5.56 too small?

tbooker said:
It also take alot more resources to tend to a wounded soldier than a dead one. Military's would rather wound the enemy than kill them.
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That all depends on what army you are fighting.

I am sure the Russians would have been very unhappy to care for all those wounded soldiers litering their lines as they advanced.

However, if I wound a member of the Taliban, and his friends retreat and leave him, under the Geneva convention, I have to take care of him and offer him the same care as my soldiers. Not exactly what I wanted.

Also, I am not 100% convinced by that whole theory, based on the fact that many people were wouded in WW II and WW I by "full-size" cartridges as well.
 
British troops are trained to shoot as individuals at 400 m, it used to be 300 for the SLR. That is an improvement, you cant however make effective fire out to 600 m without the GPMG. The 5.56 magazine and belt fed Lmgs dont retain the firepower down range to knock big holes in mud walls.
Yes the .280 was sadly dropped but it was only ballistically any good in its 280/30 version which the US dismissed anyway. We adopted it but with Korea underway Churchill logically canned the round and the Rifle. That also killed the belt fed version of the Bren, the TADEN.
Still we will see what happens but all the time that the US manufacturers are wedded to the GI magazine as the benchmark then we will not get any great performance from a 6.5 offering over the 7.62 x 39. None of them better it substantially in retained energy with bullet weights under 140 grains. Thats where we need to start.
 
Make like a sponge and absorb!

http://www.firearmstactical.com/wound.htm

http://ammo.ar15.com/project/Fackler_Articles/effects_of_small_arms.pdf

http://ammo.ar15.com/ammo/

Knowing the facts behind it would help resolve alot of the urban legend BS. Bullets in the end are just chunks of metal that are projected at high speed to cause damage to tissue. The one shot drop "man-killer" small arms round does not exist. It all comes down to what you hit with that piece of metal. One shot drops are caused by central nervous system disruption. for the ranges in the article GPMG's and Designated Marksmen rifles are whats needed.
 
TimC said:
British troops are trained to shoot as individuals at 400 m, it used to be 300 for the SLR.
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Which is great, but it has also been pretty conclusively demonstrated that few troopers are well enough trained to actually hit anything out to 300 yards while under fire. Incoming fire does that to you. My reading suggests that this was the reasoning behind the philosophy of small round, rapid fire. If your soldier can't effectively engage a target with aimed fire, it makes much more sense to let him shoot a lot more rounds in the general direction of the enemy.
 
A 5.56 through the head does the same as a 7.62. With the 5.56 you get more heads.
Humping a ruck full of 7.62 for days on end will make you a believer. I've done both.
 
jamiejaf said:
A 5.56 through the head does the same as a 7.62. With the 5.56 you get more heads.
Humping a ruck full of 7.62 for days on end will make you a believer. I've done both.
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If you can hit a moving target a 300M with a single shot to the head, I will be fairly impressed. Doing so under combat conditions while rounds are comming at you would be more impressive.

7.62mm is heavy, but being able to hit the target through ligh foilage, and small trees is certainly nice. It would be logistically simpler to issue a 7.62mm rifle, and GPMG, then adopt a new rifle caliber, a new rifle, and a new LMG to go with it.
 
MatthewMarchand said:
If you can hit a moving target a 300M with a single shot to the head, I will be fairly impressed. Doing so under combat conditions while rounds are comming at you would be more impressive.

7.62mm is heavy, but being able to hit the target through ligh foilage, and small trees is certainly nice.
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If you can hit someone in the head through a small tree at 300M, under combat conditions, I'd be impressed.
 
In early 1970' US was experimenting with 6mm SAW's; head dia .410 lenght 1,779". They were getting 2650fps with 105gr FMJ. In my opinion thats what NATO needs. They should stretch it a litle (1,875"?), shorten the neck a litle, play with modern propelants, up the presure a bit (bigger brass head and small rifle primer will allow it) whatever it takes to up the muzzle velocity to 2800fps or so with that bullet. That would please anyone in my opinion. Any coments?
 
Intial gun mag discussions of the 6.8 SPC were that U.S. special Ops folks were having trouble keeping talliwackers from popping a grenade, or activating their oh-so- fashionable suicide belt after tapping them multiple times with 5.56 out of the shorty barrels in vogue. The 6.8 was developed jointly with US Army Marksmanship Unit and Remington, to function out to a standard M4 lower, and feed within the very restricted cartridge OAL limitations of that system.

Once the rifle loonies got at it, though, the SPC paled in comparision to several other 6.5 projectiles at extreme ranges, and of course, long range ballistics outweighs real world terminal ballistics hands down, for those not tripping the trigger. (The reason for original reports of Failure to Stop in the great South East Asia safari of the 1960's was, simply, that the rifle loonies in the US Army Ordinance Board insisted on more projectile stability for better long range accuracy, increasing muzzle velocity and twist, thereby sacificing terminal instability and instant projectile tumbling in flesh.) Reliabilty issues then arose from DOD insisting the ammunition be loaded with a WW II surplus powder of which they had huge quantities. Just because it badly fouled the direct gas impingement system was again, no reason to revert to Stoner's original concept. Non-operator rifle loonies are the death of shooters.
 
Skills and drills fade between tours even with the current tempo of operational tour turnarounds. The level of training available is even across the board. The support arms are right up in the front line as its more a guerilla war than the Army was ready to fight when it first deployed in theatre.
If the weapon systems are adequate and I include all available including fire support arty and air, then it doesnt matter if they cant be shot at at what we would call decent engagenment ranges, fix the enemy, call in support and take the fight to the enemy so they can be engaged with grenades and bayonets if necessary. Sitting back at 1/2 a K, pouring in fire until the enemy go away isnt going to win the war, thats if winning the war is what we are there to do!
 
TimC said:
Skills and drills fade between tours even with the current tempo of operational tour turnarounds. The level of training available is even across the board. The support arms are right up in the front line as its more a guerilla war than the Army was ready to fight when it first deployed in theatre.
If the weapon systems are adequate and I include all available including fire support arty and air, then it doesnt matter if they cant be shot at at what we would call decent engagenment ranges, fix the enemy, call in support and take the fight to the enemy so they can be engaged with grenades and bayonets if necessary. Sitting back at 1/2 a K, pouring in fire until the enemy go away isnt going to win the war, thats if winning the war is what we are there to do!
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However, the the insurgents job is to avoid just that, they do not want to be decisively engaged, or they die.
 
MatthewMarchand said:
However, the the insurgents job is to avoid just that, they do not want to be decisively engaged, or they die.
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That then is the question, do we fight on supporting the civil action plans and get nowhere or does the fight get taken to the enemy, the areas get secured (using even more troops) and the correct environment for building a safe and secure state is put in place?

Some deployed battlegroups do actively take the fight to the enemy but they really do seem to have the casualty count to prove that they are starting from scratch at the beginning of each tour!
 
Shoot the bad guys with what ever you have untill they are no longer a threat, 5.56, 7.62, .50 cal, 25mm, 30mm, 105mm, 120mm, Hellfire.

The Canadian Army is not allowed to fire hollow point bullets, as per The Laws of war that Canada has signed. One example is at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/dec99-03.asp
So we are stuck with lead core with full metal jacket rounds.

That "One shot, one kill myth". Has no place on the battle field, or any gun fight.
 
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