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steve19

60,000 artillery shells would be surprising, but 60k rounds of rifle or pistol ammunition is not much.

That is one pallet, at a cost of maybe $20,000 at bulk retail in the USA.

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US army fired on average 250k rounds to kill one enemy combatant in Iraq.

https://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/us-forced-t...

Another way the movie Starship Troopers would predict the Iraq War.

Sorry, I miss the reference. Would you be kind and expand on it a bit?

I mean, this is specifically accurate but a useless metrics.

Its literally bullets/kill.

Modern urban warfare tactics include a whole lot of shooting where the intent is not to kill the enemy, but to make the enemy hide and reduce their ability to shoot at you.

The army also uses lot of ammo to train and stay competent.

Its similar to how most military pilots clock hundreds of hours flying for every hour of combat they experience.

Bullets/kill is like an extreme version of "game winning scores"/"all shots ever taken in a game or training"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppressive_fire#:~:text=In%20...]

Exactly. I know people who shoot 2000 rounds in a weekend of target practice. This might be a large amount in a country where guns are rare, but it's nothing in the US.

Makes you wonder how much ammo the US is currently missing...

Probably less relevant since most citizens can buy plenty of ammo for themselves.

Crates of grenades "lost" during training would be more of a concern.

You can legally buy grenades as a civilian, not as easily as ammo but still possible.

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but given you can literally buy grenades ... Can they be posted and delivered to someone else?

I ask as both sound ridiculous on my mind

I imagine its similar to buying a firearm. You need an FFL to receive it and they background you same as they would a gun. However the FFL needs a special license for grenades as well.

Edit for those who dont know:

You can order guns online but they must be shipped to a qualified FFL. They must keep records of having done a background check and all that (same as buying in person). As an FFL you could be audited at any moment so you dont wanna screw around or the ATF might come down on you hard. Honestly the last agency I want coming to arrest me is ATF looking at their history of shooting peoples dogs. Its like they think they are above all other agencies and do whatever to arrest people.

It's much more like buying a suppressor, SBR, or machine gun since you have to submit paperwork including fingerprints anddirectly to the ATF and pay the $200 tax. This whole processes take around a year.

Grenades are registered destructive devices in the US. If you can pass the background check to buy a firearm you can buy a grenade. The cost will be $200 (tax) plus the cost of the grenade itself. Practical issues include the government being extremely slow in processing NFA transfers and finding a manufacturer that will actually sell you one. The few dealers I've found will only sell to Law Enforcement or Military buyers. There may be storage requirements I'm not aware of. E: to answer your actual question, it depends on a few factors but it may be possible to structure your grenade ownership to allow others to use it.

For more information about the different types of permits see here:

https://www.atf.gov/resource-center/fact-sheet/fact-sheet-fe...

I don't think I've ever met someone with a permit for explosives to this day. I assume it's a right reserved for special cases, maybe military contractors that do go overseas?

I assume you can put ownership of them in a trust just as many people do for suppressors, SBRs, MGs, etc. So whoever is a trustee can be legally in possession of them. All of these responsible people as they are so called, must be on the ATF form and submit fingerprints.

Yeah good luck finding someone to sell you one. Probably easier to manufacture yourself.

Only the the person or entity who paid the $200 tax stamp and submitted the paperwork and was approved can be in possession.

Its all accounted for - https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/pent...

Yeah I mean, missing material sucks and shouldn't be routine, but this is pretty trivial bullet count compared to what any military runs through in marksmanship training on a daily basis.

Seems far more likely that one pallet is moulding in a corner of a warehouse somewhere (or accidentally got thrown away) than that a right-wing paramilitary group is stealing bullets from the German military, that they simply can't find anywhere else.

> 60,000 rounds of rifle or pistol ammunition is not much.

Military equiment being lost is a regular occurrence?

Germany spends half a trillion dollars per decade on its military. It would not be surprising if $20k of ammo vanishes for any number of reasons (theft, misplaced, miscounted).

Lost could just mean expended in training but with slightly poor recording keeping that added up over time.

Anyone who has served in the Armed Forces knows how strict range security is. This couldn't be the case.

https://www.ft.com/content/d5cd9758-80a6-4d30-93d5-2add8709e...

Here they mention how much of the 'lost' german materiel is diverted by far right cells within their armed forces.

"48,000 rounds of ammunition and 62kg of explosives had disappeared from the KSK" in this case.

Their most recent political assassination was in 2018, too. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/07/world/europe/germany-murd...

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