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AMMO ALLOCATION

HollywoodHitman

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Given the current shortages in the CF ammo system, how are soldiers earmarked for their superior shooting ability? I would even go so far as to say that marksmanship skills are severely lacking amongst all soldiers, to include both the regular force and especially the reserve force infantry units. That being said, there is little doubt that Canadian Snipers are at the top of the food chain of shooters go..........

It will be 5 years before the ammunition allotments are sorted out after the procurements people forgot to order new ammo..........So given the criteria to be selected, how does a young troop develop his shooting skills if there is no ammo to do it with.......SAT training won't cut it........

TM
 
    I have to jump in here and say there isn't really a shortage of ammo.  We've got plenty and its usually prepositioned based on the forcasts that users gave us.
    From what I have seen is there is one main problem with perceived ammo shortfalls.  Lack of communication.  If the user does not tell us that they need ammo until the day before they want to draw it, well if it is in stock in at the base where they are using it they will probably get it, if it has to be ordered in, maybe they will, probably not though.  In Gagetown we regularly get orders for items that were not reflected on the forcast we got in Feb for the upcoming year that we ordered our stock against.  Ammo sections do not control allocations and therefore don't get info'd on changes to allocations, normally we get a draft of the proposed allocation in the Feb-Apr time frame and order against that.  So if you unit is gifted with an extra 20000 rounds of sniper ammo but don't bother telling the ammo compound you need it until two days before the range, well I hope we have in stock (very real, very recent example, no shortage there, just poor planning).
  The other point, and one that is getting better in recent years, is units wasting their allocation, especially of SAA.  We regularly get back loose mixed rounds, and unless the unit is willing to repack it, it'll be considered expended unless you are authorized to keep it loose in your own ammo lockup, and for visiting units thats not an option.  I have seen units show up, draw several cases of ammo, only have a few pers show up to shoot, and return thousands of rounds loose.  Tell them, "You wont get credit for this unless you repack it", reply "Thats fine, we've got to get home."  And I wont even get into amnesty boxes, it is obvious to me that either, A. Range staff are not doing declarations, B. Pers are lying on their declarations and then getting cold feet, or C. Pers find a good chunk of ammo in vehicle/kit/lunchbox after delcaration, hand over to CoC who then throw it into amnesty box because its almost time to go home or the QM staff aren't around to take it.
    Yes, ammo does have 5 year or so purchase cycle but the ammounts we buy are driven by Ops not Log.  They tell us how much they will need and we buy it.  If it changes, well that can be dealt with, but you need to pass on the info in a timely manner.  We no longer have Crown ordnance factories, we have to deal with private companies that are both profit driven and probably dealing with other contracts.
    The ammo is in the system, the G4 side of things are only to happy to push it out the door to the users and get nothing but salvage back.  I hate to play a branch/cap badge blame game, but G4 generally don't make decisions, they execute plans developed by Ops/Trg.  However until Ops/Trg down to the lowest level can tell us what is needed when and where in a timely manner problems will exist.
 
AmmoTech,

Good to know. I was only relaying what I have been told by higher ups when requesting large quantities of ammo for training, although in Bosnia I was fortunate to get as much as I could use, even more. The ammo was there and if it wasnt going to be used, they were going to destroy it, so I thought it would be rude not to take advantage of it.......I guess I just wonder why the extreme shortages are given as excuses for not conducting ranges more frequently. Last year teaching a DP2A in Wainwright, we had a measly 1100 rounds per troop for the C6.....I was told by the CO of the battle school personally that the shortages were due to a CF wide shortage of ammo, due to the fact that someone missed the boat on reordering after Germany shut down, and the ammo was brought back here. Hard to teach a troop how to use the C6 to it's proper capabilities in the light role on 1100 rounds let alone the SF role......This seems to be a myth that is perpetuated throughout the CF, because I have heard everything from shortages CF wide, to hoarding it for OP stock in case Afghan or Africa blew up..........
 
due to the fact that someone missed the boat on reordering after Germany shut down, and the ammo was brought back here. Hard to teach a troop how to use the C6 to it's proper capabilities in the light role on 1100 rounds let alone the SF role......This seems to be a myth that is perpetuated throughout the CF, because I have heard everything from shortages CF wide, to hoarding it for OP stock in case Afghan or Africa blew up..........

Unfortunately, that Germany "myth" is pretty well exactly what happened. (PPCLI Guy has done a much better job of explaining this is in detail elsewhere on this site...) We lived off the CFEUR ammo stockpile for too long without buying replacement. That, combined with a massively increased OpTempo and an Army-wide ammo management system that really wasn't, we burned through a number of natures very quickly. We then fell behind the eight-ball on ammo procurement, where we seem to have been ever since. Hopefully the Army's phased readiness program will help us ease the pain a bit, but the final solution IMHO is more $$$ for ammo. Cheers.
 
pbi,

I realize that there have been shortages due to lack of resupply but that is largely done with.  I won't deny it happening but in the last two years I have seen it happen twice, both with natures that are unusual and for one of them we did not have a forcast for usage, even at the Area level.  I have ordered the ammo for Gagetown's annual resupply and can tell you that at the end of the training year there are lot of basic natures (5.56mm Ball Clip, 7.62 4B/1T, etc) that we don't have to top up a whole lot because we still have 50% of last years training allocation we ordered in our mags.  We are currently using ammo manufactured between 2002 and 1993 for training, this tells me we have new stuff in reserve.
 
AmmoTech,

I'm on the left coast and we still have severe shortages of ammo. The allocations for reserve units is pitifully small and the units are lucky to have ANY spare ammunition to run practice serials let alone requalifications. Is there a possibility that the ammo simply hasn't made it out this far yet?
 
No, I would say the ammo is there.  There is just a problem with planning sensible use of it.  I know that on some courses (LAV gunner for example) the candidate has to fire a certain number of rounds to qualify.  However with blank there is usually a significant ammount left over when a course is finished.  That does not go back into a national pool to be redistributed to different training activities.  Each activity has its own allocation and authorization from higher headquarters is needed to move ammo around between activities.  So if SQ course 0401 only uses 4000 of its 8000 rounds, SQ course 0402 does not get to add those 4000 rounds to its training allocation without approval.  This means that a lot of ammo goes unused.  So to use this, a unit would have to know how much is unused, develop a training plan to use it, get that training plan approved, and get the resources (ranges, transport, rations, etc) in place to be able to use that ammo.  Not an easy thing to do.

As far as reserve units getting small allocations from what I can see that varies from unit to unit even within the same area.  I only see the allocation world from the outside but here is an example.  Here in LFAA there is a unit reserve unit that comes to Gagetown every year and draws a large quantity of ammo of many natures (MG, 84mm, 66mm, Grenades, 60mm, and 81mm when Inf had them).  This unit seems to be the only unit of its type that comes to Gagetown to fire this much ammo.  There are at least three other units of the same type branch in LFAA and they do not draw anywhere close to what this one unit does.  Unless the units are going somewhere else on the East Coast to fire this (there isn't anywhere else...) I don't know why this one unit gets so much.  This has been happening for several years.  So maybe someone in G3 can answer this question.  Are certain reserve units given more ammo depending on their task?  Are certain units given larger allocations than others?
 
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