How many million bullets were used in World War II?

[crazyy_men]

I guess it's impossible to know

[Soteris]

Seen an estimate of around 41.4 billion rounds of small caliber bullets (like rifles and machine guns as opposed to artillery or tanks) fired during ww2. Of course we can't know for certain. We have somewhat of an idea when it comes to consumption based on how much was produced and transported to the front lines. We also have instances where we know to some degree how much was used in a battle by your average soldier.

Ironically, they were better at hitting than we are today. The US military shots several hundred thousand bullets for every insurgent they kill. The philosophy being that bullets are cheap so might as well use them.

[Soteris]

Actually that number is incorrect, the 41.4 billion is just based on what USA distributed. Of course, they did send a lot to their allies as well but that would not even account for half the bullets used in the war in this case. I guess ill look into this a bit deeper.

[normalice]

It wouldn't be that hard to know if you just ask the people who made them. Surely they kept records.