The Deadly Beauty of the Tracer Bullet

[Castiel]

Far easier said than done. I actually spent quite a while trying pin down actual figures but most of what I could find was pure conjecture found on military forums ("I heard it was xxxxx") or linkage to that article in the Independant. Find me what you would consider a real ratio source then please.

There was no reason to give an journalist sourced estimate on ammunition to kill ratio in the first place.

Considering that to give an accurate kill ratio you would need to separate Training expenditure from Theatre expenditure, followed by an accurate death count which is impossible as firefight/suppression casualties are not recorded as a rule and those that are known are highly speculative.

The probable figure is more likely to be in region of 1:2500 in theatre including suppression and in-theatre training.

Sniper ratio's which are generally far more accurate are as little as 1:1.3 in combat operations.

For the purposes of your article, only the total expenditure was required if you found such a figure was important. The speculative kill-ratio was superfluous and hyperbole.

 

[Fourstar]

The Knob Creek gun range night shoots have always been good for tracer fire.

View from the covered firing section
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijBC9Gmf1NA

Or a guy firing his minigun till the barrels glow like an old electric heater.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFEafMjrlOw&feature=related

 

[Edrof]

That video looks like WW2 all over again!

Just a quick thanks to everyone who read or clicked the link; I got a record 7,500 readers for it on 14th of September and my stats page says it was somewhere on the Daily Fail site (that should please Tefal no end -if that's possible!), although I can't find the link.

Anyway, thanks again!