I read an article a long time ago about to poor marksmanship of the average Infantry soldier, and how, as the population gets more urbanized, and the average youngster spends less time around firearms, the more the marksmanship suffers.
Not that it takes a rocket scientist to figure it out, but the story was illustrated by the number of rounds fired per enemy dead, through American wars from the ACW to Vietnam.
During the War Between the States, ordinance officers estimated that “it takes a man’s weight in lead to kill one soldier”. It’s a guesstimate on my part, but figuring that a .58 rifled musket ball weighs about an ounce, and the average Civil War soldier weighed about #170, it comes out to over 2700 rounds to kill one enemy soldier, discounting artillery and blades.
The article went on to say that figuring the casualties in WW2, Korea, and Vietnam, versus the ammo expenditure, it’s getting progressively worse. Of course this would stand to reason as automatic weapons on the battlefield become more prevalent.
It was interesting reading, and I wish I could remember where it was that I read it.
7mm
