In reality, which is the more effective combat round?

[Doug.38PR]

What is the more effective combat round for overall purposes. The larger and heavier round or the smaller and lighter round? The 30-06 vs. .223 for instance? There are theories about both, but in practice and war, what is the reality? (Note: this thread is about the round itself, not the kind of gun it comes out of which would be another interesting debate)

MY VOTE: In my personal opinion, there is no comparison, the .30-06 without a doubt. Its a larger round with A LOT more power behind it. A high cap M1 Garand or even better a BAR would be much more effective than an AR 15 (not that an AR 15 wouldn't drop a man or do the job in most circumstances, but in terms of effect and penetration the 30 caliber is far superior) Or for those who perfer a pistol grip or a more compact weapon, I'm sure gun company could produce such a weapon for the 30.06

 

[10-Ring]

My over grown gut tells me the the 30-06 would be better...but in a CQB situation like what our troops are seeing today, what platform would you be using???

 

[Ivy Mike]

the two you are comparing are for different purposes these days.
I'd say the .308 would be a better round to compare if you must. It works in a smaller action and is almost identical balistically to the old .30-06

At any rate, they are just different. Both have killed plenty of people.

 

[2TransAms]

No doubt,the bigger and more powerful round will win,hands down,provided it has both of those qualities. There's not much debate whether a .308 is better than a 5.56,and a .50 BMG will trump a .308. Simple physics.

 

[AndyC]

Point is, how much ammo do you think you'll have to hump - and how far?

 

[Tony Williams]

They both have strengths - and significant weaknesses. Something in between would be a better compromise IMO - like the 6.8mm Rem or 6.5mm Grendel.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

 

[rangerruck]

Andy C is right, I remember when from time to time I would be an asst gunner for an m60 team. you carry about 500 rounds , and man you are gonna feel it.

 

[rangerruck]

the latest Small arms revue has a new pdw weapon that looks very much like a tiny m4, with folding stock, but fires a 6. x 35 round. supposedly impressed the hell out of everyone at the conference.

 

[grendelbane]

Something in between would be a better compromise IMO - like the 6.8mm Rem or 6.5mm Grendel.

Or possibly a .276 Pedersen! The more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

[Ohen Cepel]

Depends on your criteria.

The 30-06 is going to stop people and most other things much better. However, big issue is how much you can carry, and how well you can control/operate the weapon.

You're not going to teach some people to shoot the '06 well (can't teach them all to shoot the 5.56 well, but that's another issue).

Bigger issue for me though is that I can carry about twice as many rounds of 5.56 than I can '06. I would much rather have 100rds of 5.56 left in a fire fight than already be out of ammo with the '06!

However, if you're looking at stopping power alone then it's clear the '06 wins. However, the 300 Win Mag might be better, as would be the 50cal.

 

[vmfrantz]

i carried a lot of 223 and no 30-06 in my time. but we won two big wars with it and they humped all over. and the average man is bigger today by several inches

 

[Dienekes]

That's like asking which is better--a 1/4 ton Jeep or a 2 1/2 ton 6x6. Depends what jobs you have in mind.

Pretty hard to beat a good .30 caliber round, but it comes as a package deal, not a stand-alone thing. The .30 caliber rifle is going to weigh more, recoil more, and the ammo is going to bulk up and weigh more. Sometimes it's well worth it, and sometimes it's not.

There are way too many studies indicating that actual combat ranges rarely exceed 150 yards and are often much less. Inside that envelope a well handled 5.56 is sufficient unless it has to deal with a lot of cover. Realistically the .30 caliber is a specialized sniper round or at least a designated marksman's round today.

They are, however, exactly identical in terminal performance if you miss.

 

[NYHunter]

The .308!! Yes you can carry more .223 ammo vs. .308. BUT the .308 doesn't deflict like the .223 does. It penetrates foliage, dirt, mud etc. better. Most times in combat your target isn't standing out in the open so I would opt for the .30 caliber weapon ever time for that reason. Ask any Vietnam vet that used both.

 

[Justaman]

30-06 has more "stopping power" but the .223 has a much faster rate of fire in semi auto mode in the hands of your average person.

 

[EvisceratorSrB]

I think Justaman is on the right track by discussing RPM. Tactics are just different for either round. Both have great strengths. Both have great weaknesses. However today I believe the 5.56 round has a little edge because of the current tactics. And in my opinion, if tactics evolve, they do so for a reason. You can fire more rounds, carry more rounds, and IMO every round that fails to penetrate is made up by the round behind it since you can carry more of it. You can keep the heads of the enemy down better with 5.56 IMO with more volume of fire, and have a squad maneuver to gain the upper hand.

