Ammunition production, total tons

Guaporense,

The only issue I will reply to is the one of the US civilian economy in WW II. The rest of your responses are descending into the realm of absurdity. You just cannot seem to grasp the concept that isolated statistics and partial numbers do not prove your case.

As for, the growth of the US civilian economy, others have cited numerous sources indicating that Americans spent more on consumer items and that consumer "output" increased. But you claim that was because of inflation and differences in the value of the "dollar" over the period of the war.

So I have found sources which assert that the consumption of civilian goods also increased, thus proving that, despite changes in the purchasing value of the dollar (inflation), Americans did enjoy an increasing standard of living during WWII;

"Despite higher prices and sporadic shortages, consumers upgraded the quality and quantity of food in their diets during the war years. The number of pounds of food consumed per capita by the civilian population during the war rose from 1,548 pounds in 1939 to 1,646 pounds in 1946, a record that remains."

HyperWar: The Big 'L'--American Logistics in World War II [Chapter 3] Page 182

"But the budget expansion was such that civilians truly did not suffer because of the war, and when one considers that unemployment had all but disappeared and what joblessness remained was usually only temporary, the home front prospered. In terms of calories people were generally fed better than they had been before the war, and they consumed more meat, shoes, clothing, and energy."

HyperWar: The Big 'L'--American Logistics in World War II [Chapter 1] Page 57-58

 

That the soviet army was more powerfull than the allies is unprooved,
1What is powerfull
2If you look at Krivosheev,you will see the Russian losses ,maybe they are a proof for a powerfull army ?

 

Well, the Russian army was the most powerful in the world by 1944. Second to Glantz, in his handbook of the Eastern front.

 

What I meant was that depending on the price index that you use, them you can cook the index the way you like.

 

Well, do you know that you are quite an idiot?

I have assembled a quite collection of numbers plus citation with famous historian with proves how wrong you are, and you doesn't even try to understand anything, just passes your eye over, shouts some offending sentence directed to me and that's it.

 

I'm sorry you feel that way.

You claim to be an economist; I hope that as you gain more experience in that profession, you'll come to realize that while numbers can be manipulated, there are solid realities behind those numbers which can't be denied no matter how much one makes the numbers dance.

The US and The British Commonwealth simply had too many economic, military, geographic, and technological advantages over Germany for Hitler to prevail. While the German Army was a decent fighting force, the fact is that it wasn't that much better than any of it's major opponents, and in the end, it was defeated. The outcome of WW II was predictable for anyone who was well enough informed of the true state of the world.

 

That (the outcome ....)is a non sequitur :it is to deterministic

 

If I had a bad character (what I don't ),I should say that Glantz is parroting his Russian sources .
If the Russian army was the most powerfull (it had more tanks,aircraft and artillery than the Germans ),why was its performance not in agreement ? It lost 5685000 men in 1944 against 2 million Germans,and its losses were relatively heavier in 1945 .
And if itswas the most powerfull,how was it possible,if the SU was economically weaker than Germany ? (see you former posts ) Something of a contradiction,don't you think ?

 

I disagree.

The overwhelming disparity in industrial and economic power between the Axis and the Western Allies virtually guaranteed the Allies eventual victory. And this was not something that couldn't possibly have been foreseen. I believe it was Admiral Stark who, speaking in early 1941, with the Japanese special ambassador to Washington, quite accurately predicted that the US would ultimately crush the Japanese Empire.

 

In 1944 Soviet ground forces used total 44,128,880 field artillery rounds but the weight of rounds was according Soviet data just some 555,000 tons giving only some 12½ kilos average weight for round because 31,939,000 rounds were 76 mm. Then there was expenditure of 12,238,500 rounds of AT-guns (mostly 45 mm) with total weight of something like 22,500 tons (no idea how many of them HE-shells, Red Army used these 45 mm AT-guns quite a lot for firing HE-shells). Actually it was mortars playing big role with total 61,643,000 rounds of which 42,550,000 were 82 mm rounds and 15,454,000 rounds of 120 mm mortars. The average weight of mortar rounds was around 6.3-6.4 kilos and total weight of mortar rounds 392,175,000 tons. Highly overhyped Katjusha-rocket launchers playd relatively small role. 3,996,000 rockets but weight ~26,400 tons.

All together these rounds of field artillery, mortars, AT-guns and rocket launchers had weight of less than 1 million tons (around 995,400 tons). Note: these are not production but expenditure numbers. Production numbers however were not radically different. If we compare AA-artillery production and expenditure numbers Germans in 1944 (and 1943) had much bigger production. It's also useful to compare expenditure of bombs. In 1943 German expenditure just in Eastern Front was 300,287 tons and in all fronts 351,266 tons. Soviet air forces expenditure of bombs was 181,801 tons ( in 1944 even less: 178,181 tons). So Germans had in midpoint of WW2 two times bigger production of bombs compared to Soviet Union.

It's necessary to understand that Red Army though having very high number of artillery type of ammunition production and expenditure was largely using rather light weaponry. So if there are claims huge number of rounds fired everyone should ask: what rounds. The average shell weight fired by Red Army ground forces in 1944 seems to have been just around 8.2 kilos. And even having much more bombers and ground attack aircraft in Eastern Front than Germany had, the Luftwaffe was dropping much more bomb tons in 1943-44.

 

To answer the OP original question, data from total US production, July 1940 through August 1945 . . .

US Army ammunition, to include heavy artillery, light artillery (including for tanks/antitank), aircraft, antiaircraft, mortars shells, and rockets: 5,014,582 short tons.

US Navy ammunition, to include high capacity, armor piercing, illuminating, common & special common, antiaircraft, rockets, target practice and training rockets: 1,356,496 short tons

Small arms ammunitions are calculated in millions of rounds. I suppose one could work the math on that for tonnage, but I shall not. All types came to a total of 41,746 million rounds produced:
.50 caliber, all: 10,035
.60 caliber: 6.1
.455 caliber: 5.1
.45 caliber, all: 4,080
.38 caliber, all: 187
9 mm ball: 552
7.92 mm ball: 799
.303 caliber ball: 1,068
.30 caliber all (including for carbine): 25,014

The OP did not ask about bombs, torpedoes, mines, depth charges, etc. Ammunition is a subset and not the same as munitions generally, just as munitions can be a subset of ordnance generally.

For detailed ammunition production numbers, see pages 166 through 224, 258, and 261 through 263 of the War Production Board’s “Official Munitions Production of the United States, By Months July 1, 1940 – August 31, 1945.” Anything you ever wanted to know about US war making production, airplanes, ships, tanks, trains, trucks, artillery . . . goes on for 432 pages.

Too big to load here, go to here for your personal copy World War II Operational Documents.

Also https://history.army.mil/html/books/010/10-10/CMH_Pub_10-10.pdf has some interesting army-centric information if you aren't interested in things naval.