Shooting poodles
Ah, the old 5.56Nato (they don’t shoot 223, guys) is ineffective bit. Kim has the details it and Yosemite Sam chimes in. The 5.56 is not the best round for people stopping but it’s as good as many other combat rounds, despite what detractors say.
Remember, penetration is only good for armor. Bullets, generally, do not knock people down (unless it takes out a knee or some such) so knock down power is a myth. What makes a round effective is blunt trauma.
June 9th, 2006 at 1:29 am
What makes a round effective is the ability to trasfer sufficient kinetic energy to the targeted human as to render said human unable to fight.
As has been said ad nauseum, the 5.56 has failed to do this since introduction. Now we have this:
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htweap/articles/20060607.aspx
So the Army is now reccomending either the double tap or shooting at fat guys in order to make the 5.56 effective.
As of now, the core rationale of the 5.56 (the weight of the ammo) is nullified. The Army, with a few terse, stupid, and expediant words has effectively doubled the weight of the basic load.
Equally dumb IMO is the 6.8mm.
We have all the round we need in the 7.62 NATO. The 5.56 is a political holdout from the failed pentomic Army days, A brief period of time when an Army that wasn’t broken was somehow fixed. And a rifle that wasn’t broken, the M-14, was declared obsolete.
June 9th, 2006 at 10:09 am
Arrrg… it’s not the transfer of energy. Two football players who collide while running at each other at moderate speed (or one player at full speed), dissipate more energy than a 5.56 round (if my rough-order-of-magnitude calculations are right) and a heck of a lot more than a pistol round. It’s not the energy that’s transfered, it’s the damage that the transfered energy does. Deforming and tearing flesh, breaking bone, etc., that’s what’s important. Energy transfer is one aspect of the damage (it requires energy to deform or break parts of the target)
The army needs an assault rifle as a primary infantry arm. Not a battle rifle. Modern tactics require supressive fire (with aimed fire thrown in for good measure), it’s easier to pin the other guy down and call in arty/air strikes, etc. The designated marksman needs something different, but the army needs something that can be shot on full auto controllably. The 7.62 isn’t the answer. I’m a big a fan of full-power rifle cartridges as anyone, but the army needs an assault rifle. I’m not sure what the best comprimise is between power and controllability is (.223, .280 brit, .243, 6.5Grendel, 6.8SPC, 7.62×39, 7.92×33, whatever…), but a compromise must be made. You’re not going to have a modern army with battle rifles instead of assault rifles. In a militia/insurgency/whatever setting where you don’t have much in the way of supporting fires, you might want something bigger. I’m of the mind that the .223 isn’t the best solution to the problem, but, frankly, it’s a better assault rifle cartridge, and therefore general issue cartridge, than the 7.62×51.
June 9th, 2006 at 12:11 pm
Nothing goes so unused as the full auto position on the M-16 select.
Supressive fire? The enemy WILL duck with half the number of 7.62 rounds fired at him, all the same. If his cover is weak, that 7.62 round will find him.
First criteria of a basic infantry weapon:
It must go bang when you pull the trigger, every time.
M-16 in the sand box? (or mudbox or dustbox or dirt or gritbox, or the slightly worn extractor box, or any one of a number of reasons: Fails.
Against a human target, one torso hit should end the fight.
5.56: fails.
If you were to drop say, a springfiels M1-A scout into the hands of every joe tentpeg in iraq, my guess it you would be held up as godlike.
June 9th, 2006 at 1:57 pm
“If you were to drop say, a springfiels M1-A scout into the hands of every joe tentpeg in iraq, my guess it you would be held up as godlike.”
You probably would be. But, then the log guys would probably hunt you down and kill you for making their jobs so much harder. If I were going to carry a rifle in such an area, I’d want something like an M14/M1A/M1/FAL/G3, etc. And if I were going to be in a vehicle, I’d prefer a tank. But there are tradeoffs to be made. Even though we have Abrams, folks still use Humvees. On one side you’ve got power, lethality, range, “stopping power,” armor penetration, etc. On the other you’ve got less recoil, bigger basic ammo load, lighter weapon, etc. I’m honestly not arguing that the M16/5.56 combination is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I’m just saying it’s of the right class of cartridges for the job. Tactics want an assault rifle. (Even if almost always used semi-automatically.) The M16 is one of those, the M14 isn’t (as good of a battle rifle as it is).
June 9th, 2006 at 3:41 pm
Damage/destroy central nervous system, e.g. brain, spine.
Damage/destroy vital organ, e.g. heart, lungs, liver, etc.
Damage/destroy blood transfer, e.g. bleed out.
Those are the *ONLY* ways that bullets kill. There is *NO* magical mystical “kinetic energy transfer.” There is *NO* magical mystical “knock down power.”
Physics 101. Punching somebody in the nose with your fist departs much more energy than any bullet could. Yet most don’t die because of it. Or else boxing would have died out long ago for lack of participants.
June 9th, 2006 at 10:31 pm
No one has mentioned bullet design as seperate from bullet size and weight. You can get radically different effects from the same size and weight pill at the same velocity using different bullet designs.
I’ll say no more, except that the rifle is an entirely seperate subject. Oh, and that new propellants have increased the potential value of case volume. Take it from there, bureaucrats. Oh, and;
BC matters. A lot.
BTW, If my own kid was in theatre, I migh consider slipping him some soft points.