7.62 being replaced by 5.56?

Originally posted by RikWriter:
The advantages of 223 over 308 are clear enough to anyone that has had to hump through the boonies for any length of time, and abundantly clear to anyone who's ever seen the rounds used against living tissue.

Click to expand...

I have some small experience in that area. No doubt, at close engagement ranges, there are some horrendous exit wounds. I never cut anybody open to see what the insides looked like (at least what of their insides I couldn't already see), but I'll bet there was a lot of damage in there.

I have also seen first hand the truth of the pat saying, ".223 cover is .308 concealment". The 7.62 has better penetration of armor and the normal equipment soldiers have clanging around them. The 7.62 will go through that 1' diameter tree and kill you. And if the first one doesn't make it through, one 20-round mag and the tree is cut down, or close.

Personally, for serious antisocial events, I want a larger, heavier round to expend. The only time I have ever preferred having a 5.56 over a 7.62 was after having to hump a heavy rifle and heavier ammo for a day or so. But that was purely for comfort reasons.
And comfort reasons usually have little to do with effectiveness in a fight.

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Some say he is a Zen master....
Others say he is a ****head.
-John Overton

Our current combination of M16A2 and SS109 round is a pretty good compromise, considering who we have to qualify. And yes, there are wimps out there. Fortunately not many, but we still have to qualify EVERYONE. Including the people who literally fall forward because they flinch so hard. If you can't accurately fire the rifle they give you, get out of the military! This isn't just a college program or an office job!

Back to the ammo. Let's face it, the weight that grunts saved by switching from the M14 to the M16 has already been taken up by other things. The load is always going to hurt after twenty miles. So if I have to carry anything that far, it might as well be the best rifle possible (yeah, I'm insinuating that the M16 is not the best rifle possible).

The close-range effectiveness of the 5.56mm ball round is due to the tumbling, which causes the bullet to break at the cannelure, and the fragments basically destroy the tissue that has already been damaged by the "temporary stretch cavity." That's all Fackler, by the way. The wound profiles illustrate this well.

Unfortunately, these nasty things only happen at close to muzzle velocity, which is to say less than 100-150 meters. Around 200 or more meters, the stretch cavity is smaller and there are no fragments to destroy extra tissue. Then all you get is a .224 caliber hole.

Add to this easier deflection by brush and wind, less penetration of cover, and very low energy beyond 300 meters and you get a great CQB cartridge, not much more. If you know your engagement will be under 100 meters and there is little cover, 5.56mm is great. However, for an all-around battlefield cartridge 7.62x51mm is more versatile.

Oh yeah, I've heard that rumor that wounding the enemy is better than killing them. Suuuuuure. Did the Somalis really give a damn about their wounded? A wounded soldier can still fight back, and the people we fight nowadays usually don't try as hard as we do to help casualties. I don't know whether or not the designers of the 5.56 really intended it for wounding, but it's a bad way to go about combat.

There were some Ordnance Corps studies made in the early and late 1800's on lead round balls and their wounds. It was discovered that large, slow round balls, though allegedly ballistically inferior as a projectile, still created massive wounds. Not merely from the size of the projectile, but the striking surface and the bludgeoning effect of the round ball (versus the sharp effect of a spitzer that created a clean wound channel by cutting.) This was also demonstrated, according to the studies, by spent cannonballs that rolled lazily along the battlefield, tempting some soldiers to attempt to stop the cannonball with their foot, at which point the cannonball tore the foot, and often more portions of the leg, off completely.

Like the bumblebee, which scientifically should not be able to fly but does anyway because the bumblebee does't know that he shouldn't be able to, large caliber projectiles are more effective than smaller ones, even if the ballistic evidence says it should not be so. Reading on pre-1866 battlefield wounds via rifle and musket fire will reveal much enlightening information.

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"Go tell the Spartans, passerby, that here, obediant to their laws, we lie"------Simonides, upon the memorial at Thermopylae

By RikWriter: "Sorry Kevan, but that makes no sense".