If you're going to be firing quickly, the 5.56 should be the way to go. If more of a stand off 200m ish situation the .30-06 would be the better choice.

 

[Metapotent]

You can't just say "this round is better" because these rounds have different purposes.

The .30-06 is definitely more powerful and better at long range work. But we shouldn't even be discussing the 06 because its not a military round anymore. The proper comparison would be between the 5.56x45 NATO (.223 Rem) and the 7.62x51 NATO (.308 win). The .308 is almost identical to the .30-06 in terms of recoil, ballistics and bullet weights and is currently used as a military round so i'm going use it to replace the .30-06 in the comparison.

The 5.56 is superior in many ways as a modern assault-rifle cartridge than a .308 would be. This is because in a Total War, or a long-term large scale war of any kind the 5.56 is logistically and tactically superior. This is because A) the 5.56 can be produced and transported, and carried by troops in larger numbers and more efficiently B) the 5.56 allows smaller squads of soldiers to vastly out-gun enemies who have less ammo, and who cannot shoot as rapidly and still maintain accurate fire. C) in a large-scale and long-duration war, the enemy will run out of resources, have more casualties, and allied forces will have logistic superiority.

In most battles the victor usually wins by overwhelming firepower, by supressing the enemy by essentially having more bullets hurtling in the enemy's direction than the enemy can hurtle at you. The 5.56 allows soldiers to carry much more ammo, and fire much more rounds at the enemy in a firefight in a shorter amount of time and with adequate accuracy in almost all conceivable scenarios. Current and future potentional wars will see almost exclusively urban combat rather than open-country combat. Because in these days 70% of the worlds population lives within urban areas.

In this environment the 5.56 is superior. This is because our troops only need to keep the enemy's head down with fire superiority, then call in airstrikes, heavy machine gun fire, or rocket/missile fire from within their platoon to kill entrenched enemies. There is no need for a round that can penetrate through most barriers because once the enemy hides he can still be killed, while he cannot kill friendly troops.

In modern war, the 5.56 is superior.

Now the .30-06 was designed in an era where long range accuracy was essential because almost all battles were fought in trenches and the only thing seperating you from your enemy was open fields of no-mans-land, trenches, and barbed wire.

These days the .30-06 is obsolete as a military caliber. Hense the development of the 7.62x51 NATO cartridge which replaced the 06 as a long-range sniping/squad designated Marksman round.

The 7.62 is almost identical to the .30-06 in long range capability and power but is smaller, lighter, and therefore more logistically viable.

The 7.62 NATO is superior to the 5.56 in range, accuracy, penetration, and knock-down punch at extended ranges. But these characteristics are rarely needed in modern battles so the 7.62 is not a main infantry cartridge and is only employed when the need for long-range shooting presents itself.

Bottomline: Both rounds have their niche. The 5.56 is a superior infantry round both tactically (urban warfare) and logistically (more economical in long-term, large-scale wars). The 7.62 NATO is a better long-range round for sniping, medium machinegunning, and squad marksmanship and is better at penetrating.

Now if you are talking about in the civilian market, in terms of hunting. The .30-06 is used for hunting large game, the .223 is a highly accurate varmint/predator round but can also be used for long range target shooting.

Two different rounds for two different purposes.

 

[Tony Williams]

If you follow to its logical conclusion the argument that the main criterion for a modern military assault rifle round is small size and light recoil, then you can do much better than the 5.56x45.

The 5.7x28 FN and the 4.6x30 HK are both effective out to feasible assault rifle ranges (they will penetrate CRISAT body armour out to 150-200m) and are much smaller and lighter than the 5.56x45, with far less recoil. And they fit into much smaller and lighter guns, like the FN P90 and the HK MP7 - as well as into handguns.

So since we keep being told that what matters is suppressive fire to keep the enemy's heads down, plus accurate bullet placement when you want your shooting to count, why not go the whole hog and downsize?

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

That's like asking which is better--a 1/4 ton Jeep or a 2 1/2 ton 6x6. Depends what jobs you have in mind.

That pretty much describes it... penetration of urban structures is great benefit of .308 - until you have one squad clearing a building from the roof down while a second squad clears from the floor up.

 

[High Planes Drifter]

IMO its unfair to directly compare the 2 against each other scince they are so vastly different; rather compare the 2 in thier respective eras' . The .30-06 did its job superbly in the era it was used in. However, IMO the 5.56 has not done its job, in its service time as effectively as the .30-06 served us, and that the 5.56 is not as good of an assault rifle cartridge as the .30-06 was a battle rifle cartridge. Not that we should go back to .30 cal rounds for our military rifles (assault rifles) , simply that we should be looking at other mid-power cartridges.

