This topic came to mind, and I think it would be a fun distraction from all the seriousness in the country right now.
A little background for those who haven't experienced this. In training, units are issued live and blank ammunition for training purposes on an annual fiscal year basis that runs from October to September of the next year. This is all part of the unit's annual budget. If you don't use all the training ammo in one year, you may not get as much ammo the next year, so unit commanders are determined to expend all of their ammo every year, regardless of need, so they don't get less next year, regardless of need. For example, about August or September, a commander realizes that they've been allocated 50K rounds, and have only used 40K, so they really need to start expending ammo. Don't try to use the logic that maybe their allocation should be cut, if that's all they really need, because no commander wants their budget to be cut, regardless of whether it should be. It's an ego thing.
With blank ammo, it's pretty easy. They don't typically require much, if any residue turn-in, except ammo cans. Residue turn-in is the parts you have to return to prove you expended the ammo. Blank small arms ammo and disintegrating belt links are typically expended in areas where it is not practical to recover it. Smoke grenade pull rings and flare end caps require a high percentage of turn-in.
Well, you can imagine what happens when you're in a foxhole in late September, and you've got 2000 rounds of M60 blanks, and it's ENDEX (end of the exercise), so nobody to shoot at), and you're told to expend all your ammo (no live turn-in in late September) and fill in your foxhole (can't leave open foxholes in training areas). Some people (me ) link belt after belt and go crazy. Some people combine the two requirements, and bury live blank ammo in the bottom of their foxholes, and say "yup, I shot all my ammo", because they don't want to have to clean their guns from all that. These are not my kind of people. Blanks or live, you put a machinegun in my hands, and I'm going to fire the crap out of it, and scream things while doing it like "TAKE THAT FOKKERS" and "TELL STALIN ABOUT THAT".
Anyways, I'm going to stop here, and call this "Part 1".
A little background for those who haven't experienced this. In training, units are issued live and blank ammunition for training purposes on an annual fiscal year basis that runs from October to September of the next year. This is all part of the unit's annual budget. If you don't use all the training ammo in one year, you may not get as much ammo the next year, so unit commanders are determined to expend all of their ammo every year, regardless of need, so they don't get less next year, regardless of need. For example, about August or September, a commander realizes that they've been allocated 50K rounds, and have only used 40K, so they really need to start expending ammo. Don't try to use the logic that maybe their allocation should be cut, if that's all they really need, because no commander wants their budget to be cut, regardless of whether it should be. It's an ego thing.
With blank ammo, it's pretty easy. They don't typically require much, if any residue turn-in, except ammo cans. Residue turn-in is the parts you have to return to prove you expended the ammo. Blank small arms ammo and disintegrating belt links are typically expended in areas where it is not practical to recover it. Smoke grenade pull rings and flare end caps require a high percentage of turn-in.
Well, you can imagine what happens when you're in a foxhole in late September, and you've got 2000 rounds of M60 blanks, and it's ENDEX (end of the exercise), so nobody to shoot at), and you're told to expend all your ammo (no live turn-in in late September) and fill in your foxhole (can't leave open foxholes in training areas). Some people (me ) link belt after belt and go crazy. Some people combine the two requirements, and bury live blank ammo in the bottom of their foxholes, and say "yup, I shot all my ammo", because they don't want to have to clean their guns from all that. These are not my kind of people. Blanks or live, you put a machinegun in my hands, and I'm going to fire the crap out of it, and scream things while doing it like "TAKE THAT FOKKERS" and "TELL STALIN ABOUT THAT".
Anyways, I'm going to stop here, and call this "Part 1".