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Subject: The truth about the 5.56mm round
TriggaFingaz    1/24/2004 1:51:19 PM
To all infantrymen and gunusers out there , tell me this: is the 5.56x45mm round an effective round or is it so weak that you need more than one shot to drop a man? Some books say that it is absolutely lethal, able to stop one's heart owing to sheer velocity. Other accounts claim that enemy soldiers hit with this round continue charging. Some books claim it will tumble and dig multiple wound channels in the body, detractors claim it drills straight though people but yet has poor anti-material penetration. Which is more accurate? Please specify whether you used M193 or M855 'green tips'.
 
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Yimmy    RE:Protective thickness of materials.   9/8/2004 11:20:05 AM
5.56mm rounds, from a 512mm barrel, in theory (or so I am told) can give effective section fire out to 600m's. The MP's could at least have tried fireing back.
 
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doggtag    RE:How could this happen?   9/8/2004 12:28:15 PM
anyone care to define "humane" warfare? .
 
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wyvern1_6    RE:Protective thickness of materials.   9/8/2004 12:31:27 PM
Pretty sure they did. Should have corrected my statement to say they couldn't shoot back effectively. Of course being pinned in rice paddies while shooting at targets on high ground and in the treeline would spoil most anyone's day, I'd imagine. Hehehe
 
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Yimmy    RE:Protective thickness of materials.   9/8/2004 1:42:21 PM
"anyone care to define "humane" warfare?" Why not... Showing reasonable constraint, especially to those who are suffering, in the activity of fighting a war, often including the weapons and methods that are used. If you want a bastardisation of definitions from Cambridge.
 
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wyvern1_6    RE:Interchangability of small bore AK rounds and 5.56 rounds...   9/8/2004 2:41:09 PM
Aren't the cartridge case dimensions different? 5.56mm has a case length of 45mm whereas the 5.45 has a case length of 39mm. I don't know about the case diameter though I do remember the M43 round had a larger case than a 5.56.
 
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Yimmy    RE:Interchangability of small bore AK rounds and 5.56 rounds...   9/8/2004 2:44:03 PM
The 556 round will reliably fragment from a 20 inch barrel at 100-150m's. From a 16 inch barrel it can drop as low as 75m's, and stubby weapons with 8 inch barrels will not fragment past 25m's. A soldier on the other hand can reliably hit a target at 300m's. 400m's if an optical scope is used. .357 magnum rounds will not fire from a .38 special revolver for safety reasons. The .38 special was a blackpowder round; when changed to smokeless powder due to the greater power of the new powder, much of the case is left empty. .357 magnum came into being when a guy decided to fill a .38 case all the way up with smokeless powder. This being unsafe to fire from older .38's, the case was lenghtened by 2mm's, so it would not fit the older weapons. Hence why a .38 can still be fierd from a .357. 5.45x39.5mm will not work in a 556 weapon, the bolt heads are different sizes, as are the chamber dimensions.
 
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rangers911    RE:How could this happen?   9/8/2004 3:18:12 PM
my mistake on the size round but thats just what kalashnikov stated in his interview. figured i'd make that statement see what some ideas were. the 5.56 is a decent round in it's application but nothing is perfect in every application you have to make trade offs with everything.
 
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DrillSergeant    RE:5.56 effectivness   9/8/2004 8:24:27 PM
For me the bottom line regarding the 5.56 is that the military should have at least went with a 6mm. Like I stated before if it is to light for a docile whitetail, then its probably a little light for an adrinline filled Iraqi who is trying to kill you.
 
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wagner95696    RE:Hague Convention   9/10/2004 5:31:55 PM
'War crimes' are prosecuted and judged by the victors. If your side loses you are dead meat. If your side wins expect a generous amount of leniency. International conventions mean nothing to the 'ethnic cleansers'. OTOH, expeditiously hanging more of them would have a salutory effect on humane behavior.
 
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doggtag    RE:Hague Convention   9/10/2004 10:02:34 PM
Good point, wagner. But the problem here being, with the @ss-backwards thinking of people of that mentality, their societies see them as martyrs regardless of how they meet their deaths. Better yet, let's let them lament their transgressions in a public stockade: let them be stoned by their own sharias, or even bathed in the spit and urine of their surviving victims. Oops! Let me guess: too inhumane. Seems to me, when a wild animal attacks, you don't reward it with kindness. You eliminate it. And not like a problem animal by just moving it to another territory. These animals need to be cut out of society like the cancers they are. And perhaps public humiliation for the crimes they commit would go far in discouraging others who consider the same tactics..
 
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