Army Report: GIs Outgunned in Afghanistan

[Hammerhead6814]

That's what I thought. No offense, but your opinion in these matters is just about as good as the egghead who thought the 5.56 looked good on paper back in the lab. It always seems to be the civilian shooters are the ones who complain the most about the 5.56 round. I wish there was some sort of credential verifier before you could post in these 5.56 bashing threads.

If you really need them, I can produce four current active duty soldiers who despise the 5.56.

 

[Mags]

that wounding an enemy is preferred to killing him

LOL, that myth is absolutely hilarious because guess who treats wounded insurgents? American medics that's who!

If you really need them, I can produce four current active duty soldiers who despise the 5.56.

I am sure you can, but I bet the active troops happy with 5.56 outnumber those who are not. Look at the active soldiers who have posted here.

 

[Kentucky_Rifleman]

I fail to see why this debate always becomes so heated. It seems like this issue, more than most others, brings out the worst in otherwise rational folks.

Consider the following comments:

I don't care what the motor pool sgt said.

But hey! That’s just me, I do have extensive combat experience, but no doubt your experience is much more applicable.

If you mean it wasn’t written by a AR15/M16/M4 fan boy? You are right.

Haji ain't got night vision capability.

It's your lie, tell it any way you want to.

your opinion in these matters is just about as good as the egghead who thought the 5.56 looked good on paper back in the lab.

If you had really read about the British Afghan campaign

Less imagination with more knowledge of actual history and of the developement of tactics, would give you a much better argument.

Personally, I put more stock in opinions that don't sound like half of a shouting match between children.

KR

 

[SaxonPig]

H6814- The theory of wounding rather than killing was developed long before "insurgent" was a commonly used word. In the early 1960s the strategists were thinking of more conventional warfare, one nation's army versus another. In that scenario it makes sense to wound an enemy who still must be fed and watered, and now cared for by medical personnel, treated with medications and other supplies, carried by two stretcher bearers, etc.

This concept actually makes sense although I have discovered that for some reason many people get really bent out of shape trying to dismiss the notion or argue against it. Wounding an enemy soldiers causes much more harm to the other side than killing the enemy outright. In either case the individual soldier is out of the fight but with wounding him they continue to use precious resources to attend to him. Simple logic.

 

[telomerase]

The function of the infantry is to die so that Americans will hate Pashtuns in the middle of frickin' Asia, instead of the people who just stole two trillion out of the economy in "bailouts".

The infantry can die quite well while holding M4s, or for that matter a gladius and pilum. Getting them decent rifles makes no sense.

 

[HexHead]

H6814- The theory of wounding rather than killing was developed long before "insurgent" was a commonly used word. In the early 1960s the strategists were thinking of more conventional warfare, one nation's army versus another. In that scenario it makes sense to wound an enemy who still must be fed and watered, and now cared for by medical personnel, treated with medications and other supplies, carried by two stretcher bearers, etc.

This concept actually makes sense although I have discovered that for some reason many people get really bent out of shape trying to dismiss the notion or argue against it. Wounding an enemy soldiers causes much more harm to the other side than killing the enemy outright. In either case the individual soldier is out of the fight but with wounding him they continue to use precious resources to attend to him. Simple logic.

A concept which goes back to 1908 and the German development of the 9mm Parabellum round.

 

[leadcounsel]

Another point that I haven't seen mentioned is the weight ratio of the ammo. A full combat load of 5.56 is noticably lighter than a full combat load of 7.62x39 or 7.62x51.

I am a Soldier with two deployments to Iraq. I can tell you that ounces equal pounds when you are carrying all of your gear. Non-military people (e.g. journalists that write these editorials) don't tend to realise that we are already overburdened carrying weapon (8 lbs), ammo, mags, body armor (30-40 lbs), kevlar helmets (5 lbs), water (5 lbs), first aid, other gear such as radios, belted ammo. When it all adds up it is easily 50-60 lbs for the basic combat load. Every extra ounce that you add increases the chances for heat exhaustion casualties, knee, ankle, and back injuries (short and long term), and less mobility for the Soldier scrambling for cover.

The 5.56 is a very good compromise round.

 

[amprecon]

The industrial military complex is not just alive and well in America today, it is the accepted status quo and it is very much imbedded into our political infrastructure.

To keep it short and simple; its not about having the best equipment as far as the opinion of the troops, its about what equipment will make your representative the most money.
Also the promise to your compliant commander the best post-military job available if he plays along, whilst his troops post-military outlook will place them among the growing ranks of the unemployed.

As soon as you all figure out who the real enemy is.....well, then, you'll know.

"Porro ago nostrum gubernatio!"

