British SAS to go back to 7.62

[Girodin]

The "funny" part is that restrictions on bullet technology date back to the 19th century, 1868 if I'm correct

The first treaty specifically naming expanding ammunition was the 1899 Hague Convention Declaration III On The Use of Bullets That Expand or Flatten Easily (the 1899 treaty). According to the terms of this treaty, “The Contracting Parties agree to abstain from 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.” Long story short this treaty does nothing to prevent the US from using expanding ammo. The US is not a party to this treaty. The treaty does not even apply to all types of conflicts either.

There is a second treaty, that is much more recent addressing expressly expanding ammunition. The second treaty is the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 17 July 1998 (ICC statute). This treaty makes use of expanding ammunition in certain types of conflicts a war crime, but has not applicability to others.

A lot of other treaties and international law depends on whether one says that expanding bullets cause unecessary suffering or superfulous harm.


What is really interesting is that the same arguments about guys not going down have been made from the time the British first moved to FMJ bullets in their campaigns in Africa. These arguments and public comments are strikingly similar to much of what is said today about 5.56. In 1903 in fact, when 200 British soldiers were overrun in Somaliland, part of the blame was placed on the ineffectiveness of the Mark II (a FMJ 303 cartridge that replaced the British Dum Dum) and an updated Dum Dum was issued again and then later again replaced by another FMJ cartridge.

 

[Mp7]

...i find the notions of "break out the hollowpoints" ... they are not a proper army - disturbing to say the least.

It elevates oneself to a superior being and make the enemy animals.
That´s fascist


The US never declared a proper war with proper reasons.
The stars&bars dont make any1 a more "proper" soldier.

Just saying...
,

 

[MachIVshooter]

A 20 round loaded Scar 17 mag weighs 4.85 lbs a loaded 30 round aluminim GI 5.56 mag weighs about 2.9 lbs. That is a pretty notable difference.

Are these mag bodies made of molybdenum?

With 55 gr ammo, I get a loaded weight of 16.2 oz. for a 30 rd. GI mag.

My steel FAL 30 rounder with 150 gr. ball curbs at 37.1 oz.

My FAL para as pictured in my last post, but with the loaded 30 rd. mag instead of 20, weighs 11.81 lbs. An M4 with a loaded mag, quad rail, VFG and optic is going to come in somewhere bewteen 9-10 lbs.

 

[kwguy]

Yeah, it's pretty silly to not allow your military to use hollowpoints, and then in the next breath complain about the ineffectiveness of FMJ rounds, all while being constrained by a treaty/statute that laments the unusual 'pain and suffering' that would be inflicted using hollowpoint rounds. What?! Who wrote that goofy stuff? The logic and reasoning behind that reads like Feinsteins AWB :banghead:

Written by knuckleheads with no clue.

 

[stubbicatt]

IIRC, at about the time that the 7.62 NATO round was adopted, the Brits had a 270 or 6.5 intermediate round that would answer most of these concerns. Unfortunately, Col. Studler saw otherwise, and voila. Here we are.

Perhaps NATO would do well to re-evaluate that cartridge in light of present experience.

 

[Girodin]

...i find the notions of "break out the hollowpoints" ... they are not a proper army - disturbing to say the least.

It elevates oneself to a superior being and make the enemy animals.
That´s fascist

There is a much much more nuanced international law argument than that to it. Unless you have a background in the law of armed conflict and are willing to make a much more articulate legal argument for the obligations of the US, you may want to take it easy.

Furthermore the proscriptions that various nations face on the use of hollow points is more an accident of history in an effort to check the British in various ways than it ever was any kind of humanitarian thing. The fact is some nations, such as the British were thought to become signators to the '89 accords once they had developed a projectile they thought had terminal ballistics (through yawing) to render the point largely moot.

The stars&bars dont make any1 a more "proper" soldier.

The stars and bars refers to the confederate flag. The stars and stripes is the appellation for the US flag.

Are these mag bodies made of molybdenum?

I pulled those from another source. They may well be wrong. That's what I get fro trusting someone with out confirming it ha ha. I'll my own with my postal later when I have time. Thanks for pointing out what may well prove to be an error.

An M4 with a loaded mag, quad rail, VFG and optic is going to come in somewhere bewteen 9-10 lbs.

Not necessarily. Mine has an aimpoint, a DD quad rail, a Tango down VFG, BAD lever, ASAP plate, and is even wearing its heavy front sight block and it doesn't eclipse the 9 lbs mark. And that is a 16" mid length gun wearing a vortex. Not a 14.5 gun with a lighter A2, and a carbine length rail. There are also a number of quad rails that are lighter than what I have. I'm sure one could get an M4 to weigh 9-10 lbs with lights, lasers etc. The thing is whatever accessories one needs, the are going to weigh what they weigh.

 

[Andrew Leigh]

When I was in the military '79 / '80 the 5.56mm was becoming a reality as a primary assault rifle. There were many considerations, one of the primary considerations for the smaller calibres was that they did not kill as effectively as the .30 calibres. Reduced weight allowed one to carry more ammo etc. Remember when the SHTF we are not taking measured aim etc. and in many instances it is pretty hectic. So wayward shots that hit with a .30 calibre did more damage than similar with a 5.56mm. Another factor was that our war was moving from the African bush into the urban environment and 5.56mm was well suited to the job.

So this was basically the move to "shoot to wound" for us. Why? It is said that the resource required to maintain a wounded man was so large that you created partial paralysis in the rear eschelons. I think the figures bandied about were on average that 8 people were required for a wounded soldier and 3 for a dead soldier.

You now needed more medics, a larger evacuation force, more choppers, larger field hospitals, more doctors and nurses, more time lost in rehab, more evacuation back home etc.

That was what we were told at least. This was confirmed by the British forces I met in what was then Rhodesia.

 

[C-grunt]

The problem the Brittish are having with their 5.56 is they use a thicker jacket than we do. Their rounds don't fragment.

Also, outside of the "fragmentation range" the longer 62 and 77 grain rounds still yaw much of the time. It might not hit like a 147 grn 7.62 but it doesn't produce the same wounds as a 22lr.

 

[HorseSoldier]

With a gun that has 2MOA accuracy one can (assuming the shooting skill is there) pretty consistently make COM shots out to 600 yards. Also its not like 2 MOA is dramatically worse than what a lot of rack grade M4s are going to shoot with issued ammo (particularly with a 4 MOA red dot on it).

4 MOA has been the US military performance requirement going back to the Garand, if I recall correctly.

A consistently 2-3 MOA FAL with M80 ball rifle ammo would probably outshoot an issue M4 (usually around 1.5-2 MOA) shooting M855 ammo (which is wildly inconsistent from lot to lot, but can be as bad as 6 MOA and still accepted for wartime use, and probably averages about 4 MOA).

 

[HorseSoldier]

...i find the notions of "break out the hollowpoints" ... they are not a proper army - disturbing to say the least.

Bear in mind that the laws of land warfare at the time the original prohibition on "dum dum" bullets were enacted also held that combatants who failed to wear a uniform, disguised themselves among the civilian population, and similar were unlawful combatants and could, and should, be summarily executed on capture without any fuss about due process, etc.

Depending on how you read the statute, as well, all spitzer bullets -- which inherently tend to tumble and cause unnecessary suffering and injury -- are violations as well.