... Well - ask anyone that hunts with blackpowder guns just how effective those big round lead balls can be on game
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As for engagement ranges; that is a pretty subjective matter, and it depends on many things.

The average range of OPPORTUNITY for engagement will be limited by such things as topography, land character, foliage, man-made structures, visibility etc etc.

The EFFECTIVE range (of actual engagements) might factor in; the overall quality of the troops, including their levels of marksmanship - and their equipment (small arms), as well as other factors.

From the War between the States all the way to the Gulf "war", in between lie many; such as the Great (second) Boer War - where aimed engagements were often at very long ranges. Much of the "modern" military theory revolves around what are basically assumptions. For instance that "modern" wars will be "limited" engagements, mostly in urban areas, etc etc etc. All well and good as painted by political theorists - except that war is not the most predictable of things, and attempting to "limit" them and place corresponding limitations on training and equipment is foolhardy.

RikWriter----I'd like to call your attention to tests done by the Ordnance Corps when designing the M1 Garand. Pigs were shot using both .30 caliber and .276 caliber bullets. It was found that the .276 would tumble after impact (sound familiar) and create a greater wound.


However, the panel felt that a soldier is not built like a pig. A soldier is muscular and tough. Like a goat. So they tried the same test on goats. At ranges under 200 yards, the smaller bullet still did the greater damage. But at long range, a .30 caliber bullet was better. Because of its greater kinetic energy it was still traveling fast at the same distance while the smaller bullet was quickly slowing down.


So, up to 200 yards, you are right. After that, well.... One point to bear in mind was that the military expressed reluctance to use rifled arms for all soldiers prior to 1855. They felt that a smoothbore musket was easier to maintain and was fine up to 70 yards, which was the common distance for the muzzle-to-muzzle warfare of the 1700's up to the Civil War. But, experience showed that precision, aimed rifle fire could make it unneccessary to close with the enemy in the first place in order to direct fire upon him. In the battlefield we see evolving before us, we may be getting only a single shot at a distant enemy across an open plain. We might need to go to a higher caliber in the future.

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"Go tell the Spartans, passerby, that here, obediant to their laws, we lie"------Simonides, upon the memorial at Thermopylae

Please don't forget another factor, tangential as it may be, that supports my theory in the Army's lack of confidence in its infantry.

What precedent was set in the Gulf War and continues today in Afghanistan? The air war. Sure, in days past Navy battleships would open up 16" guns near the shoreline to prep the beaches for the infantry. Airplanes, too, were used to destroy positions in advance of infantry assaults. But it is completely different now. The air bombardment is complete before a soldier sets foot on the ground. Every tank, anti-aircraft gun, radar position, troop carrier, crew-served weapon emplacement, etc..., is wiped out in advance of the infantry assault. The spirit is completely different. The Army disproportionately places the lion's share of the burden on the Ranger, airborne, and SF units to get any ground action done. Over the years, the number of infantry divisions has been slashed. The more traditional foot and mechanized infantry have been relegated to peacekeeping operations, maintaining ethnic cleansing-free zones and handing out food. The Army has no faith in its non-airborne infantry to fight a war.

So it is really a lineage of things: 7.62 to 5.56; .45 to 9mm; the disappearance of the infantry supplanted by a new air war.

It doesn't take much to see the recent evolution of the Army. The Pentagon has had decreasing faith in its men with every generation since the WWII/Korea era. It increasingly turns to smart or user-friendly technology to fight its wars.

The 7.62 issue is just a tiny subset in a much broader, sweeping plan.

And one last point...the Pentagon has decided to stop dropping yellow food packets on Afghanistan. Too many Afghans supposedly were refusing to pick them up, thinking they were unexploded ordnance. Okay, I can see that. The Pentagon announced it would drop future packets in blue color. The Pentagon has reversed itself. It seems the color blue carries offensive connotations in Afghan culture. So literally saving them from starvation is not good enough, we have to save them and not offend them.

Do you remember the commercial, "this is not your father's Oldsmobile?" Well, this is not my father's Army, nor is it mine.

Rob

[This message has been edited by In service to His Majesty (edited 11-04-2001).]