That's it. This is officially the worst thread I ever started.

I think it would be best to blanket the whole mess with a nice soothing term.
Let's try.....

Articles of War.

That sounds nice and cozy, neh?

Wasn't directed at just you, Siege. Geneva convention always comes up in these threads as the boogeyman convention that prohibits all conveniently odd manner of warfare.

The urban legend that won't die.

-Siege

It is NOT illegal to shoot people with 50 cals. I really don't know where this urban legend comes from.

Let the record show that I am laughing my ass off.

No. It wrecks the barrel, possibly it blows it out, and it definately dosen't work the way it's supposta.

Amen Frosty.

The "wounded theory" sounds like someone's pet project who has never been in combat.

As for "shooting to wound", a good friend of mine just graduated Army AIT and at no point did his Drill Instructors tell him to "shoot to wound."

For that matter, the only real commentary on aiming revolved around "center mass" as that's the most easily observable part of a hostile at range.

On a completely unrelated note, I did not realize the M-16 barrel actually has a slight angle to it, as opposed to a traditionally straight barrel as one might find in a hunting rifle.

-Siege

The reason for smaller calibre rounds.

It be easier to carry 300 x 5.56mmN rounds in 10 30round mags than it is to carry 300 x 7.62mmN in 15 20 round magazines. It means you can carry more bullets, use them more readily to provide cover fire and to shoot at people for longer periods of time. It also means that you can carry a lot more ammo overall and stay deployed for longer periods of time. Its no good to burn through all your ammo only to realize that you have to resupply half way through a firefight. It has nothing to do with "Wounding" or Casualty creation. It has to do with how small arms doctrine goes in most western armies.

However, the US Military is looking at several ideas for a round that is lighter than the 7.62mmN but performs on par. The forerunners being Remington 6.8mm SPC and 6.5 Grendel. Apparently the 6.8 has a bit more punch up close, but the 6.5 carries it better over longer distances, if I remember my numbers right.

If you still have those movies, I'd like to get a copy of 'em?

I think it was more a matter of using the equipment at hand to resolve the situation at hand.

Apaches are not, as I understand it, often outfitted to engage soft targets with cost effective solutions, so it's not a matter of the gunner picking an expensive solution just for the hell of it.

-Siege

Was that the footage of those the ones of the guys with the [likely] RPG in the blanket hidden under the tractor?

Yes, that was rather morbid to see the still warm 'gibs' scattered around. It was linked on the internet in a number of places, i believe it was an exert from footage released to a news program.

The XM8 was a weapon without a real purpose. The idea was to get some OICW-derived technology out ASAP, but it's just a cool looking polymer frame on a G36 (for the most part). Without the revolutionary combination of a grenade launcher and integrated sensors what's the point? The XM307 OCSW looks to be far more promising.

30mm HEDP overdose (AH-64 Apache vs. Humans)
Greetings from the Spectre (AC-130U vs. terrorist training camp)
This is what happens when you and 30 of your buddies try to ambush Marines in Fallujah
M249 upside the head

So... Okay. If you can drop bombs on people, you can shoot them with M2s. If you can shoot people with 30mm cannons loaded with HEDP, you can shoot them with .50 cal rifles. Of course, the Apache gunner was particularly justified, I think, because he was attacking what is quite obviously a piece of artillery, and its operators.

There is a picture somewhere on the internet of, IIRC, an Afghani terrorist with his head turned inside out, allegedly by an M82A1A. Due to the lack of anything resembling explosive residue (that I recall), I would assume that it was done with an inert load. There aren't a lot of things out on the battlefield that will make a mess quite like that. I don't particularly want to see it again, so I didn't go looking for it.

As hyzmarca said, the 1899 Hague is the appropriate convention to refer to in regards to the use of "bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body, such as bullets with a hard envelope which does not entirely cover the core, or is pierced with incisions." That rule was made in direct reference to the British .303 "Dum Dum" load.

Frosty, I think we essentially agree on this matter. We just have a hard time phrasing it. Like I said, I don't do my best posting at 2:30 a.m.

I just wanted to make it clear that we didn't mean "shooting to wound" when we talked about a military doctrine of wounding the enemy.



@Raygun -- I Googled the HK416... seems interesting. Looks kind of like the lovechild of an M-4 and an MP-7.

Just out of curiousity: What about your AR-15 makes you not sure about it in a combat environment? The same things that made the first M-16s a pain in the ass in the early days of Vietnam and prompted the creation of the M-16A1? Or something else?

16" Bushmaster XM15 - You nailed that one

I just recently affixed one of the bushmaster-made 74-type muzzle breaks though...very nice.

What makes the foot shot even better is that it was one of their trainers! Was just about to do a chamber check and BAM! Those darn wandering fingers

One of whose trainers?

Well, I bet he won't forget the rules ever again!

I don't know if this will sidetrack the thread...or if it really matters at this point, but could Raygun or someone who knows guns like him give us a rundown on what they think the pros and cons of the HK416 are? Not being particularly knowlegable myself, from the info I have so recently seen, it looks right up America's alley. A solid replacement for the M16/M4.

