his machine gun, because those things get hot, and fast. This generally has to be changed out roughly once every minute or two, depending on how fast the guy's dumping ammo.

Handguns are usually carried by anyone who has access to one, though they're not typically general issue. You'll see them a lot more often in the hands of guys operating a heavier crew-served weapon, like a medium machine or something (though they're more often just armed with an assault rifle as a secondary like everyone else has these days), or in the hands of doorkickers. Somebody carrying one just because likely won't have more than a spare mag for it, carried in a pouch attached to the pistol's holster, but someone who integrates a pistol into their loadout as a dedicated component of their job may carry anywhere between three to a half-dozen spare mags, generally carried either high on the vest, above their rifle mags, or on their weak-side leg in a rig designed to carry pistol magazines opposite their holster leg. Other common carry locations for pistol magazines include pouches on the shooter's weak side on a cartridge belt, or even at the small of their back.

Shotguns are a special case. They're generally useless in any sort of modern combat, even during operations in urban areas, or clearing structures. Despite the hype that accompanies things like the AA-12 (an almost mind-numbingly useless weapon system), there's surprisingly little use to be found for them, and they come with a number of crippling disadvantages to a shooter. Their limited range and ammunition capacity are among the first and foremost; even dedicated combat models are unable to provide a level of fire precise enough for combat use past extremely short range (I'm not saying they can't hit - to the contrary - but they cannot be PRECISE). Also limiting is their inability to penetrate personal armor with any degree of reliability outside of the use of specialized munitions; any service rifle can penetrate any soft armor in existence, to say nothing of their performance once you start throwing armor-piercing munitions into the mix. A shotgun possesses this capacity, yes, but the ammunition must either be thrown in ahead of time to specifically perform this feat, or it must be swapped into the chamber by the shooter, something that takes a considerable degree of skill to perform with anything approaching reasonable speed. Another not-so-insignificant problem is that most shotguns take a truly ridiculous amount of time to reload to capacity compared to a magazine-fed rifle, even with a strong background in their handling and operation. The cherry on the cake is that even if one is carrying something like, say, the AA-12, a magazine-fed shotgun, they're wasting all that weight on something that is still ultimately held back by all these other limitations, and using incredibly chunky, difficult-to-carry-in-bulk ammunition to beat it all. ALL THAT SAID, however, someone packing a shotgun will generally have a reliable, pump-action combat model and enough ammunition in a drop pouch to fill the tube once or twice, plus a load in the firearm to start with, and maybe a couple powdered-lead breaching rounds to use in the removal of doors.

Submachine guns are not something that is generally used in modern warfare. They've been obsolete roughly since the invention of the assault rifle, and only became more outdated once the development of practical personal armor became a thing. They get better range than a pistol firing the same round, yes, and provide a more solid, controllable platform to shoot those rounds from, but their effective range is abysmal compared to a similarly-sized assault rifle, and there's not a submachine gun in existence that can reliably penetrate modern body armor used by combat troops; most rounds fired by a submachine gun can be stopped by simple kevlar with (relatively) minimal injury to the vest's wearer, and any sort of ceramic trauma plate, or steel "chicken plate" is going to stop a submachine gun's rounds in their tracks with practically no effect on the individual who took the hit. There's just not enough energy behind them, and the big, fat pistol rounds submachine guns fire lose velocity (and therefore energy and lethality) at ranges much shorter than a rifle of almost any sort. Better to carry a rifle that weighs more or less the same and is more or less the same size but that can engage and kill targets that are hundreds of meters out, and who are wearing body armor.

Hope that helps!

[edit] p.s. - It might also be worth mentioning that guys heading into a known furball usually shove a bunch of ammo into their packs that isn't pre-loaded into mags. Boxes of rounds, or the canvas bandoliers of stripper clips that 5.56x45mm rounds come in, etc, so you're always pretty loaded down with ammo, on account of if you're going to run out of anything, you do NOT want it to be ammunition.

edited 23rd Nov '14 11:44:01 AM by EchoFourDelta