 

[Powderman]

Of course, the heavier and bigger bullet will win--with the present bullet design being used.

Now, if someone would employ a different projectile, following the same function as Federal's EFMJ, the story would be much, much different.

In some rather unscientific testing in readily available media (when translated to simpler terms, 50 and 100 yard tests in mud filled milk jugs and 2 liter bottles), the effects were quite pronounced and quite clear.

55 grain FMJ made little holes going in and little holes going out. In plain water, it was very hard to tell that the bullet even hit the bottles or jugs--you had to look through a spotting scope to see the fluid leaking from the holes.

62 grain FMJ was even worse--the holes were perfectly lined up. It looked like someone poked a knitting needle through the jug.

Then I used some more 55 grain bullets--but these were jacketed soft points.

At 50 yards--- !

The jugs were DESTROYED. I don't mean split apart, I mean DESTROYED. I noted that these targets simply exploded, frequently leaving shards of plastic as the only evidence of its existence. The violence of hydrostatic action was also apparent from the launching of the bottle top some 30 or so feet in the air.

At 100 yards--- !

The milk jugs and bottles were split apart violently, and the contents thereof spread themselves over a wider area.

So, I don't think we need a different caliber--just a different BULLET.

 

[dfaugh]

IMHO, the difference is a tactical one....For aimed fire the 30-06 or .308 is much better...For "spray and pray" then you need something that's not a heavy to carry around.

 

[Doug.38PR]

It's my understanding that the 30-06 is actually more powerful and has equal if not more range than the .308. The .308 has less recoil and less power behind it.


That said, I think a .308 would be even better than the .223. I disagree that the .30-06 is obsolete as a military round. No they don't use it anymore, but it served the military for half a century and then changed for more or less political reasons. For penetrating steel vehicles and body armor, a common occurance in war, I would pick up a heavy rifle shooting a .30-06 for duty before I would pick up a ligh .223 rifle or even a .308 rifle. (Just compare the BAR vs. the M14. BAR has better control and more power)

 

[Thin Black Line]

I considered which weapons were available in 30-06 and 5.56 and went with
5.56 for a modern MOUT situation.

Yes, I'd prefer the Garand for fixed battle lines where my shots might be
300 yds or more. That's not what's happening right now, though. The
scaled down 30-06 aka 7.62x51 is still great as a GPMG. But we're all
not going to carry M240s. I would want that light little weapon where my
shot is likely to be less than 50 yds and the 5.56 will handle the thin skinned
BG.

 

[HorseSoldier]

There are plenty of good reasons why 5.56mm is the industry standard for military rifles these days and why you can't find a single current issue 30-06 service in any nation on earth with the possible exception of Haiti or Liberia.

30-06 pretty much predates the machinegun, and it's impact on how wars are fought. It predates really effective indirect fire. It predates significant military use of the internal combustion engine, air power, armored vehicles, etc.

In short, 30-06 (and it's stubby kid, 7.62x51) were never designed to fight a modern war. The fact that 30-06 survived past the First World War is an accident stemming from the abject poverty of the Depression, as the US military was trying to find a smaller caliber replacement as far back as the 1920s. Its longevity as a military round is not a reflection of its suitability for use as a service rifle round in modern warfare as such was understood in 1941, much less in 2006.

Will 30-06 put a guy down? Pretty reliably, yes -- still not a silver bullet, but probably more consistently than a single round of 5.56mm will do so at realistic engagement ranges. Which is good, since your basic load with 30-06 will be less than half of what it is with 5.56mm. Your initial engagement times with 30-06 will be slower because your weapon will be heavier. Follow up shots for when you miss, or when you hit and the guy does not go down (which will happen) will be slower due to heavier recoil. Engagement of multiple targets will be slower because of recoil and because you won't have as many rounds in the gun. Resupply will be complicated by your minimal basic load. You will get a gun that delivers more thump out past 300 meters. Sadly, you'll rarely, if ever, use that capability.

Like I said, there's a reason why no one uses 30-06 service rifles any more . . .

(Note: For purposes of full disclosure, I should point out that I own an M1 Garand and two FALs. I like shooting all three of them, but my issue M4A1 is a better combat weapon.)

 

[HorseSoldier]

It's my understanding that the 30-06 is actually more powerful and has equal if not more range than the .308. The .308 has less recoil and less power behind it.

The US military 7.62x51 load was designed to be the exact same performance as then current military 30-06 ammo, just in a shorter case due to the use of more modern powder.

Civilian 30-06 ammunition can and does take advantage of the longer case. A hypothetical modernized military load could as well, but the actual stuff you can get from, say, CMP, does not do so. Ballistics are pretty much identical to M80 ball 7.62mm.