The M16/M4 and HK416 are both gas-operated rifles. This means that some of the gases used to propel the bullet from the rifle are tapped from the barrel and are used to push the bolt carrier rearward, unlocking the bolt, then extracting and ejecting the fired case. The bolt and carrier are then returned to battery by a recoil spring locacted in the stock of the rifle. The differences between the gas systems that each rifle uses are the big deal here.

AR15-based rifles (M16/M4) use what's called a direct gas impingement system. This system taps expanding gases from the barrel, then transports them through a very small tube directly into a "key" attached to the top of the bolt carrier inside of the receiver. This action propels the bolt and carrier rearward. The problem with this system is that after the key is pushed back past the gas tube nozzle, excess gas sediment is free to go wherever it may, which happens to be all over the relatively closed space inside of the receiver, where the bolt and carrier actually reciprocate. This is bad. The system gets dirty very quickly, eventually preventing the bolt and carrier from moving freely within the receiver. This is why every version of the M16 since the A1 has included a "forward assist"; a mechanism that physically pushes the bolt carrier forward when the action is excessively fouled and the recoil spring won't return the bolt carrier to battery as normal.

The Pros to direct gas impingement are:

• It is relatively lightweight
• The amount of necessary moving parts are reduced
• It is relatively inexpensive to manufacture

The cons:

• It gets dirty fast, negatively affecting reliability
• It gets hot fast, making it difficult to touch the parts that have to be cleaned
• It has to be cleaned often in order to operate reliably

In the HK416, the direct gas impingement system is replaced by a self-contained short stroke piston system very similar to that of the HK G36 (which is itself loosely based on the AR18). The short stroke piston prevents propellant residue from entering the receiver at all through use of an operating rod. In this system, gas is tapped from the barrel in the same way as direct impingement, only the gases are tapped directly from the barrel into a cylinder with a piston inside of it. Gas expansion drives the piston rearward only a short distance, perhaps about an inch (thus short stroke piston). The piston is in contact with a spring-loaded operating rod, which then comes into contact with the "key" on the bolt carrier. After that short distance of rearward travel, which transmits enough impetus to the bolt carrier to drive it fully rearward, the operating rod and piston move forward again, under spring pressure. After the bolt and carrier perform case extraction/ejection, they are also driven forward, by a separate recoil spring. The nifty thing about the G36/HK416 short stroke piston system in particular is that A) it's self cleaning; as the piston reciprocates, it scrapes propellant residue off of and out of the cylinder, allowing the rifle to function longer without maintenance, B) the operating rod/return spring assembly is self-contained; it can be removed as a single piece, which means only two additional steps in disassembly compared to the M16/M4 for maintenance (removing the handguard, then removing the op rod and piston).

The pros to a HK416 and short stroke piston system are:

• Propellant residue never enters the weapon's receiver = clean
• The piston is self-cleaning = less maintenance time
• Presents minimal changes to the existing M16/M4 platform in terms of user interface = reduced training times and costs compared to other rifles
• HK416 upper recievers can be attached to existing M16/M4 lower receivers, mitigating acquisition costs.

The cons:

• Short stroke piston system adds weight to the rifle
• Increased number of moving parts/parts to keep track of
• It's expensive
• It's made by HK, so it's really expensive.

Other differences between the M16/M4 and HK416 are relatively minor and mainly deal with a proprietary forward quad rail system for mounting accessories, an integrated flip-up front sight, and minor dimensional changes to the upper and lower recievers, such as a flared magazine well and a slightly elevated top rail.

As it was described to me, the barrel and firing mechanism is housed in the frame at a slight angle from horizontal in the M-16, by just a few degrees, so shooters have to aim a little lower than they otherwise might.

Which is why new recruits experienced with shooting hunting rifles and similarly "straight barrels" don't do as well when first exposed to the M-16.

It's very possible I'm explaining this badly, but the new AIT grad was very specific about the angle and resulting consequence. The subject came up when discussing new recruits, shooting ability and prior shooting experience.

-Siege

OK, I don't know whether or not the reason for the switch to 5.56 was due to an actual PLAN to put more soldiers out of the fight by making them take care of wounded. I just know that all the squaddies I've met who were around when the brits switched to 5.56 in that crappy SA80 we use hated it. They wanted to shoot a gun that would KILL people, like the SLR did, and were fairly convinced (rightly or wrongly) that the ammo was at fault, not the gun, which was to blame for any number of other things including the sky being blue if some squaddies are to be believed.

If you watch news footage of various british troops being deployed in the last Iraq war you'll spot the odd unit all equipped with a larger gun. Often these are old SLRs mysteriously shipped by mistake. The brass were furious and the squaddies were chuffed to bits (bearing in mind the units who by 'bad luck' ended up with these guns seemed to be people like 42 Commando and the Paras iirc, who just happen to be the units with the biggest rep for ferocity). Maybe its just a better gun, maybe the ammo is to blame, and maybe the reason for the change is simple cost or maybe it's modern western military doctrine. I dunno.

But I DO know that squaddies like bigger guns, and above all, guns which kill what they're shot at.

Which I suppose is no surprise.

I just want to know when I can get one of these.

~J

RP actually has a good point. I wonder why they didn't go through with it? Hmmmm....

I thought rocket launchers did that...