 

[SaxonPig]

HexHead- Actually, the 9x19 was the scaled up version the German military demanded. The original cartridge designed for the Luger pistol was the 7.63 which the German army found too small. The case was blown out straight to allow loading a .355" bullet creating the 9mm Luger.

 

[LiveLife]

leadcounsel or any other who is/was combat veteran, what's the general consensus on the 6.8 SPC among troops who has actually seen the effects of this round? If it performed as advertised to specs, should do even better in 20" barrel vs 16" M4. As to combat load, 6.8 SPC should add nominal weight vs round count.

 

[Hatterasguy]

The Marines don't have much trouble engaging out to 500 yards...



They also have the new MK318 sleeping pill.

 

[pat86323]

My cousin has been over to the sandbox several times and his complaint has never ever been caliber related but training related. If you are very familiar with your weapon you can make shots at better then 300 meters out of an m4. And if you doubt the killing power i dare you to let someone shoot you with a 5.56 round at 800 yards and see how you like it.

 

[JR47]

Outgunned is only vague to someone who has never been outgunned in combat. I have. Interestingly personally I was not, but the rest of the unit was. In Vietnam when we got the first issue of those Black POS Matty Mattel’s. In a firefight when 1/3 to ½ of your platoons rifles can’t function, or to put that in to the parlance of this discussion, cannot hurt the enemy, you are out gunned. I Had my M14 still, but that left me the guns, and what was left of the platoon to engage the enemy with their AK-47’s. Their rifles worked.

All right. I also served in Vietnam, back before the decision was made to equip everyone in-theater with a M16 rifle. I was issued a TRW M14, that I used the period that I was there. They tried to give me an M16, but after having two of them malfunction, and be lost, I was re-issued my M14.

Being outgunned has/had nothing to do with your little tirade. The definition of "outgunned" varies widely. Were the British "outgunned" by the Germans? Were the Germans "outgunned" by the Americans? One of the salient points of the Russian expedition into Afghanistan was the issue of the AK74 lacking range over the older, heavier caliber Afhan fighters. The Soviets had artillery, squad-served weapons, and air-support. Those are great items against another military, but are just about useless over the individual guerilla, or the small group that hits-and-runs.

The 5.56x45 round was never intended to be used against targets beyond 400 meters. As the effort was made to adjust the gun fielding it to ever-shorter barrels, the ammunition became ever more problematic.

Training can make up for some of the problem. After all, hitting the target is more important than bullet design, penetration, yaw, or fragmenting. Our men and women are better markspeople than Hadji has ever dreamed of being.

However, distance is distance. The guy shooting at you from 500 meters isn't going to be there when that air-strike arrives, nor is he going to be worth the collateral damage from a 105mm barrage. Then again, even if he is, time is usually of importance. While he holds you up, his own people can run, or sneak around for an ambush.

Knight's Armaments has developed a PDW that uses a 6mm cartridge. Out of a 10" barrel, it has more power than the 5.56x45, by at least 100 ft/lbs. If the M4 is to reach it's true potential, the 5.56 cartridge needs to be optimized for the shorter barrels.

 

[winchester '97]

Seconding cosmo's idea, the rest of the world already hates us so why not give our troops the best chance in a firefight we can? I have heard from ex service members of the M4 overheating because the barrel is so thin, and it loses accuracy when hot, very much like a PSL DMR. But in all reality we probably will stick to the AR series for money reasons, so the best choice would be to rechamber them for an intermediate round like 6.8mm with a slightly heavier barrel. And the saw IS reported to be effective past 300 meters, but i imagine a saw gunner feels rather inadaquate when he comes under fire from a PKM gpmg, a steady stream of 7.62x54r will reduce concrete cover to rubble rather fast, anybody here that has fired/owns a mosin nagant, imagine a fairly accurate stream of those rounds leaving the weapon at 600 rounds per minute.

 

[Shawn Dodson]

I also would like to know how a slightly bigger bullet, like the 6.8, is going to be so much more effective than a 62 or 77 grn 5.56 at long distance.

A 6.8 bullet is more than "slightly bigger." It has nearly twice the mass (110-115gr) and greater sectional density allowing it to better penetrate light barriers and produce greater wound trauma. It also possesses greater ballistic coefficient.

 

[Gelgoog]

I think the points here have been hashed out plenty. So I will just add some useless commentary.

I think the U.S. Should have just adopted the Italian BM-59 instead of wasting all that money on the M-14 or M-16.

 

[Deltaboy1984]

While not PC re-issue the M-14 and let keep the women stateside and out of the combat zone. If we have to have them over there give them the m-4 and do you best aka ww2 to keep them out of active Combat.

