Surplus Ammo sales

[Hibs]

Lol that’s insane. Different times I guess

Wow, way to resurrect a dead thread in order to get your post count up LoL

 

[lazarus]

Lol that’s insane. Different times I guess

I mean it was for SURE the war to end all wars this time. For sure. Pinky swear. We didn't need all that stuff just sitting around taking up space, armory maintenance, etc.

One bit of seriousness, a LOT of the stuff dumped/destroyed was at the point of obsolescence. The Johnson for instance was nice and had some perks over the Garand, but the Garand was generally a fairly superior rifle and using just ONE rifle is the best way to go for logistics. Not immediately at war means we could take the slow approach and figure out what makes sense to keep or jettison. Most WWII planes at the end of the war, the writing was on the wall about Jets, so especially earlier models would have been destroyed anyway.

But yes, it would be nice if the military took more time and thought to taxpayer value and what can and should be sold on the civilian market later (anything legal IMHO).

 

[Allen65]

I mean it was for SURE the war to end all wars this time. For sure. Pinky swear. We didn't need all that stuff just sitting around taking up space, armory maintenance, etc.

One bit of seriousness, a LOT of the stuff dumped/destroyed was at the point of obsolescence. The Johnson for instance was nice and had some perks over the Garand, but the Garand was generally a fairly superior rifle and using just ONE rifle is the best way to go for logistics. Not immediately at war means we could take the slow approach and figure out what makes sense to keep or jettison. Most WWII planes at the end of the war, the writing was on the wall about Jets, so especially earlier models would have been destroyed anyway.

But yes, it would be nice if the military took more time and thought to taxpayer value and what can and should be sold on the civilian market later (anything legal IMHO).

Some of the decision to destroy war stocks after WWII was purposeful to prevent harm to domestic industry. After WWI, stocks of material like airplane engines were sold off cheap in great volume, and hindered investment in development of better-performing engines commercially for a decade.

The lesson was taken into account in the decision to destroy rather than sell large stocks of land, sea, and air vehicles after WWII. Some got sold, but sales were throttled so as not to flood the market with war surplus that was in direct competition with commercial new products. Flooding the market and suppressing the commercial economy would have throw the country into deep recession just as the Government was trying to pay off war debt.