Comments by "Sar Jim" (@sarjim4381) on "The Drydock - Episode 135" video.
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How many total rounds of any caliber naval ammunition was produced, how many were expended, and how much it all cost during WWII is devilishly difficult to find out at this late date. I did manage to come up with one very preliminary estimate from six different sources for 40 mm rounds. It appears that about 17 million rounds were produced in 1942, 89 million in 1943, 130 million in 1944, and back down to 15 million in 1945. That's a total of about 251 million rounds. The total spent on 40 mm ammo ranges from about $600 million to $700 million. Just choosing the midpoint, I'll assume a reasonable amount was $650 million. Given that, $650 million divided by 251 million means each round cost $2.58 in 1945 dollars. A single 40 mm gun had a practical rate of fire of 80-90 RPM, so let's choose 85 RPM. $2.58 per round multiplied by 85 equals a cost of $219.30 per barrel per minute, or $877.20 per minute for a quad mount. Now we know why there were so many ads about buying war bonds!
Now, just getting this admittedly imprecise data was about two hours of trawling the net and a splitting headache, so anyone wanting to try to come up with the same figures for things like five inch rounds, have at it. :-)
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