"Ammo fads!" Topic

So I remember back in 2003-2004.

There were lots of arcticals about how bad the 5.56mm was.

In magazines like Guns and ammo, you would have sevral articals writen by soldiers, horror stories about how the 5.56 did not work.

I remember reading one, writen by a special operator, don't remember which unit, but some american special ops, I think it was Force recon.

Anyway the artical was he moved into a building, by a window with his back towards the "marine" was a taliban fighter, the "marine" fired a doubletap into his back. he fell down and the "marine" moved on. The taliban got up and shot the "marine" in the back.

And this was one of sevral similar artical in sevral mags and one line.

Aperantly the 5.56 didn't work with the new shorter barrled M4s.

We had know about this for a while, Since the mid 90s we knew the standard ball 5.56 did not work as well from the 14.5" barrle of the M4 as it did with the 20" barrle of the M16.

But got even worse with the use of 11.5" and 10.5" of the new compact M4s.

This is because for the 5.56 needs a certain speed to be leathal, if it does not reach that speed. the bullet just goes straight through the body doing little to no damge, so unless you hit the brain, heart og spine, it could take alot of bullets to stop anybody.

And with shorter barrles, the bullet does not reach that "magic" speed.

And so the hunt for a new caliber started. the big one that came out on top was the 6.8mm.

It was so great and wonderfull the military would so totaly start using it.

But with in a year or two. Nobody talked about it.

Why? because they simply fiddled a little with the design of the 5.56 meaning it will now do it's "magic" at lower speed and so can be used on shorter barrled rifles.

This reminds of the minidisc thing, sony came out with it, it was supose to be the big new thing. Then a couple of years later MP3 totaly took over.

More than likely the change in the 5.56 was cheaper and easier than adopting a new round. .303 British came in two different versions, one for rifles and one for machine guns. Each "tuned" to the specifics of the weapon. (still think I'd want .50's or 20mm on my wings, but the Spitfires did fine with .303)

Spitfires eventually adopted .50s and 20mm cannon, though…

Damon.

Interesting. A quick look on Wiki (I know, I know) suggests that most went into combat w/.303 (a fine round by the way) variants did appear with 2 20mm cannon which seemed to have a jamming issue and carried only 60 rounds.

*sigh* just another esoteric topic that I'll waste time learning more than the average human needs to know.

GR C17 my impression is that as the war progressed the all .303 armaments were phased out, so by the late war period most Spits had at least 2 20mm cannon. Beyond that, the Typhoon and Tempests had all 20mm armaments for most (if not all versions), so at some point the British must have determined that the .303, good as it was, just was not adequate for their needs anymore.

Damon.

That certainly makes sense. .303 is a great round against soft flesh targets, it's a 30 caliber round after all. But against harder, bigger targets it's really just ok.

If it really took an average of 4,500 rounds to take one aircraft down it's no wonder they'ed want a change.

Good link about the effectiveness of WWII plane ammo.

link

I thought a major problem with the 5.56 was a poor ballistic performance beyond 500m and a poor penetrative performance against the traditionally robust Afghan buildings. The widespread adoption of 7.62mm DMR's partially solved that problem.

As for the USMC rifleman, who told him a double-tap was sufficient? I thought the drill was to drop the target then make sure, or is that too un-PC and a war crime now?

Thanks for the link.

Not un-PC but I imagine seeing your target go down after putting 2 rifle rounds into him would seem sufficient. Especially if there are other things going on, like more bad guys shooting at you.

Could have also been due to poor shot placement. As for poor performance here's an interesting example, a rumor that the 30 cabine did not penetrate the frozen clothing of NK troops. Seems that it's most likely untrue.

link

About the USMC, it might be perfeclty possible he was a shill for the remington guys(I think they are the one that invented the 6.8) Guns and ammo is above all a mag to sell guns and ammo, I think they care more about the advertisers then the subscribers.

The 5.56 was never a man stopper far byond 300 yards no mater what gun you fire it from.
And yes it is also not great at going through stone strcutures neither in iraq or Afganistan.

Also before afganistan and afganistan few units actualy had to fire at long range.
So yes the 7.62 got a big comback in the 2000s, with M14s comming out of national guard store houses.

It lead directly to the devalopment of the SCAR H and 417 more modern 7.62 rifles.
But they still do not have the range of a M14(1000 yards)

About the M1 carbine.
Yes the roumors are false, but stem from the fact that time and time again, North Korean and Chinese soldiers did not go down.

The .30 carbine round is an odd one. on papir it should be a great round, basicly the power of a .357 but range of 200+ yards.

But it apears to loose it's energy very fast(over short range) So when you hit some one at 100+ yards it did not have the power it should have on papir.

I think it's more the fact that all of NATO has been chambered in 5.56mm for decades, and for the flagship member to now switch over to 6.8mm would require huge expenditures on behalf of other NATO partners that might not be able to afford it.

