.223/5.56 in combat

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"The Soviets are reportedly unhappy with the 5.45x39 cartridge, and moving back to an improved 7.62x39."

Anyone care to elaborate on this improved 7.62x39?
 
I've never shot at anyone although I served with USAF in a combat Civil Engineer outfit for many years. But I observed many fresh Iraqi corpses during the Gulf War. That little bullet makes a ghastly lethal wound.
TR
 
American forces aren't suffering defeats
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Yeah, I think that was mentioned earlier. American soldiers aren't fighting a genuine First World power, either.

The latest generation of 7.62x39 is adopting the AK74 rounds air-gap tip, to improve wounding, but maintaining the overall effectiveness on building materials. Improved powders are also being experimented with, in an effort to allow for a slightly heavier bullet, but at the same velocities, and nearly ther same pressures.
 
I used both 5.56 and 7.62 in first Gulf war and in other actions. The 5.56 will do its job, but appeared to be marginal and was real hard to get good effects past 250-300 yards. The 7.62 was much better and worked well out to 600+ yards.

What is important to know is that rifles represent a small amount of the firepower of the Army and Marines now. The vast majority of firepower is in armored vehicles, MG's, grenade launchers, etc. So if your rifle isn't doing the job, many other things will.

The other thing to note is that my experience and other posters here do not represent a statistical sample and so you must take our opinions with a grain of salt.

BTW - my experiences have made me a FAL/HK rifle kind of guy and I keep the AR in 5.56 for the kids to target shoot with : )
 
But Javelin the Average military does not have 75gr anything.

OK so I asked my coworker this question today (we had 10 hours together), he was in Afghanistan with the 101st Airborne in 2001 and after 11 months was shipped home after an RPG struck near him. He was a squad leader and designated marksman(SDM). Yup he stated the M4 and 556 did the job, But the 50 cal was better. Yup the M9 9mm did the job, BUT.
So I asked him, you just got a recall notice to go back to the sandbox, you can take any long gun and handgun you wish. Answer, AR10 with scope and a Sig 226 or Glock 22 in 40. He knows the AR platform and is happy with it but the 556 just didnt do the job, same with the 9mm. To many times he had to fire more then several times to STOP the threat. He would rather have a 308and 40 or 45. He stated 40 over 45 as he would have a few more rounds in the mag. Now this is as designated marksman so I asked what about the other guys? His answer for MOUT operations like he was doing an AK47 or as min a HK MP5 in 45 or 40 (close in fighting). OK I said the AR 10 / 226 is not availible what is your next pick as SDM, answer M21 and a Sig 220. He currently carries a SIG 220 on duty. I then asked OK the AK 47 is not available next pick, answer HK G3.
Now I was there (Afghanistan) in 2003, I carried a M9 and for the first few months a AMD 65 (AK47), then they finally issed me a M4. My feelings are close to the same if I got recalled and could bring my own. Long gun M21 or HK G3 and handgun a S&W 1006 or 4506. Just our 2 cents from the sandbox. I will not go into our discussoin about body armor and etc.
 
As for only wounding the enemy, JR 47 was one of the few to ever question why enemy soldiers would be really cared for.

I've read about the objective to only wound on at least several Internet discussions and always wondered why we assume that Third or even Second world countries value human life.
Life in so much of the world is not only cheap, but worthless, and it always surprised me that we assume that so many countries have our attitudes, or would want to develop them. A Russian pilot ejected from a Mig 15 or 17 during the K. War and as he was waiting in the Pacific to be rescued, either a N. Korean or Russian plane was ordered to strafe him, because the western media and politicians then would have been forced to admit that Russians were flying against our pilots in their F-86s, F-51s etc.

We flew some 'Rapid Deploy. Force' officers etc in '82 from Macdill AFB to Mogadishu.
Keep in mind, those were the good old days for Somalia.
As we drove to the airport one day, I noticed a woman lying in a downtown side street having moderate epileptic convulsions, as two adult men watched from about twenty feet and giggled between themselves.
Where did Americans ever get the idea that most of the world values human life?

