How practical was the reloading of mags with loose rounds or strips?

I was trying to figure out the real combat load of guys issued the M1 carbine in Korea and WW2 and it seemed like it was "3 mags plus a bunch of rounds on strips" and it all just seems kind of impractical to have to load mags in combat.

Which is maybe bullshit anyway.

Do they go off or claimed body counts where commanders were graded on body counts so every blood trail and body part became a body?

Do they include every round fired by a door gunner?  Is it only small arms or artillery and rockets too?

Or did they only count rounds fired by infantrymen?

remove the strippers, load 20rnd mags, and stuff the mags into the bandoliers

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I'm sure the general idea wasn't that you spent all your ammo in the first firefight you got into, and you would reload your mags with the strips/loose rounds after the action.  I'm sure it happened, but still better to have ammo you had to load into mags in combat than run out of ammo entirely.  From the responses so far, it seems that the number of mags you had was given, so if you want more ammo than those hold, you're bringing it loose.

Our company may have been a typical one, we often worked in platoon size or even squad size (for an automatic ambush, for example).  The platoon was divided into a fire team (waked point and did patrols) and a gun team (carried the M60 and did perimeter security).  As we moved through the day the fire team led the way and if there was contact the point man dropped and his backup laid down a field of fire while the rest of the fire team opened up.  Then the gun team moved up and set up, all while the fire team was active.  Each gun team member had a can with 200 rounds and you slid up and hooked up your 200 to the belt in front of you so the gunner had plenty of ammo.

A gun team member often didn't use as much M16 rounds as a fire team member.  I did half of my field time on the fire team then moved to the gun team.  Of course none of this covers the weapons platoon or the command.

Here is a photo of Pathfinder and Six.  Pathfinder was the captain's RTO and of course Six was Captain Gallagher.  I have really enjoyed my recent chats with the captain. Another photo of Gallagher studying a map and finally Gallagher paying tribute to the company's fallen from the Cambodia campaign.
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Those stats are usually lazy math computed from-total rounds bought by the gov during the time/ alleged body count.

Simpletons think that means that's how many rounds were slung during a firefight to kill one guy.

They don't consider a lot of those rounds were used in training, stored and left behind unused, lost and/or destroyed, given to allies etc.

I was in an armoured Cav unit in Nam so we were different. If I ever had to get off the track I made sure I had 2 bandolers of ammo.

I think someone just found a statistic of  "the US expended X rounds of small arms ammunition in South East Asia" ,divided it by EKIA and came up with the juvenile extrapolation of "it took X rounds to kill".

there is the famous pic from John Plaster showing his standard load as 21 mags.  20 twety rounders and one thirty rounder in the gun

the BAR belt will hold 4 twenty rounders per pocket ,6 pockets to the belt.  thats for SOG recon Teams who no doubt carried more.  figure 20-30 mags

4 mags will fit in the M56 pouch.  two pouches issued.  then you see guys with those and two 7 pocket bandoleers  across their chest.   likely more in the light weight rucksack.

The numbers I remember came from the military itself so juvenile extrapolation may not be too far from the truth.

My brother once posted this on here about 10 years ago and maybe relevant to the PO’s question.

My cousin served in Vietnam between 1966 to 1968 as part of ROK-Army force.  ROK military arrived in Vietnam with US supplied materials including weapons.  In 1966 US military were supplying ROK infantry forces with M1 Garand, M1 and M2 carbines, BAR, M3 SMG, M1919 MG and 1911 pistols.   Most common were M1 Garand and Carbines.

When out on patrol with M1 Garand typically they carried 8 clips on the belt plus 2 bandoliers with 6 clips each.  In addition 2 bandoliers in the pack for total of 272 rounds.  In addition he said most guys carried a clip in each of the top blouse pockets.

For the M1 and M2 carbines they usually carried 2 dual pouch on belt plus another pouch on the stock.  They also carried 6 loaded magazines in modified M1 Garand bandoliers and usually carried two of them.  Finally they usually carried 2 bandoliers (240 rounds) of ammo on stripper clips in the pack.  In total it was over 500 rounds.  BTW they all carried 15 round mags as most 30 round mags they received were not as reliable.

For the guy with the BAR they typically carried 4 dual pouches plus a bandoliers with 3 magazines for total of about 240 rounds.  Then there were usually 2 assistant gunners carrying 2 bandoliers each.

In addition to personal load everybody also carried spare can of belted ammo for the M1919 MG.  He said almost nobody carried pistol on patrol except M1919 gunners who carried a 1911 plus 2 spare mags.

ETA. during this period ROK patrols were for short duration of one or 2 days typically and they could not depend on to be resupplied or expect Air support while on patrol...only artillery support.

How about cold beer?

Given the different number and capacities of magazines carried, a more accurate estimate could probably be made by comparing types of fires used and time in contact.

IIRC fire discipline among UK forces was at one time based upon the following:

Deliberate fire - 1 round every 6 seconds
Rapid fire - 1 round every 2-3 seconds
Assault fire - 1 round every 1 second

With that line of thought, a standard load of 210 rounds in 7 mags offers about 21 minutes of deliberate fire,7 minutes of rapid fire, and only 3.5 minutes of assault fire. At the very least it's an interesting way to look at ammo carriage.