 

[HorseSoldier]

American Marines were cited in GERMAN dispatches as being extremely effective and accurate with their rifle fire. This is on troops that DID NOT LINE UP FOR THEM. I can suggest some reading for you if you would like.

Are those the same mythical dispatches no one has ever seen that coin the term "devil dog" also?

Sorry to rain on your parade, but the USMC brigade that fought in WW1 wasn't any more or less effective than anybody else with their rifles -- and when the other guy used fire and manuever and effectively employed cover that performance wasn't real impressive. Besides giving us the factoid that long range rifle work mostly didn't work on real battlefields, however well guys could poke holes in round NRA style targets on a manicured range, this is also the war that taught people that artillery and crew served weapons did the killing. This would seem to indicate that, even if they had an Eagle-Globe-Anchor on their uniform, guys with rifles weren't getting the job done very well.

Apologies if I've harpooned anyone's sacred cows, but facts are often inconvenient for myths and legends.

Actually the assault rifle cartride came out of the Second World War. The first World war spawned the Submachine gun and "automatic" rifle with full power rifle cartridges, known by some as simply a light machine gun. Sub guns were of pistol caliber.

You're also incorrect on this point. German research on intermediate cartridges began during the Weimar Republic days based on their analysis of battlefield data. They favored a 7mm projectile as optimum, but by the time they get full scale funding for R&D WW2 logistical considerations resulted in 7.92 Kurz.

The Russians pursued similar reduced power rounds, favoring something around .25 caliber in the same time frame (and may have based the M43 round on the German 7mm prototypes, not 7.92x33). And of course the US research advocated a .25 caliber round as well, before settling on a reduced power .276 caliber round to replace 30-06 as a service rifle caliber.

Fielding of all these was complicated by the worldwide economic collapse but the reality is that everyone who studied WW1 battlefields and tried to update the service rifle was working in the direction of an intermediate cartridge because they had learned the lesson that guys weren't able to do anything effective out past 300 meters or so.

AS to the development of full power self-loading rifles. What do you call the AR-10 and the SCAR 17 but fully developed full power calibers and being issued today.

And why one may ask? Because things were not working so well with the underpowered assault rifles. AS I stated above, I believe a mix and or choice is required, not just one or the other.

Who's issuing full powered service rifles to anyone these days?

We have the M110 (not AR-10) and the Brits have similar, but those are for snipers. The Mk17 is being purchased at a rate of about one for every ten Mk16s. When I got out a couple years ago, they were being procured to replace some or the sniping systems the team guys had issued, not as a general purpose battle rifle.

 

[Tirod]

Let's sort through some misinformation:
1) Nobody goes shopping for a new caliber just because some rumor says it's not working. IF there is a problem, THEN the Army sorts through it's resources and supplies an answer. So far, the Army's answer is to use refitted M14's at the rate of maybe one per squad, about 5,000 on the contract. That means the Army is supplementing a squad's firepower about 10%, which means the experts on the ground think that is all that's needed.

Uninformed civilian opinion has no bearing on the matter whatsoever.

2) We are issuing hollow point ammo in 5.56, if the comment on the Hague convention is related to that, get up to speed please. It's a obvious sign of a lack of familiarity on the subject, something this thread is full of. JAG already did an inquiry, it came back OK, the bullets were contracted, the ammo is in the field. Last year. It doesn't mean they can magically travel 1,200 meters or have the impact of a 7.62.

3) Fielding an alternate caliber in war on a push basis already has a disaster story to go with it, entitled "The story of the 5.56 in Vietnam." INFORMED perspective leads me to think that the 6.8 SPC, as much as I might like it, won't be type approved any time soon. Maybe never.

4) The thread title is inflammatory and false, the article is uninformed and misleading. Again, who says we're outgunned, and why is the 5.56 not performing? Conjecture aside, the issue is about insurgents using large caliber CREW SERVED machine guns vs. an intermediate assault rifle. The Army isn't wrong for using the M4. who's wrong are those who think it's supposed to be a match for Soviet .50 cal. Well, it never has been from day one. The issue is about tactics, not caliber, which is obviously beyond the scope of informed conversation by most posters.

The answer is stop trying to own the ground, start trying to win over the people. Hence the battle plans to clean out urban strongholds, now and in June.

The long term solution isn't a technical choice of which caliber, it's the tactical use against insurgents and diminishing their influence over the people.

 

[amprecon]

gelgoog,
How could we reduce ourselves to such a level and not spread the wealth around, spending millions upon millions of dollars only to come up with, well, a slightly different BM-59 called the M-14.
Dang those pesky ingenious Italians, slinging mud in our face with their fraction of the cost contrivance.

 

[UnTainted]

Great post Tirod.