As the superb late Italian author Giusseppi Barzini titled one of his books about western societies, he put it in a nutshell:
"Americans Are Alone In The World". The world is tribal, still nursing grievances-ethnic, religious, linguistic (check recent squabbles between Flemings, Walloons in Belgium, and these are very minor by comparison)-from the year 1455 AD or even 500 BC.
Most of us have no idea.
 
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But Javelin the Average military does not have 75gr anything.
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Maybe not a 75gr round, but the military does use the MK262; a 77gr OTM. The OTM (Open Tip Match) is not meant to increase bodily damage but increase in-flight stability and ballistic coefficient/speed. The excellent terminal performance is a bonus of the design though.
 
I've used the M16, AR, or M4 since 1968 (with a few years off in that period) in Vietnam and as a LEO. My experience has been that it works well for what it is used for. There are all the stories of "I had to shoot him 4-5 times to get him to drop". unless you exactly duplicate all the factors involved (which you can't) there is no reason to think a 6.8 or 7.62 NATO would have worked any different.

Is a 6.8 or 7.62 NATO a better long range cartridge? Sure they are but there is one important fact to remember. Most soldiers (Army) can't hit a man sized target past about 200 meters anyway. We're not talking Delta Force guys but your typical soldier be they infantrymen or mechanics. The 5.56 has about 800 ft/lbs of energy at 200 meters and still has sufficient velocity to fragment. Marines shoot better. I'm saying this with about 30 years of active duty, National Guard and Reserve time. The M16 meets the needs of most Marines too.

ps Since enemy soldiers are approximately the size of deer, not groundhogs, the .308 is the obvious choice between the two.

What this statement fails to recognize is that enemy soldiers have a lot more intelligence than deer. An enemy soldier who can take his pulse by watching an artery bleed out has a totally different prespective than a deer hit with the same wound.
 
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I beg to differ on the "can't hit a man-sized target beyond 200 meters."

The current generation of soldiers are much improved over those of Vietnam, or even Grenada. They spend more time on marksmanship, and use optical sights whenever possible.

Perhaps you meant that most LEO types can't hit beyond 200 meters? Our soldiers are actually doing quite well whenever distances are opening up.
 
I beg to differ on the "can't hit a man-sized target beyond 200 meters."
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I agree. Our Soldiers get a lot of time on the range as there is money in the budget (or was) for training that folks in the past were not granted.

The main issue with the 5.56 in close combat is that it is a hot little round and when shots are taken inside 10 yards has a tendancy not to fragment but just pierce straight through flesh.

While this does make a large wound cavity that no amount of medical attention is going to keep you alive for long it does not always deliver the stopping power. This is why the heavier (more importantly slower) 75gr bullets are very important in CQB/Urban combat as they better allow the energy of the bullet to be absorbed ultimately fragment/yaw.

:)
 
With all this talk of overpenetrarion etc. Are y'all saying that the old M193 55 grain was a better combat bullet because of it's frangibility?

Also does the 55 grain stabilize sufficiently in a 1/7 twist enough for distance & accuracy purposes?
 
We need something in between the 5.56mm and 7.62mm NATO rounds that is still accurate and feeds reliably in belt fed weapons. A 90-100gr bullet with a high B.C./sectional density at around 2700-2800fps would be just about perfect.
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Sounds to me like you're describing a .25-06. I wonder why they haven't militarized .25-06? Couldn't they make an effective, lightweight, modern version of the M1 Garand in 25-06?

BTW, I didn't serve in combat but I did serve in the 116th Armored Cavalry (Idaho National Guard) for seven years. And, the M16s we trained on certainly put a lot of hurt on those big Idaho Jack Rabbits back then.
 
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^ .25-06 runs quite a bit faster with 90-100gr bullets than 2800fps. A .25-06 will throw a 117gr at around 3200fps, so with a 90-100gr bullet I am guessing 3300-3400 is quite possible. While it would shoot nice and flat, and have good on target performance the weapon would be really large for a magazine fed rifle, and with a round that far overbore barrel life would be unacceptably short.
 