Last time we said this included training and spendex and everything else

... and never get off the boat....

Considering that it never happened?

It went just fine.

The first 2:20 are rather relevant to this discussion.  Of course the rest of it is always worth watching too!

The *actual* figure of 50,000 rounds per enemy KIA includes all rounds expended, by all armed forces combined, in any capacity.

This includes ammo expended during stateside training, ammo disposed of in burn pits, and any other ammo that could not otherwise be accounted for.

lol

The stripper clip attaches to the magazine, you push down with your thumb, and then you remove the stripper clip.

You are correct. However what Derek is referring to is that the loaded strippers were originally issued in the pictured cloth bandoliers. Soldiers would remove the strippers, load their magazines then reuse the cloth bandolier as magazine carriers.

Are you off your fucking meds? Christ, what an insufferable thread-shitter.

Early on, the magazine pouches were designed for one magazine like the M-14 pouch. Later on the pouch held thee magazines.

Am I mistaken that the cloth bandoliers were more or less disposable?  The ones I've handled seemed rather flimsy.  One use only most of the time?

You are correct.

As an aside, doesn't this really put to rest the idea that M16 magazines were designed to be disposable?  If that were the case why would anyone ship ammo to the troops on stripper clips or loose?  Wouldn't it have been delivered in already loaded magazines if the mags were truly disposable?

Yes they were disposable item but were frequently modified and used for other purposes like carrying magazines or grenades.
There was a picture of one I saw where they sewn on loop and button on each pouch to carry 6 hand grenades in a bandolier.

Depends on the unit, Corps Tactical Zone, time of year, mission profile, and at least a dozen other factors.

I've seen a CCC guy's battlebelt of nothing but canteen covers stuffed with 20 rounders.

More interesting than the "contributions" of the butthurt guy who is thread stalking the OP.

JFC
I know this may be hard for you to grasp, but it's possible that he's asking here as part of his research. Next time you're trying to feel superior, try not to say something so fucking stupid.

Actually, when you include Aircraft Cannon, Miniguns, Helicopter Door Guns, Vulcans, Quad-.50's, and crew-serves, as well as the fact that a lot of folks carried between 500 and 1000 rounds for their M16, you can go through a LOT of ammo quickly.  An M16A1 on "rock and roll" will empty a 30-round magazine in less than two seconds, and in Vietnam they used a Lot of suppressive fire.

This might come as a surprise but not everyone in a dismounted Infantry formation fires their weapons on contact because most of them are not at the point of contact.

In tropical climates with jungle and mountainous geography, you end up with a lot of linear formations that are channelized.





So your lead or mid element gets ambushed either by a small unit intent on reducing you with small attrition, or a larger unit intent on destroying you.

The element of your formation closest to contact will be the most likely to return fire.

As riflemen return fire, they start to go through magazines at whatever rate of fire they end up using.

The less experienced the leadership and soldiers are, the right or wrong RoFs will be applied.  This can both be too much or too little, depending on the proximity to the enemy and the enemy size, terrain, etc.

For a small hit-and-run tactic, you might just take a casualty and not return fire at all because people weren't paying attention, thick vegetation, no signs of muzzle flash, or individual rifle shots.

After some time has passed from chance contact or a firefight, upon consolidation and reorganization, key leaders will redistribute ammunition so that the elements that made contact and fired get plussed-up again, and the unit can Continue Mission or exfil.

In Vietnam, the most ammunition was typically expended during what were called "mad minutes", which was counter-fire for enemy sappers after nightfall, when set in an overnight security halt/patrol base.

Some describe doing it right after nightfall, while others did it in the morning in all the places where they thought sappers could have crawled into satchel charge range of the Platoon or Company.

In speaking with a good number of VN vets, they went through a LOT of ammo...often in ways that, while not bad, likely didn't hit anyone.

Suppressive fire was a huge goal and auto was used frequently.  They often simply fired into places that the enemy might be...as in a general direction.  Terrain and vegetation limited visibility.  Fire often started and stopped for various reasons that weren't directly connected to an actual enemy being there.  Flares went off...and so on.

When fire was initiated, there was very little clear indication that they had killed whomever they were shooting at due to vegetation...so they kept shooting.

Having said all that, I still can't wrap my head around some of the loadouts.  You read about guys carrying 500 rounds on stripper clips in their ruck...

I can't envision sitting down to reload empty mags or similar...as in time for this would exist?  At some point, you made contact...the enemy knows you are there and you know they are there...it happened, but it still feels odd.

I did my share of mad minute madness.  But LRRPF52 nails the situation.  The team in contact was real busy real fast but if you were back in the column somewhere you went down and prepared but waited for orders- sometimes they just didn't come.  I never thought we expended too many rounds, more like the correct amount to assure superiority.  Since the NVA had exposed their position we promptly sought artillery and air support.  After they ceased fire we moved up and so on.

Working in a platoon or squad size made everything much more dramatic as there was no back-up for maybe an hour.  Pucker factor for sure.

I just asked Dad what he carried in Vietnam and he said 1 in the gun and 4 spares. He was with the engineers.

Very cool info sir, thank you for your service and your friends.

Unless you were loading empty mags you were carrying, why wouldn't the mags you used go back into their original mag pouches?

To carry more magazines than possible than with the issued pouches.