I have always assumed that every Krag the Army had was in service during the Spanish American War, and that most of them saw service in Cuba, Puerto Rico or the Philippines during the Spanish War. I was bored so did a rough estimate to see whether this is a reasonable assumption.

Carbines

Number of 1896 carbines 22,493

Cavalry Units in action or overseas
1st, 2nd, 3rd,4th,6th, 9th, 10th plus 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry

roughly 8 regiments, 8,000 carbines, so chances are better than 1 in 3 that a Carbine saw action.

Rifles

1892 and 1896 rifles 86,459 (this number may be off)

Infantry Units in action or overseas
2nd, 3rd, 4th,6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 24th, 25th,

21 units, roughly 21,000 rifles. Then there were artillery units and miscellaneous staff and logistic troops. So chances are a little less than one in four a random rifle saw overseas service.

There were a couple U.S. Volunteer Infantry units that went to PR and the Phllpipines. I left them out of the count, not knowing if they were issued Krags.


I guess my takeaway on this is that we had enough Krags in the spring of 1898 for every front-line soldier in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Those soldiers spent enough time in camp in Florida, any halfway decent logistics system would have been able to issue the weapons and ammunition. And they had plenty of time to train. The units started assembling in April and didn't embark until mid-June.

Everything I've read about the SAW indicates that logistics and supply were the weak points in the US military of 1898. More later.

jn