This debate will go on for as long as the 5.56 remains in service. I think this is largely due to differences in expectations among users. Those of us who grew up hearing about the potency of the M1 Garand from our grandparents, and those of us who grew up shooting high-powered rifles and witnessing their effects on living targets, such as hunting, will probably tend to have higher expectations in terms of effectiveness. We tend to judge the 5.56 more harshly.

I would like to believe that the 5.56 must be at least marginally adequate or the powers-that-be would have gotten rid of it long ago. Whether or not this is true, I can't say. I only saw one large critter shot with a 5.56. It was a muley buck I shot from about 40 yards with a 55 gr JSP from a Mini-14 when I was 12. I wasn't impressed. Anything that requires me to go in harm's way will be addressed with a 7.62. Its advantages outweigh its disadvantages for my purposes. I wasn't given this choice when I was in the Marines, but I am more of a battle rifle guy. Make mine an M1A.

However, I believe the truth is probably, as with everything else, somewhere in the middle. The 5.56 gets the job done adequately within the intermediate ranges it was designed for, but while it is capable of being effective beyond a couple hundred yards, it isn't ideal and those situations requiring additional range or penetration are probably better served with a 7.62mm rifle. Those who suggest the effective range of any 5.56 to be 500 yards or beyond are probably delusional, and even within its effective range, to suggest the 5.56 is ever as effective as the 7.62 with similarly designed projectiles is ludicrous and out of touch with reality.

The main issue with the 5.56 in close combat is that it is a hot little round and when shots are taken inside 10 yards has a tendancy not to fragment but just pierce straight through flesh.
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Given that this is completely contradictory to simple Newtonian physics, would you please explain how and in what world more velocity increases the tendency of a certain projectile not to fragment?

Because unless you are privy to information disproving physical law, on this planet, velocity always increases the tendency of a bullet to fragment. This is true regardless of bullet caliber or design. Take any bullet and the faster you drive it, the more likely it is to fragment.

Think equal and opposite.

And with this in mind, the 5.56 is actually more likely to fragment at 10 yards than 100...
 
It is a much different thing to ask about weapon effectiveness from those who have used their weapons at close enough range to observe the effects.
As if they had other weapons handy to compare the results...
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This is an excellent point.

I will say that when I was a support soldier in an SF unit, none of the team guys on ODAs I ever worked with had any enthusiasm for the AKs the indigenous types carried. None bothered scaring up M14s from anywhere, either. For a fighting rifle, they were all very happy with the M4, and even some of the guys who got hands on HK416s thought it was no real improvement over the M4 (and lots were skeptical about the SCAR, also, though we didn't have any by the time I ETS'ed).

Almost all were also more than happy with 5.56mm, also. I can think of one CW2 or 3 and a couple other guys who were really interested in 6.8SPC when it first started getting air time, but that's about the only arguments for changing stuff I can recall hearing.

I think in all cases the ability to tailor the M4 to user or mission requirements/preferences made it superior to the other weapons floating around in theater, and adequate training to actually make hits with the weapon made 5.56mm acceptable. A whole lot of the "not enough stopping power" complaints come from people who lack the skill to actually hit the bad guy, and who confuse "I shot at him X number of times" with "I hit him X number of times."

Any thoughts on Chuck Hawks' .243 proposal?
http://www.chuckhawks.com/243_service_rifle.htm
Just curious.
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Silly and unworkable.

Ammo eats up the same cubic volume as 7.62x51, so even if the ammo is slightly lighter you can't carry much of a basic load.

Plus, it's badly overbore for a military service rifle that's going to put a lot of weapons downrange fast in training or actual combat. This means short lifespan for barrels, higher maintenance costs for an inventory, etc.

There are lots of better solutions out there for what a service rifle cartridge needs to do.
 
Given that this is completely contradictory to simple Newtonian physics, would you please explain how and in what world more velocity increases the tendency of a certain projectile not to fragment?
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Sure. It is all first hand so completely up for analysis and I don't care one way or the other about the 5.56 whether it is the end all be all or not so my feelings don't get hurt I assure you.

When we were raiding homes (Samarra, Iraq 2003 to be exact) and shots were taken within 10-15 feet (typical distance during nightly raids) the bullet would just pass straight through the targeted individual. The US Army understands this urban warfare concept completely which is why the we train using controlled pairs during CQB techniques. If you don't remember this is the circle, triangle, square approach to urban combat.