 

[C-grunt]

A 6.8 bullet is more than "slightly bigger." It has nearly twice the mass (110-115gr) and greater sectional density allowing it to better penetrate light barriers and produce greater wound trauma. It also possesses greater ballistic coefficient.

But that doesnt answer my question. Its still going to slow to cause a large amount of damage outside the bullet track and probably wont fragment. I just dont see how this is going to kill an insurgent when the .223 wouldnt have. At 500 yards the M855 is traveling somewhere in the area of 1850 FPS out of an M16. Thats still bookin along pretty good and will easily drill a hole through you.

Maybe instead of trying to figure out what to replace the 5.56 with, we just issue M16s in Afghan?

My unit had almost all M16A4s and we never had a problem with the 5.56. My brother in law's Marine unit in Fallujah, again armed with M16A4s, never had a problem with the 5.56.

But then again my two buddies who have M4s, ones in Afghan right now and the other is going over next year for his 3rd tour, never complained about it either. But then again they are not the kind of guys that claim every shot they took hit their target, unlike many soldiers.

 

[nathan]

With the many women in uniform now, it s much harder for the Brass to go for another caliber. 5.56 is such a sweet shooter . Just stick with 20 inch M16s for optimum velocity of the round.

 

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

Odds are, logistics wins more battles than anything else. If re-supply is any sort of problem, I think I'd rather be a bit low on .223 than plumb out of .308.

If these threads had any bearing on reality, that's just when you'd pack up your gun, hop in your truck and head home to reload some more .308 on your press while raving online about how inferior 5.56 is.

It seems to me that a lot of people who post in these types of threads think "out of ammo" means the end of your range day, and not the end of your life.

As for me personally, I am quite confident with my M4 in Afghanistan. There is no worse feeling than a vest covered with empty mag pouches. You can keep your heavier rounds, I'll just take more of what we use now, thanks.

I am a Soldier with two deployments to Iraq. I can tell you that ounces equal pounds when you are carrying all of your gear. Non-military people (e.g. journalists that write these editorials) don't tend to realise that we are already overburdened carrying weapon (8 lbs), ammo, mags, body armor (30-40 lbs), kevlar helmets (5 lbs), water (5 lbs), first aid, other gear such as radios, belted ammo. When it all adds up it is easily 50-60 lbs for the basic combat load. Every extra ounce that you add increases the chances for heat exhaustion casualties, knee, ankle, and back injuries (short and long term), and less mobility for the Soldier scrambling for cover.

The 5.56 is a very good compromise round.

THIS. If someone came up to me and said they're gonna take away a third of my rounds, but that it would end up weighing more because some internet commandos and reporters thought it was a good idea, I'd flip. This whole discussion all goes back to basically civilian shooters who drive out to the range in their air conditioning, shoot a few hand loaded rounds from their custom rifles and talk about the intricacies of ballistics on the internet. When it's 110 degrees outside and you're carrying a bunch of crap on a foot patrol, the idea of one round being a few percentage points better in ballistic gel tests is pretty worthless. I guess these threads just kinda piss me off. Nothing like climbing flights of stairs in an insurgent occupied hotel to put some perspective on all this.

Seriously, take a couple hundred of your favorite rifle rounds (and your rifle, and water, and body armor, and helmet, etc) and carry them around on you all day and then come back and tell us how you feel.


Also, the same thing applies to all the suggestions of issuing different rounds to different units, swapping uppers, specialized interchangeable uppers etc. All of that smacks of a civilian who has never had to deal with the Green Machine. It all sounds like a fantastic idea until your unit finds out you have thousands of rounds of the wrong ammunition because of some stupid error, like some supply specialist misreading the painted label on an ammo pallet back at the Camp, or shipping orders getting lost or swapped because the Guard unit rotating in does things different than the one rotating out (I'm Guard btw, no hate). The Army is a logistics beheamoth, and the littlest things can F things up royally. Most of the time it's something stupid like getting twice as much toilet paper one week than you need, but half as many MREs. Or a box of air filters for an HMMWV when you need them for an MRAP. Different ammo and different upppers? Great idea. Until a fobbit screws up some paperwork.

92 Yankees are the best and worst thing to ever happen in the Army. Go figure.

 

[Ky Larry]

No infantry combat experience (Thank God) but it seems we're arguing about apples and oranges. What's needed is a rifle/round that does everything and weighs nothing. Isn't just about everything in life a trade-off? Is there a round as light as the 5.56 with the long range effictiveness of the .30 cal? Wouldn't a mix of arms in a unit cover most bases? Would this be an insurmountable logistics problem? In WW II, didn't we supply our troops with different calibers for different weapons? Wasn't mixed arms tactics and training effective then? Just a few questions for thought and discussion instead of this silly name calling and personal attacks.