Quote:
Originally Posted by ChalkLine
Just a comment on this.
The .30 carbine (7.62x33) round puts out 1173 joules at 579 metres a second, but has a reputation for not being a lethal round. Weirdly enough, the .45 ACP round puts out 474 joules at 250 metres a second but has never once been accused of not being a 'man stopper'. Yeah, I know it's a pistol round, but the ranges of the long-arms firing it are about the same.
I've read magazine where a guy claimed to have bent an M1 carbine 'into a U' in the crotch of a tree, and replaced with an M1A1 Thompson SMG so he would have a more lethal weapon. WTF? It does less damage!
Actual combat reports would seem to indicate that the .30 carbine round was an efficient killer, and it's big problem was being a round-nosed bullet it lost velocity quickly. The .30 was a close combat calibre, and is still used for this by the Israeli police.
I'm not doubting Abbott, it's just this has always kind of fascinated me how the M1 carbine was maligned but when the army checked the records it was always 'some guy in another unit'.
The 5.56x45 puts out 1798 joules of energy, about half again, and it zings along at 1005 metres a second or about twice the speed. It's spitzer round is more aerodynamic giving it better energy carrying power. Considering this isn't much less than the vaunted Russian M1943 (7.62x39) fired by the AK47 - 1993 joules and a slow 710 metres a second - I can't really understand the dislike for the 5.56mm.
That said, I'm an armchair enthusiast with SFA experience.
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I think a combination of factors is at work here -- range, penetration, and
expectations. Compared to the 9mm Parabellum, the .45 ACP
is a manstopper. It's a much better pistol round than the 9mm. Put it in a rifle, and its a varmint round. The .30 Carbine is basically a pistol round, but since they first put it out in a "rifle," the troops expected it to perform better; the M-1 Carbine was also over-issued (much like the M-16) to troops who expected a primary-issue combat cartridge to perform better.
The biggest problem with the 5.56mm round is its combination of light weight and high velocity. You can't adequately simulate it with T2K rules, but the 5.56mm round will quickly and accurately hit its target -- and tend to zoom right through it without dumping enough of its energy
into the target. In more familiar words, it lacks stopping power. Yes, it may yaw as much as 90 degrees when it hits flesh, but while that may produce a large
temporary wound channel, it doesn't always translate into a lot of short-term damage. (Your target stands a good chance of dying shortly after of internal bleeding, but often not quickly enough to take him out of the immediate fight.)
I absolutely shocked my fellow soldiers in Desert Storm because I took the time to aim at the enemy even when they were shooting at me, but when I hit they stayed down. (Call it an early sign of the mental illness that was to come...
) You don't want all your soldiers to be as big an idiot as I was -- you want your target to go down and stay down. At close range with a pistol, that's not hard -- follow-up shots are quick. At longer ranges, those follow-up shots get progressively more difficult. You don't want to hit your target just to see him get up again or not go down to begin with.