Having read Barrett's field testing of the 6.8mm round performance, I would readily support a change. The 5.56mm round is generally adequate, but "adequate" isn't enough when you're talking about life and death of our troops. The 6.8mm round (or 6.5mm Grendel) would allow the US and NATO to continue to use their current weapons, with refit requiring a only a new barrel and bolt group. That means that NATO could improve the combat performance of its primary infantry weapons with much lower cost than having to field all-new weapons. The remaining stocks of 5.56mm would be issued to security forces only, while the new rounds would go first to those units heading to active combat areas.

What was the problem with 7.62mm, anyway, besides amount of ammo carried?

DDT

The 6.8mm round (or 6.5mm Grendel) would allow the US and NATO to continue to use their current weapons, with refit requiring a only a new barrel and bolt group.

And magazines. I had thought the 6.8 could use standard mags, slightly fewer rounds, but it seems not.

What was the problem with 7.62mm, anyway, besides amount of ammo carried?

Weight

What was the problem with 7.62mm, anyway, besides amount of ammo carried?

Rounds were heavy, and something like an M14 was completely UNcontrollable in full auto fire.

Personally, I'd want to go to either 6.5mm or 6.8mm (I prefer the accuracy of 6.5 but 6.8 has better energy within 300m), and do an across-the-board changeover. All individual rifles, all SAWs, maybe even replace the 7.62mm MGs in most platoons since 6.5mm carries more energy than a 7.62mm does past 500m.

If I kept the Weapons Squad's MGs in a larger caliber than the basic rifle, I'd consider punting them up to the .338 Norma Lightweight Medium Machine Gun ( link ), which is good out to 1700m. .338 Norma is comparable to .338 Lapua, but has less case taper to work better in linked belts. And that would be a total replacement item for all 7.62mm MGs, including vehicle mounted ones.

In fact, I kinda hope the US's Lightweight Small Arms Technology LMG gets shifted to 6.5 or 6.8. It's either a plastic-case-telescoped round or caseless. Army wants to go with the plastic cased ammo to shift sooner, Marines want the weight advantage of the caseless ammo and are willing to wait.

Even if regular American troops continue to use 5.56, special ops could easly use the 6.8, yet they don't.

I remember reading one of the reasons for not going with the 6.8 was higher recoil on full auto, but from what I've read special forces have stoped using full auto on rifles, and now stay completly on semi, and the recoil on semi auto between 5.56 and 6.8 is not that great(from what I've read)

So why not let SFs use the 6.8?

And yes the M14 was uncontrolable on full auto(even the SCAR H and 417 are not used on full auto)

If I had a choice between full auto 5.56 and semi auto 7.62 I'd take 7.62 in a 417 rifle, you get sub compact versons of them in like 11.5" barrles.

In the 60's-80's the M177 "Shorty" had all the drawbacks that the M4 still exhibits. You'd think someone would've learned.

And all this discussion went on in the 1930's while the US military were trying to get a workable semi-automatic rifle and a new round. Budget problems resulted in the M1 rifle (designed by a government employee, therefor no licencing fees) and a reduced power M2 .30 rifle round. The M1 was originally going to be chambered for a .276" (7mm) round although a .256" (6.5mm) round was considered a superior man stopper and the .258" (5.6mm) round caused even bigger wounds again.

Add to the issue that the military must use a FMJ (Full Metal Jacket) due to treaty (Geneva I think?) restrictions. Thus they liked to get their bullets to do things like tumble and what not to increase the size of the hole in the target.

The Russians figured it out with their very similar 5.45x39mm (AK-74) cartridge. Although they also had complaints during Afghanistan about the size of hole their bullets made, their ammo was still much better than ours and is a little scary in ballistic jell tests. The U.S. finally got around to copying the Soviet-era ammo recently in the "newly designed" M855A1 round which has a steel core, but also destabilizes very quickly when it hits something.

@Russell: The Hague Convention, actually, but otherwise correct! Frangible rounds are banned under international laws of warfare.

I'm also wondering why the 4.6mm and 5.7mm rounds are talked about with such reverence. Having been a knuckle-dragging grunt, I disagree with the concept of a "personal defense weapon". A PDW is a pistol, in my mind; anything else should be capable of offensive combat use. Otherwise, you aren't deploying soldiers -- you're deploying victims. I know the P90 is highly accurate and the 5.7mm rounds are armor-piercing, but I don't see a role for those outside of security/law enforcement missions.

Don't many countries used frangible rounds for their sniper rifles? As for the 5.7mm, the SF community use the MP-7 which fires a 4.6mm bullet, then again they fire until the target is definitely out of the fight and at close range, so the ballistic performance of an individual round is largely irrelevant.

Thought the Soviets in Afghanistan started to reissue the AK-47, due to its heavier round?

The Sierra MatchKing bullets used by the US are basically non-expanding. The hole in the nose of the jacket is there for aerodynamic balance and ballistic reasons.

Sierra Bullet Company strongly recommends AGAINST using Matchkings in game because they don't expand. Arguably, they're flat-out illegal in my state for hunting because of that. Non-expanding bullets aren't legal for shooting game in Idaho.