But on the contrary, at a distance out past the immediate muzzle it seemed not to have this effect and the bullet would tumble and yaw as it was designed. Unsure why and I am no physicist, or write gun rags, I was just a rifle platoon leader during an interesting time.

My personal feelings are that a heavier bullet will slow it down and assist in CQB scenarios where you need that blunt force trauma and the bullet to fragment/yaw more quickly. Not to mention the benefits (or curse) to material penetration such as auto glass.

;)
 
The Soviets are reportedly unhappy with the 5.45x39 cartridge, and moving back to an improved 7.62x39.
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First, i would LOVE to have further information of this "improved" 7.62 that you speak of.

Second, it has been discussed before. Russian SF's and paramilitaries went back to 7.62x39mm because of ricochet issues with the 5.45mm in CQB. Later on, 9x39mm compact assault rifles started to be marketed for their "low ricochet" characteristics, after being initially for close range suppressed sniping/marksman duty.
 
And how did you know the bullets were not yawing at 10 yards? It is not uncommon for some to look at entrance and exit wounds and assume that if both are near caliber sized, that nothing went on in between. It is an easy mistake to make. But having shot and seen-shot enough game animals, and performed the necessary autopsy report upon field dressing, I know it not to be true. It is fairly common for bullets to tumble and stabilize base first. When this occurs, the exit wound is undramatic, and not a good indicator of terminal performance.

More importantly, the fact that I would like to convey is that the rounds may or may not have tumbled at 10 yards or at longer ranges. Indeed, the ice-pick effect of the 5.56 has been well documented. "Blackhawk Down" is a among the more popular examples of this. But this inconsistency is probably due more to minute differences among lots in the design and construction of a relatively complicated bullet being produced in massive numbers.

Any failure of the M855 round to yaw or fragment at close range is most certainly not due to excessive velocity. In fact, the M855 round, as with its predecessor, and all other rounds depend on velocity for their effect. It has been demonstrated that the M855 round fragments reliably above about 2700 fps, sometimes down to 2500 fps, but almost never below. Obviously, at 10 yards, the velocity should have been adequate velocity for fragmentation. If they didn't fragment, it wasn't because they had too much velocity, but because they had too little.

Varmint hunters are well aware that it is possible to load some of the more fragnible projectiles fast enough that they disintegrate as soon as they leave the muzzle. The military conducted tests in the 60s, IIRC, in which they necked the massive .378 Weatherby case down to diameters as low as .22 caliber in order to study the effects of hyper-velocity projectiles traveling up to 5000 fps.

When a bullet strikes its target, the target hits the bullet as hard as the bullet hits the target. Because of this, increasing velocity will always increase the expansion exhibited by a projectile, or at least its likelihood to expand or fragment. As a game hunter, I know that going to a heavier-slower projectile has many advantages, but expansion is not one of them. The only time a heavier starting at a slower velocity would expand more than a lighter bullet of similar construction with a higher initial velocity would be downrange at the point where the heavier bullet's higher BC allows it to retain more velocity than the lighter projectile. In fact, I typically use heavier bullets in my 7mm specifically because they don't expand as much. They expand adequately to do their job, but not so much that it damages a lot of meat.
 
Nam '69. I was surprised at the effectiveness and accuracy of the M16. I had an m14 first and loved that too. My favorite was an M60 mounted on a vehicle. They use 7.62 NATO. I think full auto is neccesary in a modern combat weapon. I understand the current issue have the loud switch removed, Bad idea. I give a slight edge to the M16 as a carry weapn. I had no problems in Nam with any weapons. I understand some GI's trouble with their M16s be in our units I did not know of any.
 
Coal Dragger, don't you know the only way to 'disable a vehicle' is to KILL THE DRIVER! ;-) I'm guessing you do, because that's what the Marines are good at!
It always made me laugh how the ROE was 'Now first shoot the radiator...' as if a car doesn't take 5 minutes to overheat with a busted radiator and it can't coast if the engine was disabled...such a joke.
 
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