Question on weight for infantry company ammo resupply

[Hans]

Taking a 'normal' infantry company or 150 men what would be the weight (for WWII 1942) for a complete ammo re-issue?

Or another way of looking at it. I figure it would easily fit on a truck (2 1/2 ton) but how many men would be needed to carry in that amount of ammo?

(this excludes mortar ammo)

This question is raised as I consider how many men would constitute the follow on force to follow an assault with the prerequiste ammo.

Any 11A,11B,11C or 92Y's out there?

[Michael Dorosh]

In Commonwealth units, ammunition resupply was usually done by the regimental sergeant major and company sergeant majors, using universal carriers where necessary. I can't remember the standard battle load; I seem to recall 60 rounds. Bouchery gives 50 rounds as the number.

An infantry section carried 25 Bren mags into action, with 8 riflemen having 60 rounds of rifle ammo apiece, and the section commander carrying 5 Sten mags (according to Bouchery again). The section also required grenades, 1 apiece.

The rifle sections rarely went into action at full strength, and I wonder if they wouldn't carry more ammo than the standard battle load - so thing probably evened out that way.

At the company level, you thus had nine infantry sections, plus the 3 x platoon headquarters (6 men each who probably didn't use much ammunition, excepting the three 2-inch mortar crews and possibly the PIAT gunners).

In other words 4320 rounds of .303 for the riflemen, 225 Bren mags (assuming new ones were issued instead of reloading the old ones), and 45 Sten magazines, plus ammo for the platoon HQs and support weapons.

Really not a lot of ammunition to haul; a small vehicle like a Carrier or Jeep could do it, or in the German case a small horsewagon.

Judging by current practice, the ammunition would be kept at an ammo point at the company headquarters, supervised by the Company Quartermaster Sergeant. Today we use Drop Points (DPs) to resupply, usually one platoon at a time. The CQMS and a storesman or two will take ammo to the platoons individually rather than the entire company at once.

[ October 10, 2003, 09:28 AM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[JasonC]

About 1 ton, for a complete reload, or slightly less. Which would take a platoon carrying nothing else, and more like half a company if carrying their own weapons and gear. More typical would be a platoon sized ammo detail, and only a half reload for a single trip.

[ October 10, 2003, 02:44 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]